Notions Marketing Distribution Center with Dematic CMMS - Grand Rapids

Project Overview

Notions Marketing began 75 years ago in Grand Rapids, Michigan, as a downtown distributor providing delivery to neighborhood five-and-dime stores. Over the course of its history, the company experienced rapid growth to meet the demands of big-box retailers, requiring a fundamental transformation in operations and service levels.

The shift from serving small neighborhood stores to fulfilling big-box retailer requirements brought much stricter service levels. The company needed to transition from manual processing and manual order control to managing massive volumes of orders with 24-hour service time commitments. This transformation required mechanization and sophisticated computer systems to track and control operations at scale.

The growth led to a massive warehouse expansion and the installation of an extensive network of Dematic conveyors and sorters. However, maintenance operations remained largely reactive and costly, managed through a homemade system accessible by only one person. This approach was slow, time-consuming, and prone to errors—work orders could be forgotten or lost entirely. To support their high-uptime environment and critical service levels, Notions Marketing looked to Dematic for a comprehensive maintenance management solution.

Technical Solution

Dematic Complete CMMS

Dematic implemented their Complete CMMS (Computerized Maintenance Management System), a robust and flexible software solution designed to streamline maintenance operations, improve equipment uptime, and reduce costs. The system provides comprehensive accountability for both the maintenance department and operations teams, ensuring everyone has visibility into maintenance requirements, schedules, and performance.

The CMMS enables maintenance teams to know exactly how much maintenance needs to be performed, what spare parts are required (both quantity and specific parts), and how to track personnel and resources. The system provides forecasting capabilities, allowing maintenance to anticipate future requirements and work with operations to schedule appropriate downtime for preventative maintenance, keeping the system running at optimal levels.

Key Features

The Dematic Complete CMMS provides a robust, flexible software platform specifically designed for warehouse and distribution center maintenance management. The system streamlines all maintenance activities, from preventative maintenance scheduling to reactive repair tracking, within a single integrated solution.

The web-based mobile-ready architecture enables access from anywhere in the warehouse. Maintenance technicians can view work orders, access equipment information, and update job status from mobile devices while working on equipment, eliminating wasted time traveling to and from offices.

Comprehensive preventative maintenance scheduling automates the generation of PM work orders based on time intervals, usage metrics, or other triggers. The system eliminates the need to manually remember when maintenance is due, ensuring critical preventative tasks are never missed.

Consolidated equipment and spare parts management provides a single source of truth for all assets and inventory. The system tracks equipment specifications, maintenance history, and associated spare parts, while managing spare parts inventory levels and usage patterns.

Real-time work order tracking and accountability gives visibility into all open work orders, their status, duration, and assigned personnel. Managers can set deadlines, track progress, and ensure timely completion of maintenance tasks.

Automated PM scheduling and notifications eliminate manual tracking of maintenance schedules. The system automatically generates work orders when maintenance is due and notifies appropriate personnel, ensuring preventative maintenance happens on schedule.

Cost tracking for labor and spare parts usage provides comprehensive visibility into maintenance expenses. The system tracks labor hours and spare parts consumption for each work order, enabling accurate cost analysis and identification of cost reduction opportunities.

Facility-wide equipment management extends beyond material handling to include all facility equipment. Notions Marketing manages conveyors, sorters, HVAC, electrical systems, and other facility assets within the same CMMS platform.

The complete data collection and implementation service differentiates Dematic's approach. Rather than leaving customers to struggle with data loading, Dematic takes responsibility for collecting all necessary information and building a fully functional system ready for immediate use.

Results & Benefits

Notions Marketing achieved a remarkable 50% reduction in reactive repairs since implementing the Dematic CMMS. This dramatic improvement stems from the shift to preventative maintenance enabled by automated scheduling and comprehensive equipment tracking. Catching issues before they cause failures reduces emergency repairs, minimizes downtime, and lowers overall maintenance costs.

Maintenance visibility and accountability improved dramatically. The maintenance department now has complete visibility into all required maintenance activities, spare parts requirements, and personnel allocation. Operations teams can see maintenance schedules and plan accordingly, ensuring production isn't disrupted by unexpected maintenance activities.

Enhanced uptime is critical for Notions Marketing's high-service-level environment. The company operates with strict 24-hour service time commitments to big-box retailers, making equipment uptime essential to operational success. The CMMS's preventative maintenance approach and rapid response capabilities ensure the conveyor and sorter network maintains optimal availability.

Spare parts inventory management is streamlined through the integrated parts tracking system. The maintenance team knows exactly what parts are needed, in what quantities, and can track usage patterns to optimize inventory levels. This reduces both stockouts (which cause extended downtime) and excess inventory (which ties up capital).

Forecasting of maintenance requirements enables proactive planning. The system provides visibility into upcoming maintenance needs, allowing the maintenance team to plan resources, order parts in advance, and coordinate with operations to schedule appropriate downtime windows.

Coordinated downtime planning with operations ensures maintenance activities don't disrupt fulfillment operations. The maintenance team can work with operations to schedule preventative maintenance during low-volume periods or planned downtime, minimizing impact on service levels.

Maintenance costs are reduced through the preventative approach. While preventative maintenance requires investment, it's far less expensive than reactive repairs, which often involve emergency parts procurement, overtime labor, and lost productivity due to unexpected downtime.

Faster access to critical maintenance information improves response times. Technicians can access equipment specifications, maintenance history, and troubleshooting information from mobile devices while standing at the equipment, eliminating time wasted searching for information.

Challenges & Solutions

The primary challenge was a reactive maintenance approach that was costly and inefficient. Notions Marketing relied on a homemade system accessible by only one person, making maintenance management slow, time-consuming, and error-prone. Work orders could be forgotten or lost, and there was no systematic approach to preventative maintenance. The solution came through implementing Dematic Complete CMMS with comprehensive data collection, consolidated equipment lists, and automated preventative maintenance scheduling. Dematic took full responsibility for data collection and system setup, ensuring the CMMS was fully operational and actively used from day one. The shift from reactive to preventative maintenance, enabled by automated scheduling and comprehensive tracking, resulted in a 50% reduction in reactive repairs.

Another significant challenge was transitioning from manual neighborhood delivery operations to meeting the demands of big-box retailers with strict 24-hour service level requirements. This transformation required mechanization and sophisticated systems to control massive order volumes. The solution involved deploying an extensive Dematic conveyor and sorter network integrated with the CMMS for optimal uptime and maintenance management. The CMMS ensures the automated material handling equipment maintains the high availability required to meet aggressive service commitments. In a high-uptime environment, maintenance is the lifeline—without a strong maintenance department and efficient access to information, the operation is vulnerable to missing critical service levels.

A third challenge was the lack of traceability and cost tracking in maintenance operations. Work orders were forgotten or lost, and there was no visibility into maintenance costs or resource utilization. The web-based mobile CMMS provides real-time work order tracking, deadline management, and comprehensive cost tracking for both labor and spare parts. Managers can see all open work orders, their duration, and assigned personnel. The system tracks all costs associated with maintenance activities, enabling data-driven decision-making and identification of cost reduction opportunities. This visibility and accountability transformed maintenance from a black box into a transparent, measurable operation.

System Integrator

Dematic provided the Complete CMMS solution, including the software platform, comprehensive data collection services, system configuration, and implementation support. Dematic's approach went beyond simply selling software—they took full responsibility for ensuring the system was properly implemented and actively used.

The data collection and implementation process was comprehensive and turnkey. Dematic worked with Notions Marketing to collect all necessary equipment information, spare parts data, and maintenance requirements, then built the complete system. By the time Dematic completed implementation, Notions Marketing was actively using the system with all data loaded and preventative maintenance schedules established.

This approach contrasts sharply with typical CMMS implementations where customers purchase software and then struggle for 18 months trying to load data and configure the system. Dematic's end-to-end service ensured Notions Marketing achieved value immediately rather than facing a prolonged implementation period.

Dematic continues to support Notions Marketing's use of the CMMS, helping them utilize nearly every available module to manage both material handling and facility equipment. This comprehensive utilization demonstrates the system's flexibility and Notions Marketing's commitment to leveraging the platform's full capabilities.

The success of the CMMS implementation complements Dematic's material handling equipment installation, creating an integrated solution where both the physical automation and the maintenance management system work together to ensure optimal uptime and operational success.