Hi-Tech Mold & Engineering Achieves Full Return
on Investment of Magic Service Desk Suite
empower
SUCCESS STORY
Hi-Tech Mold & Engineering (Hi-Tech) designs
and builds production and prototype molds for the
plastics industry. To meet its goals of unsurpassed
quality and short lead times, Hi-Tech relies on the
latest high-end computer systems and finely
tuned equipment.
These systems and nearly 500 employees fill a
total of 530,000 square feet at facilities in Rochester
Hills, Michigan, and Winchester, Tennessee. When
someone needs assistance00hether with office
applications, computer-aided design (CAD)
software, or precision machinery on the shop
floor00he request funnels through the help desk.
The Need for an Automated Service Desk System
Hi-Tech employees previously submitted service
requests by calling the help desk or sending email,
which landed in the inbox of Matt Wilkerson, Senior
Help Desk for Hi-Tech Mold & Engineering. He
handled all PC technical support issues and distributed
other issues to the appropriate person
for resolution.
Hi-Tech needed a way to automate the process and
track frequent issues. Tracking was a significant
problem, and if questions about service requests
or trends ever arose, Wilkerson and his managers
had no solid data to analyze. The process was
cumbersome; in some cases Wilkerson had to dig
through 3,000 emails to track down how a particular
problem was solved. "It was getting overwhelming,"
Wilkerson says. "It would take me hours. I was
copying and pasting from the emails into an Excel
sheet, trying to separate all these issues, and it was
next to impossible."
Selecting the Magic Service Desk Suite
Wilkerson surveyed a range of help desk software.
The Magic Service Desk Suite, a Remedy庐IT Service
Management solution from BMC Software, was the
only one that had a Web interface. This capability
was especially important, so that Hi-Tech could not
only avoid installing a local application, or running
an application server with the shortcut on a user's
desktop, but also simplify and standardize the
application to minimize training.
The product's support for the SQL Server database
appealed to Wilkerson and Hi-Tech. The company
already used the database, and Wilkerson had good
knowledge of SQL. Finally, price and the ability to
customize the software played into Hi-Tech's decision
to implement the Magic Service Desk Suite. "It
handled our enterprise and what we do here, so it
was the best choice for us," Wilkerson says.
Establishing a Central System for Logging Service
Requests and Managing Assets
The Magic Service Desk Suite gives Hi-Tech a central
system for logging service requests and managing
assets. Employees can call the help desk or use the
software's self-service capabilities to submit requests
from their desktops or the shop floor. Wilkerson is
the first point of contact for any help desk ticket.
He fields 50 to 60 calls a day, and his average ticket
turnaround is 10 minutes, less than half the average
time required before Magic was implemented. He
INDUSTRY: MANUFACTURING AND ENGINEERING
Key Benefits
> Provided inventory tracking
capabilities that significantly
reduced the chances of missing
required maintenance00reventing
damage that could have cost up to
$50,000 to fix certain machines
> Created electronic work logs,
reducing the work order process
from as a much as a day down
to minutes
> Streamlined asset management,
which allowed the organization to
achieve greater value from assets
and improved staff productivity
Business Profile: Hi-Tech Mold &
Engineering, Inc., is a family owned
and operated company that specializes
in the design and build of production
and prototype molds for the plastics
industry. Since opening in 1982, Hi-
Tech has prided itself on unsurpassed
quality, short lead times, and the most
contemporary technology.
Geography: North America
BMC Software Solution
> Magic Service Desk Suite
"It took me only three months to get it
{the suite} fully functional for tracking
inventory and being able to log help
desk tickets on the self-service side,"
Matt Wilkerson
Senior Help Desk
Hi-Tech Mold & Engineering
has customized the software so that if some tickets
have a particular subject, they are automatically
routed to the corresponding manager.
Hi-Tech has used the asset management capabilities
in the Magic Service Desk Suite to better track 2,200
pieces of the company's equipment. "If it plugs into
the wall or is not a personal item, then it has a serial
number on it and it is in Magic," Wilkerson says.
Wilkerson implemented the Magic Service Desk
Suite himself and originally estimated six months for
the project. "It took me only three months to get it
fully functional for tracking inventory and being able
to log help desk tickets on the self-service side,"
Wilkerson says. "It was very easy for me." Wilkerson
imported data from Hi-Tech databases and other
applications00hereby avoiding some of the manual
inventory and data entry requirements.
Wilkerson achieves greater flexibility because the
Magic Service Desk Suite is Web enabled. "I can
use it anywhere in the building," he says. "I even
access it from home through a virtual private network
(VPN) tunnel. It's been very easy to use the product."
Realizing Full Return on Investment
Wilkerson has set up business rules in the Magic
Service Desk Suite to streamline operations and
gain significant efficiencies at Hi-Tech. The company
now can view trends of recurring problems, track the
lifecycle of assets, and help ensure that scheduled
maintenance occurs00ll of which help Hi-Tech
save time and money. "We can identify trends for
machines on the floor00nd know what's consistently
breaking down," Wilkerson says. "We can dig further
and find out what's wrong so the machine has more
uptime and is cutting more molds, for example,
which saves us money."
The company can also better track the lifecycle of
its assets. Knowing how long the designers, for
example, have had their computers helps the Hi-
Tech IT staff make plans for replacing technology
and reassigning the equipment to the shop floor or
the office staff.
Streamlining Operations and Improving Efficiencies
Wilkerson also has applied business rules and notifications
to assist with schedules for computer
warranties and machine maintenance. When a
warranty expires or maintenance is required, the
Magic Service Desk Suite will send a notification to
the Hi-Tech staff, which can then take appropriate
steps to renew the warranties, upgrade to new
products, perform the required maintenance, etc.
To help ensure that preventive maintenance occurs,
urgency can be associated with a work order00uch
as a 120-day oil change. The Magic Service Desk
Suite will reopen the work order in 120 days, notify
the appropriate person, and populate the work order
with the inventory information so the maintenance
technician knows which machine and filter could
be impacted and when the change needs to be
performed. "The technician doesn't need to keep
track of it anymore," Wilkerson says. "He just closes
the ticket and knows that in 120 days it's going to
assign him a work order to go change that filter
again. In the past the technician would probably
spend two to three hours a week going through all
our machines and figuring out what fluids or filters
need to be changed. Now it's just all automated."
Automating the process not only improves the
efficiency of the team, but also significantly reduces
the chances that required maintenance is missed.
"It could be thousands of dollars, just to repair the
machine," said Wilkerson, "These are three-axis
and five-axis CNC machines, very precise pieces of
equipment, and if you don't change the spindle on a
machine, and that spindle crashes, the spindle could
cost anywhere from $25,000 to $50,000 to replace."
The Magic Service Desk Suite also improves Hi-Tech's
efficiency by reducing paper files for machine repairs.
Now work logs are filed electronically through the
help desk. The shop person enters information in a
work order, scans any receipts, and attaches them to
the work order. "In the past, it could take as much as
a day, depending on where the issue was. Now it all
happens within a few minutes. It's really improved
our process to get these machines running again.
Cutting repair times from a day down to minutes
significantly improves productivity of the machines,
saving several thousand dollars per hour. We keep
only a digital record. Going paperless will be one
of the biggest improvements we've done here."
Quarterly reporting used to be nearly impossible.
"With Magic, and the Crystal Reports viewer,
there's nothing I can't do. If there's not a canned
report available, I just go into Crystal Reports and
tie in all my tables that I want, and enter in my own
reports. So, what had taken15 to 20 hours to go
through in a quarterly report, can now be done
in 10 to 15 minutes."
"The fact that it's Web-enabled is
important. I don't have to install it
on every desktop. It's very simple to
use, very user-friendly, and pretty self-
explanatory. It's easy to customize and
update, and the updates are great."
Matt Wilkerson
Senior Help Desk
Hi-Tech Mold & Engineering
About BMC Software
BMC Software, Inc. (NYSE:BMC) is
a leading provider of enterprise
management solutions that empower
companies to manage their IT infrastructure
from a business perspective.
Delivering Business Service Management,
BMC Software solutions span
enterprise systems, applications,
databases and service management.
Founded in 1980, BMC Software has
offices worldwide and fiscal 2004
revenues of more than $1.4 billion.
For more information about BMC
Software, visitwww.bmc.com.
BMC Software, the BMC Software logos and all other BMC Software product or service names are registered trademarks or trademarks of BMC Software, Inc. All other registered trademarks or trademarks belong to their respective companies.
漏2005 BMC Software, Inc. All rights reserved. SS_CORP_HITECH_US01 50254
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