As part of a larger effort to create common processes, systems, and better tools for employees, CertainTeed first worked to gain alignment across its five businesses to create more unified plant maintenance operations. An effort to bring all operations on SAP, completed in 2019, paved the way for even greater enhancements that would help make work easier and help them reach their digital vision. That same year the new mobile warehouse management solutions were also activated.

For the plant maintenance effort, the company’s Plant Maintenance Business Process counsel sought to take their standardization journey even further and enhance the user experience for plant maintenance with mobile apps, which would need to operate on rugged devices able to operate in subzero temperatures.

The new plant maintenance apps would be used to process work orders and manage photos and documents.

“Subash Mohanvel who led the plant maintenance project comes from SAP Labs in India and helped build the plant maintenance solution for SAP. He championed our Neptune Software app development and worked with the various businesses – which did a great job of mocking screens. He provided great insight on what things we could do to boost this mobile solution even further,” added David. “And our in-house developer was also very quickly able to begin developing apps using Neptune Software.”

Mobile and offline warehouse management capabilities were also introduced in 2019 to streamline work processes across CertainTeed’s plants, including processes to manage picking products and scanning bar codes, using ruggedized Zebra devices on VC980s mounted on the forklifts.

“Forklift drivers had inefficient paper processes and had to get on and off their trucks many times a day, which also could impact their safety,” said David. “With more than 200 trucks a day at our bigger plants, we knew there had to be a better way to work.”

CertainTeed was able to launch 7 plant maintenance apps in 6 months after having previously successfully launched 11 warehouse maintenance apps.

Within the two main projects for warehouse management and plant maintenance, CertainTeed launched a total of 18 different transaction and reporting apps. Specifically, the plant maintenance apps were launched earlier this year across its first plant, with two others quickly following, and more rollouts planned.

Interestingly, CertainTeed’s training and go-live efforts needed to be completed virtually when in-person visits to the plants had to be canceled due to global health restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic. The team adapted rapidly, quickly changing gears to provide online training and virtual launches that were conducted in just three days. As a result of their flexibility, users – some of whom had never used a tablet before – were able to get up to speed quickly via training videos and online conference calls.

Launching the new apps is simple. “Once each plant completes a simple five-step stage gate process, they’re basically ready to go live,” said David. “We can easily roll it out to all of our plants with just a little training.”

“With this approach, each gate has a set of prerequisites that need to be completed to determine if the plant is ready for the tablet rollout,” said Subash Mohanvel, Senior Manager, Digital Manufacturing at Certain Teed. “This may include having WiFi setup, hardware procured, training tablets readiness, and the like. Once those stages are complete, we spend approximately two days in training. Then the rollout happens. A training app helps support remote deployment via How-To guides, documents and other videos to helps the user if they run into issues.”

“The new apps have been a game changer in terms of daily work, with users able to accomplish tasks on-screen on their tablets and immediately, right where they are,” said David. “Users appreciate the ability to quickly access work orders, equipment, and part information from anywhere on site.”

The increased efficiency and visibility are making a big difference. “Our workforce can be more efficient in their jobs and they are more likely to put accurate data points in their work assignments, so more and better data is being captured and stored for improved analytics as we move forward. They can even access work instructions from the tablet, where before, those were hard to find,” said David.

With Neptune Software, CertainTeed has been able to standardize work entry and execution and eliminate paperwork orders across its maintenance departments and reduce the time it takes to get work done helping them achieve their digital vision.

“A plant maintenance project like this has a lot of moving parts, building functionality compliant with the tablet, working with our industrial firewall as well as our firewall to SAP,” said David. “Plus, it needs to support offline work. Neptune DX Platform has given us the ability to transform the entire backbone of our SAP plant maintenance solution into our own vision of the process,”

“Neptune Software gives you the flexibility to do almost anything and basically rebuild functionality. It was a great experience to be able to connect those dots and to turn something rigid into something flexible. Ultimately, Neptune Software’s app development platform made our digitization journey a good experience.”

CertainTeed, a subsidiary of Saint-Gobain, is North America’s leading brand of sustainable exterior and interior building products. CertainTeed has helped shape the building products industry for more than 100 years, through the responsible development of innovative and sustainable building products. CertainTeed is North America’s leading brand of exterior and interior building products, including roofing, siding, fence, decking, railing, trim, insulation, gypsum and ceilings.

Customer Industry: Manufacturing and Plant Maintenance
System version: SAP ECC 6.0, EHP5 Support Pack 9
Devices: Samsung Tab Active 2 devices with RAM mount accessories for plant maintenance, ruggedized Zebra devices mounted on forklifts for warehouse management
Timeline: 9 months