Dow Jones & Co. last month began deploying an asset management app designed to let it monitor equipment maintenance and parts inventories across its 18 plants.

The company rolled out Datastream Systems Inc.’s 7i enterprise asset management software at its Des Moines, Iowa, plant, the leading edge of a pilot program that began in January. Three other plants will begin testing the software in July and Dow Jones said all 18 of its printing facilities will have the software in place early next year.

Ultimately, once the software is rolled out throughout Dow Jones’ facilities, all of the plants will be able to share parts and maintenance information, said Paul Cousineau, the publishers’ director of continuous improvement. But that’s not a short-term goal.

“The functionality coming up now in the pilot sites is the core functionality we need to operate our plants,” he said.

The 7i software is engineered to give users a single screen through which they can monitor equipment, keep tabs on inventory and react quickly in the event of equipment malfunctions.

Looking at parts

In Des Moines, 7i modules will oversee parts, maintenance, work orders and purchasing, among other operations.

Dow Jones is Datastream’s first major newspaper customer, although the vendor counts clients in a variety of automotive, pharmaceutical and power generation businesses.

“It’s fascinating to look at the differences” between the news business and other industries, said Datastream vice president of product strategy Marty Osborn. “Newspaper companies have huge capital assets in their printing equipment and a finite window (of time) in which they can print the newspaper.”

But apart from the daily challenges of the newspaper business, the application of Datastream’s software is much the same as it is for other manufacturers.

“At the end of the day, our job in asset management is to produce capacity,” Osborn said. “Asset performance is measured on uptime.”

No more mix

Dow Jones today relies on a variety of applications and systems to keep tabs on its equipment.

The advent of 7i will transform that commingled mix of systems into an “information infrastructure (supporting) our maintenance effort,” said Cousineau.

Before it was able to begin using the application, Dow Jones had to catalog all its spare parts at all four pilot locations.

The software is being rolled out in conjunction with a company-wide implementation of 5S, a popular workplace organization strategy.

The strategy “helps us physically organize the plants so we could get an organized database,” Cousineau said.

Laying around

In concrete terms, “In order to catalog parts, you have to go though the plants and look at all the stuff laying around,” said Bill Collins, Dow Jones’ technical operations manager.

The result was a master parts list, with all parts numbered, created in a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. The data was then imported into 7i.

Thus far, all four of the pilot plants and Dow Jones’ New Brunswick, N.J., parts depot have been cataloged, a process that took about 100 staff-hours.

“Doing this forced us to organize everything to the bin level,” Collins said. “Everything is labeled: where the bin is, what is supposed to be in the bin and how many we have.”

Collins said that more in-depth analysis would become possible as Dow Jones builds its asset management information base.

“As we use the system and gather information, we’ll have the ability to do some analysis” including the numbers of parts used and their cost.

Dow Jones managers will also be able to use the app to identify parts or operations that fail more than expected and determine root causes. As the app is rolled out across all of Dow Jones’ plants, maintenance workers will be able to equally tap those features across the network. Eventually, the app may also be used to automatically notify suppliers that a given part or system needs replacing and proactively order those parts shipped to the correct plant.

Web delivered

Dow Jones is hosting 7i at its New Brunswick data center, transmitting information over the company’s intranet.

Datastream’s Osborn claimed that 7i helps users cut costs and boost efficiencies in a number of areas. Inventory management and storage costs can be cut by as much as 20 percent, he said, because users’ parts needs are more accurate. Uptime, meanwhile, usually rises by as much as 15 percent because users have needed replacement parts on hand before equipment fails.

Collins said most 7i users will be maintenance staff, technicians, machinists and management. While the app’s capabilities are complex, Collins said he doesn’t believe users will have problems maneuvering through the software. “It’s really not any different than ordering a part from RadioShack,” he said.