Simple, Yet Powerful: How Asset Essentials is Making Life Easier for SKANA Aluminum

Background 

SKANA Aluminum operates an aluminum rolling mill, with both a hot and cold mill. Their primary operations include shipping coils and various cut pieces to clients in a wide variety of industries nationwide. To streamline maintenance and inventory management, SKANA chose Brightly’s Asset Essentials. According to Hannah Campion, Inventory Control Manager at SKANA, the company relies on Asset Essentials for “tracking parts, adding parts to work orders, and being able to track where things are used” to limit unnecessary downtime.

Improving Decisions with Data-Driven Insights

Asset Essentials has made a big impact for SKANA on justifying ordering decisions for important parts. According to Hannah, “If I notice a lot of the same item being used consistently, I can look at how often we’re ordering it, look at the lead time, and make a decision on what the reorder point should be.” 

SKANA also operates with older equipment, and Asset Essentials allows their team to understand the financial implications of repairing vs. replacing specific assets. As Hannah noted, “Being able to utilize the system and being able to see the data, we can recognize ‘oh, we’ve spent X amount on fixing this one piece of equipment’… now you can start justifying replacements and then you get into understanding the ROI.” 

The ROI – that’s what the bosses want to talk about. I can go to them now and show that we’ve spent ‘this much money’ and ‘this much on labor’ and we’ve missed ‘this opportunity’ on other jobs and other revenue that would have been coming in if we’d replaced a machine instead of patching, patching, patching. 

Asset Essentials Makes it Simple 

When asked to describe Asset Essentials in one word, Hannah didn’t have to think long: “Simple. Because the system is just so simple to use.” And the data she gathers from the system has made it easier to justify funding decisions to leadership. “The ROI – that’s what the bosses want to talk about. I can go to them now and show that we’ve spent ‘this much money’ and ‘this much on labor’ and we’ve missed ‘this opportunity’ on other jobs and other revenue that would have been coming in if we’d replaced a machine instead of patching, patching, patching.” 

Asset Essential’s simplicity and accessibility empower users across SKANA to leverage data for more efficient inventory management and maintenance decisions.