Chroma Color Corporation Boosts Efficiency, Slashes Downtime with Asset Essentials and Smart Assets

The Concerns

When Glenn Munshaw, Vice President of Operations, joined Chroma Color in 2020, each of the company’s six different locations were managing asset care and reliability individually, using spreadsheets and paper files. With the company in growth mode and the potential for acquiring additional facilities, Munshaw knew it was important to have an adaptable CMMS “to make it all come together,” he says.

The Solution

Munshaw used Brightly’s Asset Essentials at a previous employer, and after visiting all the Chroma Color facilities and understanding the work that needed to be done, he knew the software would be a good fit for his new employer too.

Rather than overwhelming staff by expecting everything to be completely updated and accurate from day one, Munshaw started by building each location in the software, aligning the categories and loading assets with generic names, allowing individual teams to input serial numbers and other specifics as they became accustomed to using the system.

Within a few months, all six facilities were using Asset Essentials to schedule, track and manage maintenance.

We started with generic and improved the data along the way,” he says. “You can’t get hung up on having to have all the data right away; it’s important but you can get a lot of value without having every field buttoned up.

Glenn Munshaw

Vice President of Operations, Chroma Color

The Results

By using Asset Essentials, Chroma Color has been able to easily standardize and streamline maintenance processes at all of its far-flung facilities, as well as build a common language and understanding among staff in different locations.

“Asset Essentials is a great way to build culture when you have various locations that have been joined through acquisitions,” Munshaw says. “It’s very critical to build a hierarchy of locations when setting up the software, and get the concept that a location is a container in which you put assets. The hierarchy ends up being the same at every location, which makes navigation very straightforward.”

After getting on board with Asset Essentials, Chroma Color eventually added Brightly’s Smart Assets at two sites to gather deeper insights. For the pilot project, the team at each of the two selected locations outfitted motors and gear boxes on maintenance equipment with sensors that continuously monitor assets, flag anomalies and trigger work orders.

“It’s amazing to see pictures of what’s actually happening on that equipment,” Munshaw says. “We can see what we’re loading and in some cases, overloading. All the additional data we’re gathering allows us to paint a picture or diagnose a problem. Every day, it’s a learning discussion with the team.”

As a result of new insights gathered via Smart Assets, Chroma Color has been able to make informed decisions about adjusting the conditions of various assets to improve longevity.

Finally, Asset Essentials and Smart Assets have made it possible for Chroma Color to reduce the amount of time and resources spent on work that is not value-added. Across the company, time between equipment failures has increased. “We’re not getting surprised by motor and gear box failures any longer because we’re generating PMs and work orders that have us going out and not just checking a box, but gathering data that we can bring back to tell us if we have a problem,” Munshaw says. “Putting that data into Asset Essentials and updating will show us if there’s anything we need to do and we’ll generate that work order.”

In addition, technician efficiency has increased because better, richer data is being used to manage planning and scheduling. “Better data allows us to plan our craftsmen’s time more efficiently and do more with less,” Munshaw says.

It’s amazing to see pictures of what’s actually happening on that equipment. We can see what we’re loading and in some cases, overloading. All the additional data we’re gathering allows us to paint a picture or diagnose a problem.