Enabling accurate asset management

For over a century, Nilfisk has provided reliable cleaning solutions and quality cleaning products that provide a safer, more productive and cleaner environment for millions of companies and private homes around the world. It has sales companies in more than 40 countries and its products are sold in more than 100 countries. The company has a vision to lead intelligent cleaning and aims to offer customers a full portfolio of connected autonomous cleaning solutions with different cleaning purposes.

Nilfisk depends on a network of external vendors who play a critical role in the
production of essential components used in its product range. In order to successfully complete its orders, each vendor must borrow the necessary tools from Nilfisk. However, keeping track of the individual vendor, location and condition for each on-loan tool was proving to be a challenge. The company wanted to build an interactive repository to monitor tool ownership, condition and work-order management.

Nilfisk had been using an Excel spreadsheet to register such details but it was
unstructured and time-consuming to update. Moreover, both the engineering and finance departments had their own version of this spreadsheet with zero integration of the databases leading to huge duplication of effort. This solution was inefficient as it couldn’t track tools in real time on a daily basis, thus potentially disrupting supply chains and impacting on customers.

“The same tool had different ID numbers depending on whether it was being managed by our engineers or audited by the financial team; unsurprisingly, that led to much confusion,” explains Imre Bajnoczi, Engineering Manager, Nilfisk. “We provide technical support for our on-loan tools and we can’t do that effectively if we lack visibility of their status and working condition.”

Nilfisk operates globally with more than 7,000 tools out on loan to over 110 partners at any one time. In Hungary, it has the most available tools, 1,800, making it the ideal location for a trial of new technology. Following an internal project to define its tool management requirements, Nilfisk set out to find a flexible, scalable and reliable solution.

Nilfisk wanted to find a solution that could integrate with its existing SAP and Service Now environments to provide total visibility of each tool’s lifecycle and create a better understanding of data and predictive maintenance. It selected Nuvolo, an Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) platform, which provides a seamless digital workflow and a single system of record, eliminating the need to rely on disparate systems to retrieve the necessary data.

Following a formal RFP to identify the best systems integrator to deploy the Nuvolo solution, Nilfisk selected long-standing IT partner Fujitsu. Over the course of just three months, the Fujitsu team built a flexible, mobile work-order management platform, fully integrated with financials from SAP and ServiceNow.

“Fujitsu took all the existing spreadsheet data, cleaned it and integrated it into one repository, giving us a single pane of glass through which to view our on-loan inventory, and which components are being produced by which tools,” adds Bajnoczi. “So now we can see the type of tool, the cost, the location and the condition at the touch of a button.”

Nuvolo now extends Nilfisk’s ServiceNow infrastructure to manage enterprise assets and contracts using modern, mobile and real-time reporting. Users can simply log into the app to find out where tools are and when they are due for return or repair.

The Fujitsu-designed solution allows third-party vendors to use the Nuvolo mobile app to document in real time each tool’s condition, while also tracking work order status and simultaneously providing Nilfisk tool engineers essential data in the calculation of tool lifetime and warranty status for more than 1,800 tools across Europe. This means that end customers can be assured of fully functional equipment when they need it. Such has been the success that Nilfisk and Fujitsu are already rolling the solution out around the world, starting in Mexico.

“Fujitsu’s implementation of the Nuvolo platform brings us one step closer to becoming a truly smart enterprise, allowing us to proactively fix tools before they break, increasing availability and productivity while reducing costs,” continues Bajnoczi. “Every department can use it as a reference so we can follow each tool’s lifecycle and estimate next year’s repair budget accordingly and much more accurately.”

The platform also creates comprehensive reports to track and follow faults in real time with predictive maintenance so that problems can be solved before they affect production. This makes the supply chain more efficient and streamlined, with any repair tickets automatically generated through ServiceNow. Moreover, the robust data quality and depth gives Nilfisk much more information to guide its decision-making.

“Fujitsu is focused on leveraging its deep expertise in a collaborative manner and managed this project at the highest level, delivering all our targets on time and on budget,” concludes Bajnoczi. “It also provides ongoing support so we are safe in the knowledge that the Nuvolo solution will always be up to date and fit for purpose. We look forward to rolling it out around the world with Fujitsu’s assistance.”