Instandhaltungssoftware für Industrie, Versorger und Windkraft
Reference Customer | Case Study
The Best Protection Against Disruptions – Rapid Progress in the Field: Energy Experts at Vrielmann Rely on IT-Supported Customer Service and Service Processes with GS-Service
Reference Customer | Vrielmann GmbH
The Best Protection Against Disruptions
In the Here and Now: What shapes the discourse around the implementation and operation of software for maintenance, operations management, and industrial services? Certainly usability and mobility, low-code approaches and deployment strategies, return on maintenance and agile project management, integration capability and corporate sustainability. Despite all individual nuances, the challenges of modern IT projects can still be summarized as: practicality and efficiency.
How quickly one can become productive with such an approach is demonstrated by the still-young history of GS-Service at Vrielmann GmbH in Nordhorn. Since September 2020, the Lower Saxony-based specialist in electrical engineering and switchgear construction (“We electrify”) has been using software from GreenGate AG (“We digitize”) to initially digitize service processes and improve them comprehensively in the long term.
In this case study:
Key facts of the case study: GS-Service in use at Vrielmann (Germany/Nordhorn):
Industry: Electrical Engineering & Energy Management
Software used:
GS-Service – GS-Manager, GS-Touch, GS-Web
Processes supported:
- On-site maintenance of electrical installations using mobile devices – reporting of
planning-relevant information such as defects (defect report) - Post-work processing up to organized
defect remediation - Legally compliant management and documentation of facilities, assets, equipment, and processes
- Personnel management: rights verification and administration,
access control, verification (management of qualifications) - Coordination of service and repair teams
- Monitoring/controlling/reporting
Challenge:
- Digital management and legally compliant documentation of facility infrastructure,
maintenance processes, equipment, and personnel - Precise guidance and control of
maintenance activities via pre-filled checklists, stored protocols, and information (text, image, voice)
- Streamlining maintenance processes such as minimizing non-value-adding, unnecessary repetitive work (e.g., re-entering master data)
- Creating a single source of truth for technical operations management that secures, provides, and makes company knowledge sustainably usable independent of personnel
- Automatic support for safety-critical activities, including through qualification-based access controls
Approach:
Digital capture of infrastructures, equipment, and personnel in GS-Service, inventory and analysis of operational processes, development of roadmap with alignment and adjustment of analog and virtual workflows, test deployment on GreenGate servers, train-the-trainer sessions, go-live during ongoing operations
Result:
Vrielmann manages the entire operational process of the Service & Services department with GS-Service (planning, work preparation, resource management, execution and post-processing of maintenance activities, documentation, optimization)
Vrielmann has evolved from a traditional plant constructor with core competencies in construction and commissioning of compact transformer stations to a service provider that also offers maintenance and analysis of complex assemblies.
Sascha Voshaar, Head of Service & Services at Vrielmann
Vrielmann Profile
Founded in 1976 as a traditional electrical contracting company with a focus on switchgear construction in the medium- and low-voltage range, the company today employs more than 120 staff at its new location in northeast Nordhorn. The majority of the workforce is engaged in control cabinet and station construction under the management of Managing Directors Dipl.-Ing. (FH) Robert Vrielmann and Dipl.-Ing. (FH) Heiko Ensink; additional personnel are employed in service, programming, warehousing, logistics, and administration. The portfolio in electrical engineering specifically includes switchgear construction for low-voltage applications, transformer station construction, and the creation of grid connections up to 30 kV.
In addition, under the motto “The best protection against disruptions,” service offerings related to energy technology are provided, such as the maintenance of stationary electrical systems or the setup and operation of energy management systems. This is complemented by control system construction and automation as well as electronics and series production with a focus on machinery and plant construction. There is also an in-house academy where over 600 people participate annually in practical workshops, seminars, and annual training sessions.
Grid connections
0
Employees
0
Maintenance contracts
0
Structural needs
Sascha Voshaar, Head of Service & Services at Vrielmann, explains the need for process optimization and the introduction of a database-based solution for customer service and service processes: “Vrielmann has evolved from a traditional plant constructor with core competencies in construction and commissioning of compact transformer stations to a service provider that also offers maintenance and analysis of complex assemblies. Previously, one could assume a clearly defined field of activity with a clear task description that required manageable knowledge. Today we are confronted with extensive, diverse tasks and use sophisticated measurement equipment. For this, we also need structures designed for service.” This structural need grew in parallel with the scope and complexity of Vrielmann’s tasks in the energy sector. High government subsidies for renewable energies have led to an increasing number of grid connections for biogas and photovoltaic systems over the past 10 to 15 years.
Vrielmann itself was able to significantly increase order intake in the compact transformer station construction sector as a result. Construction is one thing, maintenance of the stations is another.
Both belong together and identify Vrielmann as a complete provider that offers the market—from agriculture to manufacturing industry to large commercial parks and public authorities—the legally indicated future and planning security. Because most Vrielmann customers are not electrical specialists, but as operators of these electrical feed-in systems are obligated under DIN VDE 0105 (Operation of Electrical Systems) to inspection and maintenance by qualified personnel. Since insurance companies also make this requirement, the new Vrielmann service offering—especially the nationwide maintenance of compact transformer stations—met with enormous demand.
We are currently building a system here with automated data analysis and provision within structured yet flexible business processes.
Aaron Calopresti, Project Manager at GreenGate AG
Working Better, Faster
Vrielmann service technicians receive their tablets (iOS) from the project manager in the morning with prepared tasks and can work on-site with object-specific assigned checklists and protocols including signature function, read QR codes, access data, or store images. As a rule, Vrielmann installers use the mobile solution GS-Touch, which covers standard workflows for tasks, activities, and events in offline mode when working in enclosed stations. The functionality of GS-Touch includes an individual compilation of work to be performed—a kind of work package on the device—reporting of completed activities from the field, spontaneous defect recording, and direct time booking. Later in post-processing, the system at Vrielmann is further enriched with external protocols such as incoming oil analyses from commissioned laboratories. “In some cases, our technicians also organize appointments and tours themselves via area-based deployment planning.”
Before the maintenance results are sent to the customer, however, post-processing at headquarters is still required as of today. Voshaar: “We are working on automatically forwarding service reports to customers; currently we use the maintenance protocols primarily internally. However, the forwarding of measures already works flawlessly, whether as information to accounting or sales in-house.” Because if a defect is identified during maintenance that requires follow-up work as defined by the stored classification in GS-Service, Vrielmann sales will approach the customer for larger efforts to discuss further procedures. “Our sales department uses the database in the GS system regularly,” says Voshaar. In the future, Vrielmann will certainly also increasingly rely on the browser-based application GS-Web. “The parallel task processing capability in GS-Web is a huge advantage, especially when fully staffed on large construction sites,” says Voshaar.
We immediately replaced training in the narrower sense with active testing. And feedback from practical work with the system was directly implemented.
Milan Lügtenaar, Maintenance Project Manager at Vrielmann GmbH
Enormous Standardization Potential
Are there other interfaces to other systems?
That Vrielmann, with GreenGate support, is considering all possibilities of GS-Service is not only due to the common demand for greater efficiency, but is based at Vrielmann on verifiable findings: 40% of maintenance effort was identified in a study as non-value-adding—specifically the work steps of preparation and post-processing, documentation and data maintenance, as well as setup. Given Vrielmann’s prospering maintenance business with more than 500 maintenance contracts, at least the unnecessary among the non-value-adding tasks are not a sustainable situation: 2,000 individual reports are generated per year alone, and 30,000 fields with recurring data signal pronounced standardization potential. The same is evident when examining planned hours: approximately 2/3 of all planned hours in the maintenance segment at Vrielmann are attributable to the legally mandated 1-year inspection or 4-year maintenance. Sascha Voshaar: “Against this background, it is clear that we have already been able to enormously minimize the effort for documentation and data maintenance with GS-Service. The processes have been adapted and significantly streamlined.”
Aaron Calopresti, responsible project manager at software supplier GreenGate AG, is hardly surprised: “For rapidly growing service companies like Vrielmann, it is naturally a real challenge to find both sustainable and agile structures for their own business processes. Because while data volume increases day by day, the right IT for systematic collection, storage, analysis, and above all targeted operational use of one’s own data is often lacking.” With GS-Service, a growing, stable counterbalance is emerging: “We are currently building a system here with automated data analysis and provision within structured yet flexible business processes.”
Pioneering Spirit Despite Tight Timeline
With this, GreenGate hit the core of Vrielmann’s vision right from the project start. “We actively compared systems during selection,” recalls Voshaar, “we invested two weeks in the complete setup of a system from a competitor, but the whole thing was too rigid. We would have had to completely conform to their structure, that didn’t work. The interface issue was also problematic.” With GS-Service, it is not. Currently, the interface from GS-Service to the ERP solution SAP Business One is being considered. Progress was timely and pragmatic even before the go-live of GS-Service in early fall 2020.
Milan Lügtenaar, Maintenance Project Manager at Vrielmann, in retrospect: “In order to map the processes holistically, a test environment was first set up. We immediately replaced training in the narrower sense with active testing. And feedback from practical work with the system was directly implemented.”
The transition from introduction event to commissioning of the application on Vrielmann servers was seamless. “In order to be able to map the processes in GS-Service already during installation,” explains Milan Lügtenaar, “a software license was made available to us on the GreenGate servers. This was necessary to be able to record rapid progress while the software was being set up on the Vrielmann servers.”
GS-Service: Building Block of Consolidation
The solution for maintenance and operations management is to be initially rolled out on a test basis in the station and control cabinet construction departments. The plan is to organize the internal initial inspection of electrical systems and their documentation using GS-Service. This is logical insofar as master data once recorded and stored can be reused throughout the product lifecycle. The service area would directly and immediately benefit from consistent data management in GS-Service—as a living and breathing “single source of truth.” That the tight timeline could be maintained was meanwhile due to several factors. Sascha Voshaar: “We didn’t have to document processes beforehand; we knew exactly what they should look like.” In fact, Vrielmann was able to rely on the findings of a student research project. Furthermore, with Alexander Kip, a highly talented GS-Service power user was built up early on who, as a former Vrielmann apprentice, current master electrician, and business administrator, knows very precisely what matters in day-to-day operations.
“Based on the currently very positive experiences with GS-Service,” Vrielmann is also considering the use of GS-Service in capacity planning. The application is to be tested on projects that require the complex organization of different competencies from different departments: control cabinet construction, programming, installation, and service. “Schedule changes are extremely communication-intensive here,” says Sascha Voshaar, “we in service now work completely in GS-Service. But the others don’t yet.” At least with cross-departmental use of GS-Service, the problem of duplicate data management would be better controlled—the consolidation of heterogeneous software landscapes is always welcome for understandable reasons. “We are definitely trying that,” confirms Managing Director Heiko Ensink.
The Customer Case Study as a PDF
Download the Vrielmannn customer case study as a PDF here. If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact us. We look forward to hearing from you.
Best practices and blueprints
Whether you have to master similar tasks in your company or face other challenges: check whether GreenGate software can help you. Here you will find related Blueprints that can handle maintenance tasks and solve problems.
That’s why so many companies trust us.
Is this use case interesting for you? Contact us.
If you have further questions about this case, please call us or fill out the form here. We will get back to you promptly.
