Hamilton Southeastern Schools chooses education-based maintenance management software to scale with growing student body
Hamilton Southeastern Schools was using TMA Systems, but after a couple years, it no longer met their needs. “It was too cumbersome to use and many team members weren’t comfortable with it,” said Stephanie Schultz, Maintenance Coordinator with the district’s Facilities Department. Shortly after Stephanie started, the department decided to make a change to a solution that solely served education. “Our old system served many industries outside of education; and we needed a maintenance management system which was geared more toward an educational environment. This was a driving factor in making a change,” Stephanie said.
When the maintenance supervisor began the evaluation process for a new maintenance management solution, he was vaguely aware of Brightly from materials he received. After further research, the department realized Brightly would fit its needs. “Brightly is education-based and has a user group of our industry peers to pose questions to and share ideas,” said Stephanie. Brightly's online education community helps Hamilton Southeastern Schools communicate with districts nearby and across the country. “During our evaluation process, the Brightly team was knowledgeable and addressed all our questions – we felt it would be a smooth transition,” Stephanie added.
The Indiana district purchased Brightly's solution using its allocated budget for a work order system. They also justified purchasing Brightly’s preventive maintenance solution to the Business Office by showing the money savings possible with implementing and utilizing the solution for preventive maintenance schedules that maintains the building and equipment.
After instituting Brightly, the district operates more efficiently without increasing staff. “Our district’s size has doubled since I started, but we are able to provide more efficiency while maintaining limited staff. Even though our team is small for the number of students we serve, Brightly’s education-based system has allowed for the growth with no problems,” said Stephanie. She uses the Work & Asset™ solution’s auto-generated Outstanding Work Order reports to help prioritize and re-allocate team resources if needed to complete these requests in a timely fashion.
With Brightly Work & Asset solution, the Business Office can better budget for upcoming repairs and replacements.
Before performing PM, we had deteriorating equipment and buildings that led to costly repairs. Now, we know our buildings are well-maintained and the Business Manager is able to project costs in the next three to five years based on our generated reports.
“I would tell another district evaluating Brightly that it has helped with our departmental organization, tracking, and getting our PM program where it needed to be. I have also been very satisfied with the support from Brightly. Customer support from your vendor is a key factor to effectively run a maintenance management system.”
