Cloeren Incorporated

Cloeren Incorporated, a plastics processing manufacturer operating four facilities across North America with over 100 machines, was trapped in a 'run until it breaks' maintenance culture. As the sole maintenance administrator, Holly Tullos faced a 22% growth in machine count within a single year—more assets, more schedules, and more manuals to manage. Their ERP system's maintenance module lacked mobile integration, forcing printed work orders and manual distribution across plants. The reactive approach carried serious financial risk: a single equipment failure could require replacing an entire assembly line, compounding downtime costs with rising repair expenses.

Cloeren selected Fiix® CMMS, a cloud-based computerized maintenance management system from Rockwell Automation, to modernize its asset management program. The platform integrated with Cloeren's existing ERP system while adding capabilities the legacy module lacked—most critically, a mobile app allowing technicians to create, receive, and update work orders from anywhere on the plant floor. Holly Tullos implemented Fiix across all four North American facilities, digitizing equipment manuals and building preventive maintenance schedules. Cloeren also participated in Fiix beta testing to shape the platform's feature roadmap. Real-time reporting dashboards gave the maintenance team visibility into asset health data, enabling the shift from reactive to proactive scheduling.

Deploying Fiix allowed Cloeren to move beyond reactive maintenance toward a structured, data-driven strategy. Key operational improvements included:

• Eliminated paper-based workflows: Technicians access work orders and equipment manuals digitally via mobile app, reducing administrative overhead.
• Improved asset visibility: Real-time reports surface maintenance trends and potential failure points before they escalate.
• Scalable operations: The maintenance program now accommodates continued machine growth—a 22% increase in managed assets within one year—without proportional increases in administrative burden.

Holly can now convert raw maintenance data directly into action plans, and a scheduled audit of Cloeren's full maintenance strategy is underway to validate program effectiveness.

• CMMS selection should prioritize mobile and ERP integration: Paperless work order distribution is a prerequisite for scaling maintenance across multi-site operations.
• A dedicated administrator accelerates adoption: Assigning a single accountable owner for the CMMS implementation drove consistent rollout and data quality at Cloeren.
• Vendor community access has real operational value: Peer forums and shared best practices reduced problem-solving time and surfaced solutions faster than traditional support channels.
• Proactive maintenance requires data before strategy: Building reliable asset records and maintenance history in the CMMS is the necessary first step before predictive capabilities can take hold.
• Growth demands planning: A 22% machine count increase in one year illustrates why scalable maintenance infrastructure must be in place before expansion, not after.