Big Sky Benefits Retail and Restaurant Organizations

Deploying a CMMS to manage your facilities has obvious benefits such as more transparency into day-to-day operations, a reduction in the number of follow-up calls, an increase vendor accountability, cost savings through paperless invoicing . . . the list goes on. While many providers offer these benefits, Big Sky stands out by providing a consistent way to attain these benefits in a cross departmental way. Below is a break down of the typical benefits our customers see every day.

Store Manager Benefits

First and foremost, the Store Manager is our number one customer. By enabling Store Managers with the tools they need to easily and effectively communicate and solve problems, your company will see immediate benefits:

• Simple and intuitive location to request anything they need
• No need for different contact methods for each department
• Scripted request processes for each type of request
• Real-time status updates
• Store managers always know what to expect and when to expect it
• Visibility into past jobs
• Eliminates repeat repairs and issues
• Clear and consistent communication
• Questions are submitted and answered quickly and easily
• Actionable dashboard showing only items that need attention
• No need to hunt through screens to stay on top of outstanding items
• Quality control via job resolution and rating
• Catch problems as soon as possible
• Track vendor performance and quality issues

Facility Manager Benefits

Many facility management departments today are running older legacy software, or no software at all, leaving them in the dark when it comes to tracking, analyzing and reporting maintenance trends and exceptions. Big Sky has you and your team covered with a suite of tools that help you get your job done in a more efficient way.

• Requests are automatically routed to your team based on multiple criteria
• Facility and repair issues are routed to the responsible facility manager
• Requests for other departments are routed directly without wasting the facility managers time re-routing requests
• Alerts can be generated for emergency or high priority situations
• Facility managers can receive text messages or phone calls indicating time critical situations
• Contractors can “page” facility managers when they are on-site and need approval to proceed, reducing call backs and trip charges
• Access your data anytime, anywhere from your mobile device
• Stay on top of issues while visiting stores
• Remotely handle after-hours requests
• Important issues don’t have to wait until you return to your desk
• Preferred contractors are defined based on location and trade
• Select vendors based on your criteria such as cost and schedule compliance
• Support for local, regional and national vendors
• Create AutoDispatch profiles to automatically send specific work orders to trusted contractors when an issue is reported
• Reduce the time required to dispatch vendors for simple issues
• Provide more time for facility managers to deal with exceptions
• NTE’s  can be adjusted for each Trade and Issue
• Reduce costs by lowering Not to Exceed amounts for simple repeatable repairs
• Scheduled completion times are automatically set based on job priority
• Reduces the time required to dispatch work orders
• Ensures consistent expectations from contractors
• Assets can be tied to jobs at any time
• Store manager, facility managers or contractors can identify assets related to a work order
• Track asset repair costs to identify problem assets and take proactive steps to resolve ongoing problems.
• Identify assets that are scheduled for replacement before spending money on costly repairs
• Invoices are automatically coded with GL and store codes
• Eliminate time spent on coding invoices after they are received
• Track costs based on GL and store cost codes
• Export invoices to AP system with correct coding in place
• Upon approval, invoices are automatically exported to AP
• Invoice information no longer needs to be re-keyed ensuring accuracy and reducing costs significantly
• Dramatically reduces time required to process invoices freeing facility managers to spend time on more important issues
• Create, run and schedule reports at anytime
• Reports appear in your inbox for easy access
• Store, district and regional managers can receive automated reports
• Even contractors can be setup to receive reports of overdue work orders and invoices
• Route high dollar jobs for approval
• Easy approval routing ensures all jobs are approved at the appropriate level before work begins
• Auditors can track all approvals to make sure all funds are spent appropriately
• Review audit trails for every document in the system
• Contractors and store operation personnel are kept accountable for their actions
• Auditors can verify all approvals and actions for every work order
• Create recurring and scheduled work orders for your preventive maintenance plans
• Scheduled maintenance work orders are automatically sent to contractors
• All costs are tracked and available for reporting
• Store, District and Regional managers are aware of all contractor visits

Project Manager Benefits

Big Sky’s project management module enables construction teams to manage capital expense projects from budgeting to completion. Track the scope and timeline of your projects by keeping project data in one, central repository.

• Initiate projects well in advance to support your budgeting process
• Schedule projects throughout the year using the pre-approval feature
• Project budget reports help manage the review and approval of larger scheduled projects
• Send bid packages to approved contractors and compare responses
• No need to assemble bid packages and mail or fax them out manually
• Bids can be received by the system reducing the time required to make a decision
• Manage and award bids
• After bids are received and a vendor is selected, an approval cycle ensures that the project is approved at the appropriate manager level before work orders are issued
• Manage change orders and route for change approval
• Ensure changes are documented and approved properly
• Change approval routing is automatic and quick, ensuring work is not interrupted.
• Track a project through the entire life cycle
• Project reporting ensures everyone is up to date on the progress of all projects
• Home page alerts ensure approvers are aware of pending approvals

Contractor Benefits

Big Sky has always been completely free for contractors to use. We consider ourselves partners with your vendors, sharing a common goal of providing excellent service to your store locations. Besides sending work orders to vendors electronically, Big Sky also makes it possible for vendors to log in and update status of work through their desktop or mobile browsers.

• Manage contractor expiration dates
• Ensure only approved contractors will receive work orders
• Manage insurance expiration dates and alert contractors to keep their records up to date
• Track warranty dates and provide alerts
• Catch problem repairs and assets before the warranty expires to save money and time
• Provide a simple interface to manage all work orders
• Contractors can quickly and easily update work order status from a desktop browser, mobile browser or any touch tone telephone ensuring all work orders are updated on a timely basis
• Track overdue acknowledgment, completion and invoicing
• Alert contractors when work orders and invoices become overdue so they can be proactive in keeping you informed of their progress
• Allow contractors in input invoices manually, or bulk import them
• Invoices are added in a timely manner ensuring more accurate accrual calculations
• Create Vendor Scorecards to monitor time, cost and quality trending
• Track contractor performance to ensure schedules and cost goals are being met
• Perform trend analysis to verify that contractors are responding to expectations over time
• Allow contractors to identify and maintain assets
• Reduce the costs associated with identifying assets
• Ensure better cost tracking for asset repairs and PM operations

Buyer/Purchaser Benefits

Big Sky created it’s purchasing module to help eliminate the multiple paper forms that store managers are constantly filling out and faxing to warehouses and/or suppliers. Handwritten forms are error prone, faxing is inconsistent, accountability is impossible and the whole process is archaic. Our purchasing module provides the store manager with an online catalog to choose and add items to a cart. Once submitted, purchase requests are routed to the appropriate manager or buyer, turned into purchase orders, and sent to the vendor(s) or distribution center(s).

• Maintain an online catalog
• Include only the items required on a per store basis
• Ensure purchase requests are accurate
• Allow Store Managers to order common items in a familiar way
• Same system used for all types of requests
• Store managers are familiar with the shopping cart style interface
• Buyers can convert a purchase request into multiple purchase orders
• Allow store managers to request items from multiple vendors in a single request
• Reduce time required to generate purchase orders for multiple vendors
• Store Managers confirm receipt of ordered items
• Easy interface to report that purchased items have been received
• Verify that vendors are shipping items correctly and on time
• Report on items ordered, vendor response times, cost, etc.
• Reports are automatically generated and e-mailed to purchasing or store operation managers