Four Best Practices in Enterprise Optimization

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For large retailers with multi-site store networks, there are significant advantages to using alarm management services and enterprise software — from reducing operational costs and preserving food quality and safety to lowering maintenance costs and improving energy efficiency. In a recent E360 webinar, Best Practices in Enterprise and Facility Optimization, we talked the keys to maximizing performance in these critical areas. View the webinar in its entirety and continue reading to learn more.

The process of managing assets, food inventories, service requirements and energy efficiency at an enterprise level involves a variety of stakeholders, including store managers, service technicians, alarm technicians, facility managers, energy managers and food safety managers. Companies need both the proper tools and strategies to effectively coordinate these resources and manage their collective efforts.

The following four best practices are designed to leverage enterprise software and services to help your company achieve its critical business objectives.

1. Gain a centralized view of operations.Today, multi-site retailers are tasked with managing large asset and equipment portfolios — such as aging HVAC, lighting and refrigeration systems — and an ever-increasing number of “smart” assets connected via the internet of things (IoT). Enterprise software offers a centralized view and management of these critical assets, enabling remote support, user access controls and network-wide broadcast of changes (such as refrigeration and HVAC setpoints and lighting schedules).

By optimizing facilities management and controlling setpoint data, large enterprises — such as a supermarket with 250 sites — can achieve up to $1M annually in operational labor savings.

2. Establish effective alarm management.Keeping a network of sites and their assets performing optimally requires the abilities to mitigate costly failures, save energy, and ensure food safety. But with virtually thousands of issues to sort through at any given time, this is no small task. Alarm management services allow companies to filter out the noise of countless non-essential alarms and prioritize critical issues. These timely and pertinent notifications accelerate issue resolution and prevent their potentially negative consequences.

For example, by avoiding food loss and delaying the “shrink” of perishable items, companies can save more than $2M annually.

3. Enable remote access.Service technicians and maintenance teams are running increasingly lean, with a scarcity of available new talent to replace an aging workforce. Enterprise software enables remote field connectivity to service issues via intuitive software that can be accessed on handheld computers and mobile devices. Having access to this data helps technicians evaluate and troubleshoot issues remotely — often eliminating the need for service calls (i.e., truck rolls) — while serving as a real-time training tool for new technicians.

The reduction of unnecessary truck rolls and service calls across an enterprise can save up to $1.5M annually.

4. Automate setpoint and energy management.Facilities managers are under increasing pressure to meet myriad day-to-day commitments — all while trying to achieve their profitability targets and reduce their liabilities and risks. Enterprise software with predictive analytics capabilities can help automate the compliance of critical operating parameters — such as refrigeration and HVAC setpoints — and deliver insights that facilities managers can leverage to make informed decisions.

By deploying setpoint management tools that ensure continuous commissioning of equipment and establishing processes to maintain optimal energy levels, companies can achieve up to a $2.7M reduction in annual energy spend.

By following these four best practices, companies can transform the productivity, energy efficiency and overall optimization of their enterprise operations. Emerson has the enterprise software, alarm management services and domain expertise to help large supermarket and restaurant chains optimize their multi-site store networks. View this webinar in its entirely to learn more.