Maintenance in the Sweetest Place on Earth®

In 1907 Milton Hershey, the chocolate philanthropist, founded the Hershey Park picnic and pleasure grounds for his employees. More than 100 years later, HERSHEYPARK has become a first class entertainment facility. The 110-acre theme park features over 65 rides and attractions including 11 roller coasters, more than 20 kiddie rides, the new Shoreline Sprayground, live daily entertainment, games, food and shops. Other locations maintained by HERSHEYPARK include:

• HERSHEYPARK Stadium — The stadium can hold some 30,000 fans for concerts
• THE STAR PAVILION — A more intimate venue that can accommodate up to 8,000 fans in both reserved seating in front of the stage and lawn area
• Zoo America — An 11-acre walk-through zoo with more than 200 animals from five regions of North America

Overall, there are some 180 buildings and structures that are maintained.

Managing Entertainment Maintenance

For HERSHEYPARK, maintenance has always been a priority. As a 'not for profit' operation, the maintenance department has always strived to meet the demands of its 'customers'. In the early 1970s the need to electronically track maintenance and purchasing costs was recognized. This need was initially met internally with an application written 'in-house' to run on an IBM midrange AS/400.

This application could be considered a prelude to computerized maintenance management, however it was greatly limited in functionality. For instance, when unplanned work would present itself the department's work order still had to wait. Their paper work orders were delivered to the maintenance department via inter-office mail. Work would be completed but the associated charges would have to wait for processing until the work order was received. These work orders then had to be inputted into the AS/400 application so that the maintenance department could charge time and costs to them. This application had no preventive maintenance program and no ability to electronically track purchase order line items.

The initial search for an improved solution began in 1996 and much was accomplished in terms of research. However, an approved budget didn't arrive until 2001. Then the project for pursuing CMMS began in earnest. Several vendors were contacted and onsite visits were arranged. In that year, CHAMPS Software Inc. received a visit from Dennis Pearson the project lead for the maintenance department, and IT staff from HERSHEYPARK. "We felt the system was user friendly," states Dennis, who considered his trip to the CHAMPS headquarters in Florida time well spent. "Meeting with CHAMPS Management staff gave us insight into how they operate. Some of the intangibles that we felt from that meeting gave us confidence in CHAMPS capacity to satisfy our needs. This was questioned among other vendors."

CHAMPS was eventually chosen as the CMMS provider for HERSHEYPARK with the application going live the summer of 2003 right in the middle of the park's season. While this would not be considered the most opportune time for starting up a new application, Dennis notes: "After vigorous set up and testing we were ready to proceed with this time table. While most people expect an application to present major problems when going live, especially during the park season, we didn't experience any show-stopping issues."

Lean Maintenance

The HERSHEYPARK maintenance department runs a lean operation. Their work process does not utilize any request forms within CHAMPS. Instead work is most often generated by means of CHAMPS Web Work Order.

The Web Work Order is a fully web architected module for CHAMPS CMMS. It gives an end-user the ability to create work orders, identifying assets and assigning due dates via the Internet. This module was originally developed with HERSHEYPARK's needs in mind, and so far has assisted them in achieving broader and more efficient access to maintenance work orders. Qualified personnel in various departments at HERSHEYPARK can create work orders on demand. With agreement between the 'due date' and assigned priority code, the maintenance department is able to identify the criticality of any work — emergency or otherwise — and respond accordingly.

After printing, the work order is assigned to the appropriate maintenance shops that employ over 140 full-time technicians working for HERSHEYPARK. As a management tool, work order reports are run weekly to monitor any past due work orders and forecast upcoming work.

CHAMPS preventive maintenance (PM) module is also being used. The first assets being addressed are the HVAC systems. The PM program tracks routine work on the units such as filter replacement. The exact size and type of filter to be used is attached to the PM by means of CHAMPS Bill of Material module. This helps preventive maintenance work to take place efficiently.

Asset Management

All types of assets, from roller coasters to laundry facilities, are fully maintained within CHAMPS. Repairs on these assets are tracked within the system, which, for some assets, includes a hierarchy breakdown of parent/child relationships. This enables maintenance personnel to easily see asset relationships, with complete repair and related cost history.

Labor costing information is also available and can be tied back to specific work orders and assets where jobs were performed by maintenance personnel. This cost information then can be charged back to the various departments that initiated the work.

Materials Management

Of critical importance to the ongoing maintenance activities at HERSHEYPARK is materials management. In addition to the primary storeroom, there are 3 main sub-store houses. With some 6,300 bins and 74 stock keeping unit (SKU) classes, managing spare parts can be quite a task. Inventory levels are often determined by the time of year. Depending on the season, inventoried items will increase as needed. Storeroom attendants have easy access to these spares and are in charge of all issue/returns.

As HERSHEYPARK does not use request forms, purchase orders (POs) within CHAMPS are handled somewhat uniquely. A paper form is utilized to acquire signatures for approval. Once approved, the number on this form is entered into CHAMPS to create an electronic PO. This gives staff the ability to quickly view detailed purchasing information down to the individual line item. CHAMPS also provides the ability to create a unique numbering system that is designed for easy reference: All POs for miscellaneous inventory start with 'M', regular inventoried items begin with 'SR'.

Most financial functions such as Accounts Payable (A/P) are handled outside of CHAMPS. To accommodate this, integration to the HERSHEYPARK AS/400 financials application, Infinium, was required. CHAMPS met this need by creating a custom report within the system. This report queries the database to find all vouchers within CHAMPS that have been created since the last time the report ran. This data is then made into a file within Infinium and then appended in a file within CHAMPS so that it will not be brought up on later reports. This delivers the essential financial data basically with the click of a button.

Future Opportunities and Expansion

CHAMPS has become a critical component for the HERSHEYPARK maintenance department. Opportunities to expand the use of CHAMPS continue to present themselves and are explored. "We're looking forward to improving and expanding many of the reporting features," states Dennis. Other divisions of HERSHEY Entertainment & Resorts Company are also utilizing CHAMPS including the corporate communications department and the Giant Center. In the meantime, CHAMPS plans to continue supporting HERSHEYPARK's maintenance needs as they, in turn, continue to provide quality entertainment in the Sweetest Place on Earth®.