We’re excited to announce that Templeton Unified School District is the latest partner district joining the AkitaBox family! Located in Templeton, California, TUSD’s enrollment of over 2,000 students spans 5 K-12 facilities, including the National Blue Ribbon Award winning Templeton High School. We talked to Chris Bonin, the Director of Maintenance, Operations, Transportation & Grounds for the district, about why he’s excited about implementing AkitaBox.
During his time with the district, Bonin has overseen renovations to existing buildings and entirely new construction, including a state of the art STEM facility. When Bonin came into his position, he identified two issues: paper and an outdated CMMS. “The other system our district had in place was there before I came, but it was lacking key features. That motivated the switch to AkitaBox.”
TUSD adding a new facility to their campus
Bonin said that information accessibility and ease of communication between building teams and occupants was the most important thing he wanted from building management software. “We wanted to allow for more communication with our teachers, so they’re not sitting there a week or two weeks with no information on a request.” To do this, Bonin’s teams will take advantage of AkitaBox’s powerful, easy to access work order software, which streamlines service requests from occupants and saves technicians’ time. “A teacher can actually go check their work order on their own and then we can put updates in there for them in real time.”
In addition to closing the work order communication gap, AkitaBox’s floor plan viewer offers another improvement Bonin and his team are excited about: knowing where to go and how to access assets. “Another feature that will be indispensable to us is the ability to upload manuals, which cuts down on lag time and saves money by reducing man hours spent in the field.” The software provides a customizable asset information function that allows team members to store any relevant data needed for repairs or preventive maintenance. “This will increase team productivity and gives us an easy way to share knowledge of our assets.”
Bonin pointed out that the value of this powerful tool goes beyond improving wrench time. For some districts, it can be a challenge to cut out paper work order systems. Going digital reduces waste and eliminates the possibility of maintenance tasks getting lost in the mix, something Templeton USD prides itself on. “We’re a team that solely uses iPads. We’re trying not to use any paper. Using the AkitaBox software will continue to help us on our mission to go digital.”
We’re happy to partner with an innovative facility management team that’s going paperless and streamlining communication. Our standard 90-day implementation will be underway soon, which includes organizing and updating school facility floor plans, collecting asset data, inputting that data into the AkitaBox software, and offering continued support to Bonin and his team on their journey toward easier, more efficient K-12 facility management. The AkitaBox team is excited to head to Templeton to get started!
Is your story anything like Templeton USD? Do you have an existing CMMS that isn’t fulfilling all your needs? Are you looking for a CMMS but you’re not sure where to start? Are you skeptical about the value of a CMMS altogether? Leave a comment, shoot us an email, give us a call–we’ve got your back.
