How one grain mill expedited purchase orders by 98% with LLumin

In six years with Miller Milling Co., Alisha Ruiz’s only complaint about LLumin CMMS+ is not having deployed it sooner.

The Fresno, California flour mill where Alisha is the facility & system administrator is one of Miller Milling’s five processing sites. The mills together process 18 kinds of flour used in food products sold across the country.

All 2,000 moving parts in the Fresno mill are critical to the quality and reliability of Miller’s production. But it was not always the well-oiled machine it is today.

Messy paper trails? Not anymore.

Alisha knows maintenance. Prior to assuming her current role, she had boots on the ground in the parts department.

Every day, she wrestled with a maintenance workflow that offered no visibility into inventory status. And every day, she braced for unexpected downtime events.

“Our previous work order system wasn’t really helping us in the sense of keeping up to date with the parts we hold here on-site.”

In the event of a breakdown, it was never immediately clear whether Alisha’s storeroom had the parts needed to make repairs. That uncertainty put profitable operations at risk.

Compounding the problem, the plant’s purchase order process was antiquated. 

“Before LLumin, maintenance tracked by paper trail. Management had to physically sign invoices which we’d then UPS to corporate,” Alisha said. “It was a huge problem because the old way would take us two days.”

Enough was enough. Plant leaders began searching for a software solution that would give the maintenance team better visibility.

Finally: real-time inventory insights

LLumin CMMS+ jumped out to the flour mill’s leadership right away. In addition to its condition-based monitoring capabilities, it offered the inventory visibility the team had badly needed.

Not only could LLumin show them what was in stock in Fresno, it showed what was in stock in storerooms across the company. Instead of starting with vendors, Alisha can cross-reference other storerooms to see if the parts she’s missing are available there instead — all in real-time.

“We can see other mills and, instead of buying the part, we can prompt the other mill that has, say, four spares to send us one. It saves us on having a surplus number of parts.”

Plus, no more late nights

“We don’t have to wait for someone to physically sign something to approve a purchase order. It’s simple, we enter information and it gets approved and sent automatically to the vendor.” — Alisha Ruiz, facility & system administrator at Miller Milling Co.

And that agonizing two-day purchase order process? It’s automated. And it’s fast.

“Now, ordering parts takes us 30 minutes, tops.”

Benefits beyond the stockroom

With maintenance workflows streamlined and purchase ordering automated, Alisha credits LLumin with helping her engineer new solutions rather than reacting to problems. 

LLumin’s customizable filters also allow plant technicians to view only the metrics that matter to them, which means they see exactly what they need without irrelevant details.

No more clogged dashboards.

No more noise.

The CMMS+ that puts YOU in control

Before LLumin, Alisha and her colleagues at Miller Milling were chained to a workflow that was too slow and clumsy.

With LLumin, the maintenance team in Fresno sees much more clearly. They take fast, decisive action to keep production humming. 

Schedule a demo to start a conversation.

Here’s what to expect:

• One of our reps will reach out within 24 hours. Their mission? To show you how you can take complete control over maintenance outcomes.
• Ask industry-specific questions during your personal, one-on-one LLumin demo.
• Consult the experts to determine whether our CMMS+ is right for your company.