Happy family eating pizza

Pif Paf Alimentos: Reducing technician time and cost in machinery maintenance

How do you optimize machinery maintenance?

Brazilian food sector business Pif Paf Alimentos wished to digitalize machinery maintenance processes. With SAP Build Apps, part of SAP Business Technology Platform, it created a mobile application for real-time information management in less than a month. Pif Paf Alimentos realized significant time, cost, and paper savings as well as regulatory compliance.

IndustryRegionCompany Size
AgribusinessBelo Horizonte, Brazil10,000 employees
3 weeks

to go live with a mobile application with SAP Build Apps.

30%

reduction in time and cost of technician data entry.

10%

reduction in paper waste.

SAP Business Technology Platform simplified our innovation journey because it’s a proven platform offering security, scalability, and ease of use. With the low-code, no-code technology of SAP Build Apps, we were able to go live with a mobile application in a record time of three weeks, providing a fast response to our business needs.
Lauro Salgado
Systems Development Specialist, Pif Paf Alimentos
IndustryRegionCompany Size
AgribusinessBelo Horizonte, Brazil10,000 employees
3 weeks

to go live with a mobile application with SAP Build Apps.

30%

reduction in time and cost of technician data entry.

10%

reduction in paper waste.

SAP Business Technology Platform simplified our innovation journey because it’s a proven platform offering security, scalability, and ease of use. With the low-code, no-code technology of SAP Build Apps, we were able to go live with a mobile application in a record time of three weeks, providing a fast response to our business needs.
Lauro Salgado
Systems Development Specialist, Pif Paf Alimentos

Moving away from manual machinery maintenance processes

As one of the largest food companies in Brazil, Pif Paf Alimentos produces thousands of meat, fish, and other food products that reach the tables of millions of consumers both domestically and worldwide. The food processor operates in the poultry and pork vertical production chains for more than 14 industrial units. To guarantee that it produces top-quality food, Pif Paf Alimentos must ensure all machinery is operating properly according to reliable and accurate maintenance processes.

 

Technicians had to print numerous maintenance orders from the ERP system every day and write down the exact start and finish time of each task. At day’s end, all technicians lined up to manually input the maintenance information from their paper records to the ERP system one at a time.

 

With up to 20 tasks on each maintenance order and only one desktop computer for technicians, these manual administrative processes were highly time consuming, convoluted, repetitive, and prone to human error.

Our technicians were working with paper records and had to log their time against numerous tasks on each maintenance order. They also had to queue up and wait for the one computer to then manually rework the information into our back-end system each day.
Lauro Salgado
Systems Development Specialist, Pif Paf Alimentos

Developing an application to automate maintenance processes

Pif Paf Alimentos has a strong digitalization strategy in place, and it sought a solution to streamline its machinery maintenance processes in support of this transformation journey. The company chose the SAP Build Apps development environment because it allowed its IT team to intuitively create and implement an enterprise-grade application without having to write code. The team was free to visually design data models, business logic, and user-friendly interfaces. Part of SAP Business Technology Platform, SAP Build Apps was smoothly integrated with its existing on-premise ERP system using SAP Integration Suite. Pif Paf Alimentos is currently using the new mobile application in one of its 14 plants.

 

“The solution is built on SAP Build Apps and integrates with our existing landscape very smoothly, explains Lauro Salgado, systems development specialist at Pif Paf Alimentos. If we made an application using a different technology, it would take much longer because we would have to code and integrate the fields. So, we took advantage of the low-code technology to deliver the solution faster.”

 

All maintenance information is now synchronized on the application in real time, so the technicians don’t need to print anything on paper anymore. Using their mobile devices, they can access up-to-date data and simply tap a button to register the start and finish time of each task they carry out. Once they‘ve completed their tasks for the day, they tap another button that automatically transfers the information from the application to the ERP system. The application also works offline so technicians can still access and record information in remote areas without Internet availability. Once the application is back online again, it synchronizes with the back-end system.

Pif Paf Alimentos believes that using solutions that aim to decentralize the use of technology, such as SAP Build Apps, is the way to accelerate digital transformation. Digital awareness is a necessary component in the transformation journey. That is why we have invested in the five pillars of digital awareness: the creativity of our employees, the agile mindset, the vision of processes, the democratization of technology, and data. Our SOUL Digital program brings these pillars together to enable our vision of the future.
Antonio Minier
Director of Business Transformation, Pif Paf Alimentos

Saving paper, time, and costs through digitalization

In less than three weeks, Pif Paf Alimentos launched a mobile application for its technicians to manage maintenance tasks. Using a cloud-based graphical environment, without necessary software installation, the company could start developing straight away. Traditional application development can take up to three or four months due to the need to write code, whereas SAP Build Apps enabled Pif Paf Alimentos to go live with the application in record time thanks to its low-code, no-code technology.

 

SAP Business Technology Platform provides innovative capabilities that allow Pif Paf Alimentos to scale a solution enterprise-wide, and other business areas, maintenance processes, and plants are on the radar for SAP Build Apps. The IT team was able to respond quickly to business needs and gain operational agility. The company significantly decreased the use of paper in line with its paperless strategy, with a 10% reduction in paper waste. The new digital process minimized documentation errors and the need for reworking, helping ensure the accuracy of maintenance costs and compliance with local legislation through up-to-date reports. This is particularly important in the food sector, where regulations around machinery maintenance are stringent.

 

With technicians accessing real-time maintenance orders on their mobile devices, as opposed to manual data management, they can save time on administrative tasks and improve their efficiency. Pif Paf Alimentos has seen time and money spent on technician data entry reduced by almost one-third.

We provided a fast business response to the maintenance department. The IT team, as a business partner, gained agility by using SAP Build Apps in the delivery of solutions and contributed to our paperless company goal.
Lauro Salgado
Systems Development Specialist, Pif Paf Alimentos