HVAC Service company uses Microsoft Power Apps to improve the service process

“Discovering new ways to put accurate, timely, and relevant data in the hands of our employees is transforming our business.”

Every HVAC system manufactured and installed by CAPS is custom built. However, as a 200-person organization, CAPS does not have a large IT budget to spend on custom software development. The CAPS team of Project Managers (PMs) needed a customized solution to track the entire lifecycle of HVAC units from “cradle to crate” as the units passed through the manufacturing process, with a focus on quality construction. The solution needed to be customized to meet the needs of each department—Engineering, Testing, Fabrication, Project Management, and Executive Leadership. CAPS needed to track quality checks and allow for respective owners to sign off on each stage in the process. Moreover, the company wanted to empower anyone in the organization to report on issues via mobile devices.

Before Microsoft Power Platform

Prior to the Power Apps and Power Automate solution, several disparate systems were used to capture project information:

• Documentation generated during the design and production process was entered into a spreadsheet.
• The information was sent to accounting to reenter into the financial database.
• For engineering support, the same information was copied into another spreadsheet that was then used to generate a package of paper documents.
• PMs also entered much of the same information into their own tracking systems to track progress against the plan.
• During the manufacturing process, a paper document called a “traveler” was tie-wrapped to each unit and used to track quality checks.
• The information from the traveler was pasted into yet another document for printing and distribution.

There were several challenges with this process:

• Manually reentering the same information in multiple systems was a waste of time and led to errors.
• Most of this process occurred with no formal approvals, dates, modification tracking, or formal retention.
• PMs and field personnel complained that the travelers were often lost or damaged during the manufacturing process, causing slowdowns and headaches along the way.

“I’m really happy with the end result because within minutes of a unit being tested, the report is completed and available for all to see without any extra work or steps.”

The PMs approached Sackett about the problem they faced with traveler documents often getting lost or damaged. (Go to Downloads in the left-hand sidebar to see a diagram of the process flow that was required to complete a job.) She had experience with operations and accounting from having run her own small business, and she had worked with Microsoft Access but did not have any formal coding experience. She found Power Apps in her Office 365 subscription and began experimenting with creating apps against SharePoint lists to replace manual paper processes. At the start, she found Power Apps somewhat confusing, but once she had gotten her feet wet and adjusted to the differences between Power Apps and Access, she was off to the races.

Power Apps

Sackett created a Power Apps solution to digitize the traveler document. In keeping with the name of the document that traveled with each unit, the app was called “CAPS Traveler.” Using the main Traveler management app, PMs and stakeholders can view all active projects, view a set of key statistics, and manage the testing and shipping calendars. 

PMs initiate projects and add details for each required step, such as Fab, Paint, Electrical, and Testing. Personnel from each department then use a companion mobile app that is custom built with specific questions for their department. They answer several questions in a checklist and for any that they mark “No,” they need to provide a reason. Later, the central team collates the data and uses the reports to identify common reasons why a particular step wasn’t done—for example, they might discover they were missing fans and need to stock up on more.

Customized sign-off app for the Electrical team, one of 10 such customized companion apps 

There are 10 such sign-off apps in addition to the main Traveler management app, which all read and write data to the same set of SharePoint lists. As part of the sign-off process, the completion date for each step is recorded, which makes it easy to view any bottlenecks in the process and improve lead times. Once all the steps are completed, someone on the Quality Control (QC) team performs a final sign-off. A flow is then automatically triggered to generate a PDF report.

Every unit must be scheduled to go through final testing. A Testing Calendar shows the list of tests scheduled for a given day, and a 10-day calendar is used to view which days have available slots to schedule testing. A similar approach is taken to view and schedule shipments.

By using Microsoft Power Platform, Custom Air Products & Services digitized several operations without requiring expensive custom software. Some of the key benefits include:

• Collection of data that was simply not available earlier, which has enabled several process improvements.
• The app provides timely, accurate, and relevant data, which has reduced the time spent on daily tasks.
• The greater visibility encourages all employees to be empowered and participate not just in task-level activities, but at the division and business level as well.
• Multiple third-party tools have been replaced with Power Apps, OneDrive, and SharePoint.