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The MAPCON News Blog

April 27, 2017

MUG 2017

MUG 2017

The 27th annual MAPCON Users’ Group (MUG) conference has come to an end. This year, the focus of the conference switched from exclusively MAPCON to networking. While attendees still learned valuable information from our staff, they were encouraged to learn even more from each other. Along with a team building activity designed to get people to interact with each other, the conference also included a few breakout sessions where attendees were asked to work with each other and share tips and solutions.

The conference began with the welcome reception and dinner, which allowed guests to interact with each other and network, as well as speak directly with MAPCON programmers and support staff. One of our clients, Red Star Yeast, was presented with the Outstanding Achievement Award, which is given to the client that has made the most of their MAPCON system.

Red Star was chosen because of how they have used and improved their MAPCON system over the past eight years. They started out with one site and zone, 1099 assets, 4080 inventory items, and 20 users. Now, they have two sites and five zones, 24,046 assets, 14,652 inventory items, and 134 users. They have also been very active in providing feedback to our programmers in order to develop new features and modules, or to improve the system overall.

"Over the years Red Star has been pretty proactive in changing the software to fit our needs. The ideas for a good share of the major customizations and several of the smaller ones have roots in or were inspired by conversations that either took place in a break out session or an offline discussion with a user or Mapcon staff member. Holding true to my expectations, this year definitely did not disappoint." Red Star Yeast CMMS System Administrator Eric Tucker said.

This year’s keynote speaker didn’t disappoint either. Rob MacArthur, of Predictive Service, gave a presentation on the challenges and solutions to implementing successful asset management. It was his first time speaking at MUG, and it definitely was a success.

“The best part of the speech was when he talked about the predictive maintenance rating on the assets in the plant to help you accurately predict and schedule maintenance prior to equipment failure.” Victor Stank, CMMS Coordinator at Carbon Green Energy stated.

Since the theme of this year’s conference was networking, we had numerous breakout sessions which grouped people together to discuss how they used MAPCON. This allowed people to share tricks of the trade, which Mapcon staff may not have known about.

“The best part of the MUG conference was networking with people inside and outside of my industry. I enjoy hearing their experiences with the MAPCON system and in their day to day working life. I always take home several ideas based on what I hear from the conference attendees that I can apply to my job and or company that make my life easier and streamline our system.” Victor Stank stated.

The MAPCON staff lead sessions centered on reporting, our scheduler, purchasing, MAPCON Mobile, and a few other things. During the sessions, users were encouraged to participate and share their own insights, while learning more about the product and where it’s going.

"The improvements and direction that MAPCON Mobile is going in, is like no other CMMS system out there." City of Garden City Warehouse Manager Tyler Patterson said.

The MAPCON Users’ Group committee has already begun planning next years’ activities. The conference will be held in Des Moines, IA on July 30th – August 2nd 2018. We are so excited to bring the conference back to our town!

 

Heather Wilkerson

About the Author – Heather Wilkerson

Heather graduated from Loyola University with a Bachelor's degree in Communication. She is currently the Marketing Coordinator for Mapcon Technologies, Inc. She has been with the company since 2015. Heather has written industry articles that have appeared in magazines, such as Maintenance Technology, Biofuels International, and Plant Engineering.

Filed under: Mapcon Users’ Group, MUG — Heather Wilkerson on April 27, 2017