When the Going Gets Tough, Krinkle Gets Going: 2020 A Year in Review
At Mobile Epiphany/Krinkle Apps, we understand that 2020 has been a difficult year for many. Despite these difficult circumstances, we have been working hard to support our clients and communities to navigate through this challenging time. Even during a pandemic, natural disasters like hurricanes and wildfires still impact our communities significantly. Buildings (especially hospitals) still need to be compliant with NFPA fire codes for occupants’ safety and oil & gas service companies still need to check for leaks and be OOOOa compliant for personal and environmental concerns. Ultimately, all these essential processes and operations need to be completed to the highest quality standard possible and life and work have to continue moving forward. This last year, Mobile Epiphany has been working hard to help people keep this crucial work going by creating and updating our intuitive, enterprise-class software.
While the pandemic has been a disaster of its own, this doesn’t mean that other natural disasters stop. The 2020 Atlantic hurricane season was one of the most active and costly hurricane seasons on record. This hurricane season featured 13 hurricanes, of which six developed into major hurricanes, with Hurricane Iota attaining a Category 5 strength. The damage and fallout of these disasters have been significant and costly, but Mobile Epiphany has been working tirelessly to push the debris removal process and post-disaster recovery forward. Krinkle’s hurricane ADMS, Krinkle Debris Tracker®, has been used in numerous post-disaster debris removal efforts this year to allow debris monitoring companies and jurisdictions to quickly and easily audit and reconcile payment.
In addition to the impact of COVID-19 and this hurricane season, natural disasters like wildfires have also taken a significant toll on peoples’ lives this year. Even though most major wildfires have dissipated by now, post-wildfire cleanup is crucial to get peoples’ lives back on track. For a process like wildfire debris management, extensive subject matter expertise is required in order to understand the subtle nuances of the multitude of different processes and build comprehensive software. This is what led the team at Krinkle to spend the last several years working with debris monitoring companies, foresters, arborists, state governments and other subject matter experts to create and continuously improve the world’s only Wildfire Automated Debris Management System: Krinkle Wildfire ADMS®.
Krinkle Wildfire ADMS® helps debris monitoring companies, haulers and jurisdictions guide their users through FEMA-approved processes, control their mission data and quickly reconcile following a wildfire. Krinkle Wildfire ADMS® guides monitors and arborists through inspecting, marking, barcoding (if required), and cutting fire-damaged hazardous trees as well as verifying that the trees (species by species) meet fire damaged hazardous trees. It also guides users through the entire debris hauling and eligibility determination process. The mobile app and reporting tool go far beyond the capabilities of a traditional Hurricane ADMS (i.e. Krinkle Debris Tracker®) by guiding its users throughout a wildfire’s unique aspects including material recycling, soil decontamination (scrape and re-scrape), fire-damaged hazardous tree removal, and much more. Finally, reporting can be performed at the “touch-of-a-button”.
While the pandemic has been a major detriment to public health, fugitive emissions are an ever-present danger to the health of our environment and ourselves that need to be addressed. This is why Krinkle LDAR Tracker Pro® has been working hard with our customers to ensure that OOOOa regulations are still being maintained for environmental and public safety. This year, Krinkle LDAR Tracker Pro® has been expanding its footprint in the Permian Basin and beyond, supporting our existing clients and keeping OOOOa compliance on track. Krinkle LDAR Tracker Pro® enables seamless and automated OOOOa compliant work order sharing (we call it “Shared Work Orders”) between LDAR program managers, Infrared (OGI) camera inspectors (and verifiers), and repair techs. Even client executives who must decide how to handle leaks on “Delay of Repair” status are supported. This ensures that every required step of the OOOOa regulation (and even your state regulations) becomes a simple, guided process for your users. The end result is a consistent workflow in the field for all your users, assured compliance, and a system that drives the process through to its full completion.
“Krinkle LDAR Tracker Pro® has been with us from our earliest days of setting up a Leak Detection And Repair (LDAR) program to our first year of reporting fugitive emissions and leak data to federal agencies for multiple clients and we could not be more pleased. Our users and administrators received thorough training in how to manage Krinkle LDAR Tracker Pro services, billing has been efficient and predictable, and the customer support team has remained exceptionally quick and responsive. Krinkle LDAR Tracker Pro® and the Mobile Epiphany team have helped us support our talented employees and increased our ability to provide the outstanding service that our clients expect.”
– Cianna Logie, Sport Environmental.
“Partnering with Krinkle this past year, we were able to effectively transition from a traditional relationship of hiring an outside LDAR contractor to bring it in-house utilizing automated recordkeeping and reporting. Most importantly, we have reduced our overall operating cost while improving environmental compliance.”
– Kaleb Foster, Maverick Natural Resources.
Hospitals are the battleground for the fight against COVID. As doctors and nurses have been working tirelessly to combat the pandemic, Krinkle Fire Door has been working relentlessly with fire door safety companies to ensure these hospitals are meeting Fire & Life Safety standards. Additionally, our mobile solutions and digital reporting help our customers to be more efficient and contactless when communicating with their clients. Krinkle Fire Door® has been working with subject matter experts in the fire door service industry for years to create its comprehensive (inspections, estimates to repair, repairs performed, etc.) mobile application. The mobile app guides inspectors to easily adhere to NFPA standards, speed up work and automate fire door reporting. Krinkle Fire Door® has taken the mobile app beyond traditional fire door inspection software, to a complete mobile and back-office solution that drives business.
“I have tried several different inspection platforms during my time in business. Each of these platforms had upsides but none encompassed all the features I had been looking for in an inspection and repair software… I am very happy with the Krinkle app and the entire Krinkle support team. Most importantly the software is reliable, the Krinkle team is very supportive, the cost is affordable and my clients are happy with the reports they receive.”
- Vickie Evans, Victory Fire Door.
The pandemic and its impact on the workforce have brought workflow efficiency and process digitization to the forefront of peoples’ minds. This is something that our customers in heavy machinery have been actively aware of and investing in even before the pandemic. After being field-proven in over ten dealerships worldwide, Krinkle Rebuild Tracker is continuously being updated with new features and forms to improve the rebuild process. Krinkle Rebuild Tracker® is a robust mobile application and management-reporting tool for heavy equipment component rebuild centers that track every stage of the component rebuild process with ease. To further improve the solution and enhance the data sophistication of engine inspections and Key Performance Indicator (KPI) tracking, we have worked with our customers to incorporate essential engine inspection forms into the software. This enables more thorough tracking of performance efficiency, Quality Assurance (QA), and overall improved data quality through the integration of various rebuild operations.
Looking into the new year, even though there is still uncertainty in front of us, Mobile Epiphany and its Krinkle brand are still focusing on working with seasoned industry subject matter experts to provide solutions that address the essential operational processes that need to move forward regardless of unforeseen circumstances like the COVID-19 pandemic. This is what led Krinkle to develop the most comprehensive Oil & Gas environmental suite of apps on the market: Krinkle Environmental®.
The mobile app and its modules guide users through oil & gas environmental projects like phase I environmental site assessments (ESA PI), soil sampling with depth samples, spill management with surface soil sampling, reclamation and more! Although these modules are ready to go, out-of-the-box, companies can further customize the software suite to meet their specific needs. Krinkle understands that different Oil & Gas environmental service companies might not handle all of these processes and projects. This is why Krinkle Environmental® is designed and priced to allow businesses to choose which modules and processes are most relevant to their current work and the other modules are at the ready for when new business arrives. Krinkle Environmental® and all its modules were built with the idea of keeping end-users efficient with their time, thorough in their data collection, and guided step-by-step through their work. This ensures accuracy, completeness, and speed while collecting environmental data and makes reporting an easy, “touch-of-a-button”, task. If you are interested in differentiating yourself in the Oil & Gas industry, improving compliance across the organizations you serve, and doing so with significantly less effort and cost, click HERE to learn more.
Despite the uncertainty that lies ahead of us, the challenges that we have faced over the last year have helped us improve our products and relationships with clients. Moving forward we want to continue supporting our clients, regardless of circumstances out of our control. After a successful year of developing new mobile software suites and Krinkle apps and updating existing software, Krinkle has big plans for 2021. Over the next year, Mobile Epiphany/Krinkle plans to expand upon the modules offered in Krinkle Environmental in order to handle processes like weed management, land consultation, and more. Going forward, Krinkle plans to continue improving the business processes and relationships we made in 2020, while simultaneously continuing to launch new products to solve business challenges for other industries. Stay up-to-date with our newest updates and activities HERE.
We’re Just Getting Started: Our Year in Review
Mobile Epiphany is an established enterprise-class mobile software company in its 11th year of business. Its mobile platform technology is used to rapidly create cost-effective mobile apps to solve any business process challenges across any industry, regardless of complexity. Initially, Mobile Epiphany succeeded in creating many custom mobile applications for specific business challenges on a project-by-project basis. While Mobile Epiphany still takes on custom projects regularly, these new, standardized apps fall under our brand “Krinkle”, which we have been expanding upon ever since. This last year, we’ve been particularly busy adding new and innovative capabilities to the next generation of our existing apps while also adding new apps to our suite of “purpose-specific” Krinkle solutions.
For the oil and gas industry, Krinkle launched two new mobile software solutions this last year. Krinkle began servicing the oil and gas industry four years ago with the launch of its premier LDAR tracking software, Krinkle LDAR Tracker®. Over these last four years, we’ve gained a great deal of expertise in the LDAR process and we further innovated new ways where Krinkle LDAR Tracker® could improve. One of the biggest challenges our clients faced was coordinating the communication between multiple different subcontractors (such as inspectors, repairmen, verifiers, etc.) working on the same well sites, compressor stations, etc. This insight led us to develop Krinkle LDAR Tracker Pro®, an advanced version of our original LDAR compliance software. The Pro version adds a series of new and innovative features including its premier feature - seamless work order sharing.
The “Shared Work Order” system automatically pushes the initial work order forward to all the subsequent users who need it (the initial inspector, then repair people, then verifiers, etc.), simply by detecting when the previous step is complete. This eliminates the need for the project managers to engage in endless phone calls, coordination meetings, excel files, and forgotten or lost next steps. Krinkle LDAR Tracker Pro® showcased this innovative new feature at the 2019 Oil and Gas Environmental Conference (OGENV 2019). Krinkle's Sr. Business Analyst, Dr. Glenn Kletzky, gave a presentation at the event alongside Vertex Resource Services’ VP of US Operations, Mr. Dhugal Hanton. The presentation focused on how deploying Krinkle LDAR Tracker Pro® resulted in Vertex gaining a higher level of compliance and situational awareness which has enabled them to better serve their clients.
Mobile Epiphany’s software has been used to inspect close to 1,000,000 fire doors for the fire and life safety industry over the last four years. Mobile Epiphany has been working with subject matter experts in the fire door service industry for years to create its comprehensive (inspections, estimates to repair, repairs performed, etc.) application. In 2019, we officially launched the standardized version of our fire door inspection software, Krinkle Fire Door®. The mobile app guides inspectors to even more easily adhere to NFPA standards, speeds up work, and automates fire door reporting. Krinkle has taken the mobile app beyond traditional fire door inspection software, to a complete mobile and back-office solution that drives your business.
Over the last 3 years, Krinkle Debris Tracker® has reconciled disaster data required by FEMA in multiple states and counties. From natural disasters including hurricanes Maria, Irma, and Harvey, as well as the Northern and Southern California wildfires, Krinkle Debris Tracker®’s performance, was unrivaled. In 2019, Krinkle Debris Tracker® impressed attendees at the 33rd annual Governor's Hurricane Conference in Florida with its 4th year of updates and increased capabilities. Emergency management professionals and those involved in preparedness, planning, response, and recovery at all levels of the government, industry, and private interest gathered to exchange ideas and see the latest and greatest advancements in emergency response. Krinkle presented our powerful disaster management software solutions - Krinkle Debris Tracker® and Krinkle Damage Tracker® - both showcased during live demonstrations, presented by Dr. Glenn Kletzky. The two solutions attracted the interest of more than 50 organizations.
Krinkle Rebuild Tracker® is a proven solution for heavy equipment dealers looking to track their major components during the rebuild process. The mobile app has been successfully deployed internationally, from the United States to Africa, the Middle East, and beyond. This established success led Krinkle to attend the Western Region Meeting for CAT dealers and their IT people (WRIT 2019 in Las Vegas). The mobile app had already proven itself in component rebuild centers internationally as it has been in use at the Cashman and Mantrac Caterpillar rebuild centers for the last two years. This was highlighted in a presentation given by Dr. Glenn Kletzky. His presentation also focused on how what Krinkle Rebuild Tracker® did for CAT’s dealers could be done for any heavy equipment manufacturer, regardless of the brand, facility size, or language spoken by its users.
Krinkle Rebuild Tracker® was also fully integrated with Modern® this last year. Modern® is a sales department and customer communications text messaging system popular among many of the CAT Dealers that Krinkle works with. Krinkle Rebuild Tracker®’s integration effort with Modern® highlights Krinkle’s commitment to heavy equipment dealers, software vendors, and the ecosystem as a whole. In 2020, we plan on launching a new hose manufacturing tracking mobile application that has been successfully deployed in multiple locations across Mantrac’s dealerships.
After a successful year of developing new Krinkle apps, updating existing software, speaking at trade shows, and integrating with other software, Krinkle has big plans for 2020. Going forward, Krinkle plans to continue improving the business processes and relationships we made in 2019, while simultaneously launching new products to solve business challenges for other industries. Stay up-to-date with our newest updates and activities here.
An International Caterpillar Dealer’s Journey: Moving to Digital Work Orders for Tracking the Rebuild Process
Heavy equipment rebuild centers from all over the world have constantly strived to simplify the burden of tracking their main component (engine, transmission, etc.) rebuild process. Unfortunately, few have ever found a simple and affordable solution to track their work in progress (WIP). This issue is significantly harder to solve when you have multiple centers spread across states and even nations.
In late 2017, Unatrac, a CAT dealer conglomerate with their Mantrac dealerships and component rebuild centers (CRC) across Africa, the Middle East, Russia, and beyond, set out to solve this challenge. Matt Woodall from their process improvement department, acting as their lead component reliability champion, was tasked to find a solution. Not only did he have to find a solution, but he also had to work across multiple rebuild centers on different continents. It had to handle different cultures, different practices, and it had to be configurable and flexible enough to succeed. Every day that passed for these rebuild centers without the kind of data visibility they were looking for, was a day of reduced profit, morale, and customer satisfaction.
Unatrac’s/Mantrac’s technological pursuit led them to attend conferences in the US, where they spoke to other heavy equipment dealers. At the annual Caterpillar North American Dealer IT Association (NADITA) conference in Las Vegas, Mr. Woodall came across Cashman Equipment Company’s Director of IT, Don Erlanger. Mr. Erlanger, in conjunction with his CRC Manager, Mike Hulse, had already implemented Krinkle Rebuild Tracker® in their Reno, NV CRC and were already successfully tracking over 2500 major component rebuild work orders per year. Matt followed up after the conference with the Cashman dealership, spoke to the management and the supervisors, and learned how easy it was to deploy and use. He then contacted Krinkle for a webinar demonstration to see Krinkle Rebuild Tracker®’s capabilities for himself.
Mr. Woodall learned that Krinkle Rebuild Tracker® is an app that’s used by floor techs to easily track every step in their heavy equipment component rebuild process, without burdening them. He was surprised to learn that each tech only had to touch the mobile app for about 15 seconds a few times a day to provide their small contribution to the larger tracking data set. He also learned that this new mobile app would deliver complete process tracking and detailed Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). Once Mr. Woodall saw the value in the data visibility the reports delivered to his management and workers. He knew he had found what his company had been looking for.
“We were looking for something like Krinkle Rebuild Tracker® that would drive our process efficiency without burdening our technicians,” stated Matt Woodall. “Since deployment, monitoring WIP and utilizing automated reports have streamlined our admin process. As well as on the shop floor through Krinkle Rebuild Tracker®’s inspection functionality and ability to use process forms within the app. Our customers now have near real-time data visibility of their components throughout the rebuild process.”
After Mantrac deployed Krinkle Rebuild Tracker®, they not only leveraged the data to better track and improve their rebuild process, but they also realized that there was so much more potential they could extract from the data they have already collected. Right now, Mantrac is working continuously with Mobile Epiphany to further improve their reports and dashboard views based on their existing data. They are even moving into a scheduling system that allows Mantrac to manage both their CRC spaces and human resources.
Mobile Epiphany’s robust process tracking app, Krinkle Rebuild Tracker®, is showing heavy equipment rebuild centers all over the world that they can simplify their main component rebuild process, no matter the brand (CAT, John Deere, Komatsu, etc.). If you would like to see how Krinkle Rebuild Tracker® can improve your companies rebuild process, please schedule a free live demonstration by visiting Krinkle Rebuild Tracker®.
Krinkle’s Heavy Equipment “Krinkle Rebuild Tracker®” System Presented at National Caterpillar Dealer Conference to Wide Acclaim
For Immediate Release
Contact: Philip Hsiao
2675 S Abilene St.
STE 100,
Aurora, CO 80014
Phone: (720) 282-2044
Email: phsiao@mobileepiphany.com
Date: October 21, 2019
Krinkle’s heavy equipment “Krinkle Rebuild Tracker®” system was presented at the national Caterpillar dealer conference to wide acclaim.
LAS VEGAS, NEVADA, September 17, 2019: Krinkle’s Senior business analyst, Glenn Kletzky, presented their new rebuild process tracking system (Krinkle Rebuild Tracker®) at this year’s Western Region Meeting for CAT dealers and their IT people (WRIT 2019 in Las Vegas).
Process tracking for every step in heavy equipment component rebuilding (such as Engines, Torque converters, Transmissions, etc.) is something every rebuild center wants but few have achieved. This is due to the administrative burden prior systems placed on the technician staff, the acquisition cost of such systems, and the sheer complexity of those aging systems. Krinkle’s presentation focused on Krinkle Rebuild Tracker®’s ability to accomplish full rebuild tracking for heavy equipment, no matter the brand (caterpillar, John Deere, Komatsu, etc.), the size of the facility, or the language needed by its users.
Krinkle demonstrated its solution to a variety of data visibility problems and administrative burdens which are common to heavy equipment rebuild centers. These costly challenges negatively impact the entire operation. He showed how Krinkle Rebuild Tracker® solves these major issues. Some capabilities he demonstrated were:
1. Being able to easily see the multiple stages and locations of all work in progress (WIP) at a moment’s notice
2. Easily accessing meaningful management reports and dashboards that are used to guide a shop’s daily work priorities
3. Easily performing parts-level inspections at the Quality Control area which then automate the necessary customer-facing reports and parts ordering lists
4. Showing how the average technician’s involvement in the data capture effort on a mobile device only takes about 15 seconds per occasional interaction, thus leaving them to their important work of rebuild
“Krinkle Rebuild Tracker® has the ability to keep track of every major and minor step of a rebuild center's lengthy rebuild process with minimal impact on the workers. It effortlessly tracks everything from the arrival of the main component to shipping back to the customer and over 40 stages in between; it has become an indispensable tool to our clients and they openly talk about the return on investment they receive from it every day,” Glenn stated.
Additionally, the presentation reviewed Krinkle’s integration to other systems that component rebuild centers already have or desperately need. For example, Krinkle Rebuild Tracker® has already been integrated into Modern®, a customer service information system popular to dealerships nationwide. It can also be integrated into DBS, MS Dynamix, a shop scheduling system, and more. These previously burdensome or non-existent capabilities can now be fed data directly from Krinkle Rebuild Tracker®, reducing effort and complexity.
Finally, he spoke about the system’s natural ability to visualize many key performance indicators (KPIs) of the shop. These KPIs can be about individual employees, the team as a whole, or even the performance or work on specific makes and models of component types. The insight provided to management, that was previously invisible to them, allows them to focus on and continuously improve their efficiency in specific areas where customer satisfaction and profit can be increased.
Mobile Epiphany is an enterprise-class software design company that creates mobile applications that simplify business processes and increases operational efficiency.
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If you would like to acquire further information about Krinkle Rebuild Tracker®, learn more here.
Krinkle Rebuild Tracker® Presenting at WRIT 2019
Krinkle is presenting its powerful shop floor mobile application and management reporting tool software, Krinkle Rebuild Tracker®, at this year’s Western Region Cat Dealers IT Meeting 2019 in Las Vegas, NV during September 16-17. Krinkle will be showcasing Krinkle Rebuild Tracker® at the conference with a presentation from Krinkle’s senior business analyst, Glenn Kletzky.
Designed to unburden CRC employees from time-consuming documentation by delivering meaningful data visibility to shop-floor users and management alike, Krinkle Rebuild Tracker® allows CRCs and their clients the ability to increase their productivity significantly. Through Krinkle Rebuild Tracker®’s quick form approach, floor techs will only spend on average 15 seconds per data entry sequence and will do so only a few times per day. As a result, Krinkle Rebuild Tracker®’s reporting tool allows CRC floor Techs and managers alike to easily keep track of every stage of the rebuild process from the arrival of the main component at a CRCs receiving area to the shipping back to the CRCs client. In addition, Krinkle Rebuild Tracker® is now integrated with Modern® (www.ModernIS.com) to automate the previously burdensome human effort required to keep Modern®’s critical customer service function healthy and timely.
Krinkle’s mission is to provide enterprise-level software that helps clients streamline processes & increase worker efficiency. It provides tremendous data visibility to all CRC users that were previously impossible to get. And it does so seamlessly and easily. This enables the CRC to keep data organized and easily accessible from the start of the rebuild process to its finish.
If you will be attending the event and is interested to know more about the benefits of Krinkle Rebuild Tracker® be sure to attend Glenn’s presentation on September 17 at 1:00 p.m. If you cannot attend the event or missed Krinkle’s presentation and would like to acquire further information about Krinkle Rebuild Tracker® and schedule a live demonstration by clicking here.
Krinkle Rebuild Tracker® now integrated to Modern® at Caterpillar CRC.
Krinkle Rebuild Tracker® is a Component Rebuild Center (CRC)’s shop floor mobile application and management reporting tool that will easily keep track of every stage of the rebuild process – from the arrival of the main component at the receiving pad, through disassembly, part level quality control, reassembly, testing, and shipping back to the customers. It leverages a barcode placed on the Main component and barcodes permanently attached to all the parts baskets and gear trees etc. to get the job done.
The data visibility created by Krinkle Rebuild Tracker® for CAT CRCs allows floor techs all the way through management to gain clear insights into the status of their work orders. Clarity is available whether customers inquire or management needs daily priorities to stay on deadlines. Furthermore, the reports that Krinkle Rebuild Tracker® includes as standard help all users’ with their information needs and the system can also generate new and customized reports for any purposes. Standard Reports are used in Quality Control, KPI tracking, Work Order status tracking, whereabouts of dissembled parts and much more. This new data visibility significantly improves a CRC's performance and efficiency.
Through integration to Modern® (a sales department and customer communication text messaging system popular among CAT CRCs), Krinkle Rebuild Tracker® automates the previously manual and time-consuming process required to gather work order status and input information updates to Modern®. Krinkle Rebuild Tracker® will automatically communicate with Modern® at the instant a new event or milestone is achieved in the rebuild process and feed that information directly to Modern® so that the sales department and their customers will get updates on their rebuilds in progress in a near-real-time fashion.
Krinkle Rebuild Tracker®’s integration effort to Modern® demonstrates the commitment Krinkle has to the CAT CRC community and Krinkle is focused on establishing extensive partnerships with the CRCs as well as software vendors to further enhance Krinkle’s contribution to the ecosystem. In addition to tirelessly improving Krinkle Rebuild Tracker®’s functionality, Krinkle is also expanding its product portfolio for CAT dealerships including a soon-to-launch Hoses manufacturing, tracking and inspecting application called Krinkle Hose Tracker® that allows CAT dealers to generate more revenue and create service satisfaction to their clients. Soon, we will also be offering a scheduling application tied to Krinkle Rebuild tracker which assures people and resources (like reassembly bays) can be most efficiently (and easily!) scheduled.
Whether your CRC already uses Modern® as the customer-facing communication platform or not, Krinkle Rebuild Tracker® should be the next software to consider to improve your CRCs performance. Learn more HERE and be sure to subscribe for our latest update on Krinkle Hose Tracker®.