Maintenance Management

CANTON, Mass. -- Cumberland Farms Inc. has selected UNICCO Service Co. one of North America's largest outsourcing firms, to provide a broad range of mobile maintenance and facilities services to more than 500 convenience stores northeast and Florida. As part of the deal, UNICCO is providing services to Cumberland Farms' company-owned and operated stores, leased units and other retail properties the company owns.

The transition from Cumberland Farms, which operates approximately 900 stores in the United States, to UNICCO maintenance was completed September 30. The outsourcing company is providing mechanical systems, HVAC/R, plumbing, electrical, parking lot, roof, fence and maintenance services, as well as lighting services for all properties. Inside the stores, UNICCO will also maintain coffee machines, icemakers, soda dispensers and related equipment, and provide remodeling and light construction services on a bid basis. UNICCO is establishing formal preventive and predictive maintenance programs plus ongoing training classes for all employees.

"UNICCO is dedicated to facilities services, so they can bring higher productivity levels and better cost effectiveness than even a large retailer like us," said Scott Ameraullt, Cumberland Farms' manager of maintenance services. "Our technicians were spending about half their time driving so they weren't able to allocate enough time on preventive maintenance. That creates more emergency calls and higher costs. We're looking forward to an improved preventive maintenance program, which among other things, will reduce maintenance costs, energy consumption and equipment downtime."

UNICCO will be utilizing Corrigo's mobile service management solution and wireless technology to send work orders from their Call Center's computerized maintenance management system directly to technicians' cell phones. When the work is done, the store manager can sign off on the job completion over the same phone. UNICCO also integrated their call center with Cumberland Farms' system to provide a guaranteed emergency response window and allow the customer to monitor the status of all work online in real time.

Cumberland Farms and UNICCO also worked closely to be able to offer all of the retailer's affected employees comparable jobs with UNICCO. "Almost all of them accepted," said Rogers. "So, that made the outsourcing decision a lot easier for our customer and seamless for store managers."
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