AMIGO: the app that keeps all maintenance in good order

The Client

AMIGO, based in Naaldwijk in the Netherlands, makes service and maintenance simple for horticultural businesses. The name says it all: All Maintenance In Good Order. One app in which a business keeps all its installations, requests, suppliers and inspections together, for as many users as it needs.

The Challenge: Maintenance Was Everywhere

In a horticultural business, everything depends on installations that have to keep running. When one breaks down, a familiar routine begins.

• An employee spots the problem and first has to work out which installation it actually is.
• Someone looks up which supplier handles it, then calls or emails.
• A date is proposed, moved, and confirmed once more.
• The agreements sit in one person’s inbox, the photos on someone else’s phone.
• And once the job is done, the history of that installation is hard to find.

Nobody does anything wrong, but it costs a lot of time and a lot of headaches. And with several suppliers and dozens of installations at once, you quickly lose track.

From Idea to an App People Actually Use

AMIGO wanted one place where you see what is going on, who is working on it and when it will be done. We got to shape that idea with AMIGO from the very start.

The most important principle: AMIGO must not become yet another system where you keep extra admin. The app had to fit the way maintenance in horticulture is already organised. So everything follows the same line as the work itself:

location → department → installation → request → service ticket → supplier → appointment → done

There is nothing to learn that you do not already know. You work the way you always have, only now everything is in one place.

From Fault to Fix in Four Steps

Say an installation in greenhouse 4 stops working. An employee opens AMIGO, looks up the installation and creates a request. From that request, they create a service ticket for the right supplier. The supplier hears about it right away, looks at the request and proposes a date. Nobody has to retype anything, and everything said about the job stays with the ticket.

1. Create a request. Pick the installation, describe what is going on and add a photo.
2. Inform the supplier. The service ticket goes to the supplier who looks after that installation.
3. Confirm the appointment. The supplier picks or confirms a date, and the ticket is planned.
4. Everything is kept. Afterwards, the ticket, the chat and the appointment stay with the installation. So later you can see exactly what happened and when.

No Account. No Hassle.

The best part of AMIGO is the supplier side. The obvious solution would have been: give them an account. But a supplier works for dozens of businesses. Yet another account, yet another password, just to schedule one visit? Then the app gets ignored.

So AMIGO does it differently. The supplier gets an email with a personal link. One click, and they see the service ticket exactly as the customer sees it, chat included. There they confirm the proposed date, fill in a date themselves or suggest another one. As soon as they confirm, the ticket is planned.

No account, no login screen, no calling back and forth about when someone will come by. Suppliers simply take part, and that is what makes it work for everyone.

More Than Requests

AMIGO also helps with all the maintenance you can see coming.

• Recurring maintenance takes care of itself. Record once how often something needs maintenance. On the agreed day, the service ticket is ready automatically.
• Inspections, stock and manuals. Inspections, parts in stock and an installation’s manuals sit with that installation, so you find them the moment you need them.
• Always at hand. You put AMIGO on your phone or tablet as an app, and it works in Dutch and English. Handy in the greenhouse, and handy for your international colleagues.

The Result

A fault used to mean: pass on the report, look up the supplier, call, email, note down the appointment and hope nobody forgot anything. With AMIGO, that whole process runs through a single service ticket.

More than 50 horticultural businesses now work with AMIGO, and more than 1000 service tickets have already been processed. From a stalled installation to a broken greenhouse pane: it is all in there, along with who is on it and when.

Horticultural businesses now have all their service and maintenance in one overview: every request, every supplier, every inspection and every part. Suppliers plan their visit with one click, recurring maintenance takes care of itself, and everyone knows where they stand.

Exactly what the name promises: all maintenance in good order.

What we did