Case Study: How Northland Properties Cut Issue Resolution Time by 32% and Saved 2,000+ Hours on Work Order Communication with OpenWrench

“OpenWrench does exactly what it promises, and our staff and vendors actually enjoy using it. Quotes are vetted more thoroughly, and invoices are reviewed beyond just the GM. The investment was minimal, but the return has been priceless — both in the platform and the OpenWrench team.”

Vence Ryan
Facility Manager
Northland Properties

Northland Properties, one of Canada’s fastest-growing hospitality groups, faced increasing complexity as its facilities operations scaled across dozens of hotel, resort, and restaurant locations. Their facilities management team struggled to keep up with inconsistent vendor communication, manual work order tracking, and little visibility into maintenance costs.

By implementing OpenWrench’s centralized facilities management platform, Northland streamlined issue reporting, gained real-time spend visibility, and significantly improved operational efficiency across the portfolio.

The results:

32% faster average resolution time
10% decrease in average work order cost ($88.90 saved per work order)
Over $500k saved in work order costs after 6 months
5% increase in preventative maintenance work orders
$83k saved in admin labor
No more manual processing after integrating invoices directly with their accounting software

Background

Northland Properties is a privately owned hospitality company headquartered in Vancouver, BC. It owns and operates some of Canada’s most recognized hospitality brands, including Sandman Hotels, Moxies, Chop Steakhouse, Revelstoke Mountain Resort, and the Dallas Stars NHL franchise.

With over 60 hotels, 150+ restaurants, and a growing international footprint, Northland’s facilities management team maintains a vast and diverse portfolio of properties, each with its own unique equipment, service providers, and operational standards.

Challenge

Before OpenWrench, Northland’s FM team faced several recurring issues:

Fragmented communication: Work orders were submitted and tracked through a convoluted mix of phone calls, emails, spreadsheets, and text messages. This made it difficult to prioritize urgent issues or verify when tasks were completed.
Limited visibility across locations: Corporate had little oversight into what was happening on the ground at each property. There was no standardized way to track repairs, monitor service provider performance, or audit maintenance spend across regions.
Inconsistent vendor follow-through: Without a clear approval and accountability process, quotes and invoices often slipped through the cracks, leading to overspending and duplicate work.
Time-consuming manual processes: Field teams lacked a centralized place to track service history, manage equipment warranties, or get real-time updates. This slowed down response times and made preventative maintenance hard to scale.
Low adoption from vendors and location staff: Northland’s previous FM platform had a clunky interface and charged vendor fees, frustrating both service providers and on-site teams. As a result, stores weren’t consistently reporting issues, and vendors were hesitant to engage with the system at all.

Solution

OpenWrench worked closely with Northland’s facilities leadership to roll out its all-in-one platform across a select group of restaurant and hotel locations to standardize maintenance reporting, vendor communications, and budget control.

“It's everything you need from an FM system without all the heartaches of a tired old system. Other companies refuse to make the changes you need — or they’re just in business to make money off your vendors.”

Vence Ryan
Facilities Manager
Northland Properties

Northland now uses OpenWrench to:

Report and track issues in real time via a mobile-friendly app, enabling faster response from internal teams and third-party service providers
Centralize work order management, approvals, and vendor communication within a single system, replacing scattered email threads and text chains
Automate preventative maintenance (PM) by scheduling recurring work orders that are easy to track and manage in one place
Gain visibility into equipment lifecycle data, warranty coverage, and repair history to make more informed decisions about replacements and capital planning
Enforce NTE (Not-to-Exceed) limits and automated approval rules to prevent overspending and control costs at both the location and regional level
Monitor vendor performance across metrics like response time, first-time fix rate, and cost per repair
Integrate seamlessly with Microsoft Dynamics 365 so approved invoices flow directly to the accounting team, which eliminates the need for manual invoice processing

OpenWrench’s preventative maintenance feature enables Northland’s facilities team to automatically schedule monthly grease trap cleaning for multiple locations in just a few clicks.

The invoice feature allows Northland’s facilities managers to review all work orders, including attached photos, notes, and messages. They can also filter invoices by status, like paid, processing, approved, and more.

Northland’s facilities team can easily view and update Not-to-Exceed (NTE) limits for each work order, which helps them control their spending and keep critical equipment running.

Results

“OpenWrench has made our day-to-day coordination so much easier. We’ve saved hours by not having to dig through old invoices or chase down vendors for service history — it’s all right there when we need it.”

Peter Winstanley
Facilities Manager
Northland Properties

Since implementing OpenWrench in July 2023, Northland has seen measurable improvements in how facilities issues are handled and tracked for over 11,000 work orders:

32% decrease in average resolution time (from 27.5 days to 18.8 days)
10% decrease in average work order cost (from $915.86 to $826.96)
$512,953 saved in work order costs in 6 months
- Projected to $1M+ saved per year
5% increase in preventative maintenance work orders (from 30% to 35%)
- 35% preventative maintenance vs. 65% reactive maintenance, which aligns with a healthy facilities management program’s goals (30-40% preventative vs. 60-70% reactive)
25,102 emails and phone calls replaced with in-app work order notes and updates
- 63% of work orders had notes
- 3.5 notes per work order on average
- A single work order had 106 messages: A clear sign of how OpenWrench helps streamline communication, even during the most challenging jobs
At least $83,673 saved in administrative labor
- 5 minutes saved per work order note * 25,102 notes = 2,091 hours
- 2,091 hours * $40/hour for admin = $83,673

Northland Properties saw a 32% decrease in average resolution time with OpenWrench's facilities management platform, which makes it easier to submit work orders, follow up with vendors, and close tickets.

Using work order notes to communicate with location staff and vendors, Northland Properties avoided the time-consuming back-and-forth of emails and phone calls. We estimate this saved them at least 2,000 hours and over $83,000 in admin labor costs.

Imagine not having to respond to over 25,000 emails and phone calls. Northland Properties achieved these time savings with OpenWrench's in-app work order notes.

Ready to Scale Your Facilities Management with OpenWrench?

By partnering with OpenWrench, Northland Properties has transformed facilities management from a reactive, fragmented process into a centralized, data-driven operation. As their hospitality portfolio continues to grow, the FM team now has the tools to scale with confidence — and the visibility to stay ahead of equipment failures and avoid budget surprises.

“With OpenWrench, we finally have data, consistency, and structure. Instead of constantly putting out fires, I now have a facilities department I can actually build and improve.”