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Business.com Guide to Maintenance Management Software

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Contents

What is CMMS? 4

CMMS Advantages 6

CMMS Application Modules 8

CMMS Key Features 10

CMMS Trends 13

CMMS Step by Step 15

Calculating the Total Costs of CMMS 18

Business.com Checklist for CMMS 20

Glossary of CMMS Terms 22

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What is CMMS?

Computerized Maintenance Management Systems (CMMS) automatically forecast, monitor, schedule, track, and archive standard upkeep tasks performed at required intervals for equipment or

facilities. Maintenance intervals can be based on hours in use, frequency of use, monthly periods, or other manufacturer specifications. For example, an automotive CMMS would track fleet vehicles, scheduling them for oil changes every 3,000 miles, or for a new air filter every 12 months.

The elimination of paperwork and manual recordkeeping results in these benefits from installing and using CMMS:

¾ Improved resource utilization and minimized operational downtime, extending equipment lifespans at minimal expense.

¾ Improved productivity by maximizing equipment uptime and maintaining peak operating conditions.

¾ More effective deployment of maintenance staff.

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¾ Reduced insurance premiums due to fewer equipment malfunctions and a safer workplace.

¾ Reduced and liability and ensuring compliance with legal obligations. Certain types of equipment (e.g., medical equipment, elevators, fire sprinklers) are required by law to be inspected and maintained at specified intervals. Ensuring work is performed as legally mandated protects against lawsuits and damages.

¾ Better decision-making. Identification of underperforming equipment and procedures, labor inefficiencies or reasons for outages enables better and more accountable maintenance decision-making.

CMMS is used by maintenance departments and/or business units responsible for certain equipment (e.g., the motor vehicle operations department that is responsible for company-owned fleet vehicles) in one or more locations and facilities. This distinguishes CMMS from Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) systems which, though similar in purpose, oversee all of a company’s assets (including digital assets), not just those of a single department or facility.

In many cases, there are CMMS packages customized to the needs of a specific industry, such as airlines, rental car companies, or for a specific use, such as building maintenance.

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CMMS Advantages

CMMS manages maintenance tasks easily, effectively and efficiently to save time, materials and labor costs. CMMS capabilities that streamline maintenance operations include:

¾ Real-time access to parts and equipment inventory to achieve accurate, quick, and timely replenishment that saves money by maintaining inventory at appropriate stock levels.

¾ Reducing redundant stock and eliminating costly surplus.

¾ Obtaining a “single picture” of preventative maintenance at multiple facilities to optimize activities.

¾ Immediate access to electronic reports eliminates time-consuming manual data reconciliation and delays in receiving paper-based reports from multiple locations/facilities/ departments; all data are instantly shared and accessible across organizations.

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¾ Automatic notification of warranty expirations to schedule parts replacements and maintenance to avoid expensive post-warranty repair costs.

¾ Generating customized reports to fit needs of different departments, managers and maintenance operations, e.g., organizing data by geography, asset, equipment type, department, or other attribute.

¾ Analytical reporting for work orders and maintenance identifies operational inefficiencies and provides other actionable insights to improve bottom line performance.

¾ Generating work requests at “source” level, i.e., users of the equipment.

CMMS generates customized reports to fit needs of different departments, managers and maintenance operations, e.g., organizing data by geography, asset, equipment type, department, or other attribute.

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CMMS Application Modules

CMMS may comprise all or a combination of the following application modules:

¾ Asset Tracking. Maintains details on equipment, machines, buildings, vehicles or other assets such as purchase date, cost, depreciation, anticipated lifetime, warranty information, and maintenance history.

¾ Inventory Tracking. Maintains current location status of equipment, parts, tools, and other materials. A scheduling system allows personnel to reserve tools and check equipment in and out of inventory as needed.

¾ Purchase Tracking. Real-time updates of when and where supplies were purchased, quantities, and total purchase costs. May also send out automatic requests for quotes to qualified vendors, triggered by predefined low stock levels.

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¾ Preventive Maintenance Scheduling. Establishes when maintenance is to be performed (based on calendar dates, meter readings, or other custom-set triggers) and coordinates other scheduled tasks, e.g., reserving equipment required to perform maintenance, issuing and tracking work orders, and scheduling necessary personnel and/outside maintenance personnel.

¾ Maintenance Monitoring. Monitors current equipment conditions and compares with historical performance trends. Automatically schedules service tasks based when certain indicators (e.g., noise, vibration, temperature, pressure, flow) fall outside of normal boundaries.

¾ Work Order Tracking. Creates work requests and implements work order process, including scheduling maintenance/repairs, assigning personnel, reserving tools/materials for work to be performed, determining downtime, and logging work completion and updated equipment status.

These capabilities may be sold as separate packages rather than as a single complete system. Separate modules must fully integrate with your existing capabilities.

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CMMS Key Features

Key features of maintenance software include:

¾ Alerts. Automatically notify appropriate managers/technicians of an upcoming maintenance “event” and any associated activities that might be combined to minimize asset downtime. Alerts are delivered by text message or email, or automatically sent to a printer and are triggered by:

� preprogrammed calendar entries

� equipment meter readings

� inventory levels

� upcoming maintenance schedules

� user-defined conditions

¾ User-Defined Meters. Set variables such as frequency of use or miles driven to monitor whether equipment is used within defined parameters and generates an alert when equipment has exceeded its normal range.

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¾ Maintenance Documentation. A library both of manufacturer-recommended maintenance schedules and historical maintenance work performed for each item of equipment.

¾ Barcoding: A quick scan of equipment’s barcode immediately retrieves its entire history, saving on manual search time and improving efficiency. Moreover, new information can be easily associated to the barcode and becomes immediately a part of its history, accessible to all other authorized users.

¾ Mobile Capabilities. Technicians frequently work in the field or other locations where a desktop or even a laptop computer is not readily accessible or convenient. Mobile access allows the same functionality from a smartphone or tablet as from a desktop or laptop computer to generate work orders, track maintenance status, and perform equipment inventory. In addition, voice recognition and speech-to-text systems common to most mobile devices let the technician record notes simply by speaking. These recorded notes automatically become part of the equipment’s history, eliminating the need to manually enter data, thus improving not only the efficiency of the technician, but reducing the possibility of errors.

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¾ Asset Ranking. These tools grade equipment performance according to user and manufacturer criteria, calculating the costs of operation and predicting probable lifespan based on how well the equipment meets, exceeds, or fails to satisfy the specified criteria.

Asset ranking tools grade equipment performance according to user and manufacturer criteria, calculating the costs of operation and predicting probable lifespan.

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CMMS Trends

¾ On-Premise Hosting vs. Cloud Computing. A recent survey of maintenance professionals found that a majority (66%) preferred CMMS hosted on-premise. This is in contrast to the growing trend in the software services industry toward cloud hosting (essentially a series of large servers in one location shared by a multitude of users). However, a CyberMetrics whitepaper predicts that CMMS users will catch up with the general trend because cloud computing offers richer functionality without the traditional expense and overhead of a dedicated IT staff required for on-premises solutions.

¾ Strategic Partnerships. As the industry moves towards cloud computing, there is a concomitant move away from “vendor as supplier” to “vendor as partner.” The CMMS provider offering SaaS (Software as a Service) has a different customer orientation -- the focus is no longer simply on installing the system and moving on to the next installation. Instead, it is working with customers on a continual basis to help achieve goals that evolve in tandem with their business.

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¾ Ease-of-Use. CMMS is not intended for your IT department, but regular folks who just want it to work without having to spend inordinate time deciphering cryptic instructions. Fortunately, just about every major CMMS vendor is trying to outdo one another in making software that is easy to learn, simple to navigate, and flexible to accommodate individual needs. Look for packages that are easily personalized to your needs.

¾ Pricing. There is no one standard pricing methodology, which may, unfortunately, make comparing quotes feel like comparing apples to oranges. Some vendors set a different price for each type of user (work requestor, maintenance technician, administrator), while others price by module or functionality, and still others price simply based on hourly usage. Rule of thumb: Look first at what packages are in your budget range, then compare feature/functionalities offered at the quoted price points, and then look at how that pricing is calculated.

Just about every major CMMS vendor is trying to outdo one another in making software that is easy to learn, simple to navigate, and flexible to accommodate individual needs.

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CMMS Step by Step

1. Set goals. What are you looking to achieve by implementing CMMS? Is it to standardize processes across the company? Reduce operational costs? Create efficiencies and reduce choke points? All of the above? These are all general kind of questions. Once you’ve got some general sense of where you want to go, it’s time to set goals -- specific goals that are measureable, attainable, and relevant to how your business works, and can be accomplished by a reasonable deadline. Example: The current average time between a creation of a work order and its completion is four days; the goal is to shorten that time by two days, and to achieve that within 30 days of implementing your CMMS.

2. Develop a plan to achieve your goals. For example, say, your goal is to track the use of tools that get checked in an out of inventory to perform maintenance. What kind of data do you need to develop and how do you need to track it? Only you can make that decision. So, you have to determine if you have a numbering scheme in place to record inventory, and whether it is compatible with the CMMS programs under consideration. If not, what changes might you need to make and at what cost? Is it better to change your numbering scheme to suit the requirements of the CMMS, or to look for a CMMS that can better adapt to yours? Answering those kinds of questions leads to a plan of action that can support your goals.

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3. Separate the necessary from the nice-to-have. Make a list of the features and functions you absolutely need to achieve your goals. Make a separate wish list of capabilities that might be nice to have. Don’t even consider the wish list until after you’ve checked off everything on the first list.

4. Think about the big picture. What other systems will your new CMMS interact with, and can they be integrated? Do you need mobile capability? Cloud-based or on-premise storage? An IT department that can fully support whatever CMMS you get? Or are you going to rely on the vendor?

5. Standardize. Many organizations have multiple facilities, each with separate maintenance staff and different ways of performing maintenance. But the whole point of CMMS is to get everyone “on the same page,” so that as personnel move from one facility to another there’s no learning curve required to adapt to a different set of processes. Consequently, the company as a whole works more efficiently among its various departments and locations.

The whole point of CMMS is to get everyone “on the same page,” so that as personnel move from one facility to another there’s no learning curve required to adapt to a different set of processes.

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6. Get buy-in. The latest and the coolest technology may be the latest and the coolest, but it doesn’t necessarily mean it works for your employees and your processes. As with any technology purchase, you need to get commitment from everyone involved -- not just management and maintenance personnel, but everyone who may interact with a maintenance issue, i.e., anyone who might submit a problem report. Your CMMS solution needs to work for everyone -- or it won’t work, no matter how cool or current the technology.

7. Phase-in. When implementing new technology, it’s best to phase-in one component at a time, to get people used to something new, but also to gather experience that helps you prepare and implement the next phase. Most vendors recommend starting with computerizing work orders first, then preventive maintenance operations and, lastly, the most data-intensive function, inventory control.

When implementing new technology, it’s best to phase-in one component at a time, to get people used to something new, but also to gather experience that helps you prepare and implement the next phase.

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Calculating the Total Costs of CMMS

There are costs of implementing CMMS beyond the price of the software. These include:

¾ Hardware upgrades/acquisitions to implement CMMS.

¾ Software upgrades to implement CMMS. (For example, some packages run only on the most current versions of Windows, so if you’re still running Windows XP, most likely you’ll have to buy an upgrade.)

¾ Training costs.

¾ Support costs.

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¾ Cost of implementation beyond the vendor’s time, e.g., how much time is estimated for personnel to learn the system, which is time they won’t be doing their jobs.

¾ Learning curve costs; what’s the reasonable anticipation of work slowdowns while people learn the system?

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Business.com Checklist for CMMS

My Needs Vendor 1 Vendor 2

What I am looking to do:• Track assets• Inventory Control• Track Purchasing• Schedule Preventive Maintenance• Monitor Maintenance Activities• Create/Track Work Orders

Features/Functions:• Alert Notification• User-Defined Meters• Maintenance Library• Barcoding• Mobile Capabilities• Asset Ranking

Hosting:• On-premises• Cloud

Pricing:• Number of Users• Type of Users• Module/Functions• Hourly Usage

Hardware modifications/upgrades required?

Software modifications/upgrades required?

Seamless integration with existing IT system?

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Support:• On-site Training• 24/7 Email, Chat, Telephone Support• Free Upgrades?

Days of training required to gain a basic understanding and proficient use on the level of:

• Manager• Maintenance Personnel• Non-Maintenance Personnel

Other costs beyond implementation?

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Glossary of CMMS Terms

Administrator: Person(s) responsible for managing CMMS; administrative rights and responsibilities include performing backup operations, issuing passwords, authorizing users, and ensuring security.

Asset: Equipment, software, hardware, building, tools, or other resource that has economic value.

Bill of Material: An identifying tag placed on spare parts that associates it to the appropriate equipment.

Chargeback: Allocating expenses to a third-party (e.g., charging a tenant for maintenance work on rented equipment).

Corrective Maintenance: Work that fixes an existing problem, as opposed to preventive maintenance intended to avoid future problems.

Cost Center: Organization or department that is held responsible for paying expenses incurred to perform maintenance or other work.

Demand Maintenance: Work performed in response to a specific request.

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Downtime: Period when equipment is unavailable for use because it is being repaired or is broken.

MTBF: Mean Time Between Failures. Average length of time equipment remains running before something breaks.

MTBR: Mean Time Between Repairs. Average length of time before repairs are likely to occur.

Planned Downtime: Interruption of equipment service due to scheduled maintenance.

PM Task: Preventive Maintenance Task. Typically, a checklist or set of step-by-step instructions on how to perform a specific maintenance job.

Preventive Maintenance: Regular “check-up” work intended to prevent future problems, e.g., inspection, lubrication, part replacement.

Unplanned Downtime: Interruption of service resulting from equipment failure.

Work Order: Description of a maintenance job distributed to personnel who perform the maintenance. An open work order is something scheduled but not yet performed; a closed work order means work has been completed.

Work Request: Typically submitted by non-maintenance personnel to provide details about a problem in order to generate a work order.