A Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS) is a software tool to help manage and track maintenance activities such as scheduled maintenance, work orders, parts inventory, purchasing and projects. The CMMS gives full visibility and control on maintenance operations so everyone can see what’s already been done and what still needs to be done.
Dashboard KPI’s help measure current performance against those defined goals.
The CMMS also helps maintenance managers get more organized by reducing their dependence on paper, whiteboards and memory by automating many mundane mundane daily activities.
A CMMS also helps users identify recurring tasks that need to be done or prioritized, ensuring nothing is overlooked. One of the biggest benefits of a CMMS is increased labor productivity as the system can help plan and track work so technicians can complete their tasks without interruption. With proper planning and tracking, the maintenance team is a lot more organized.
More importantly, a CMMS can help an organization become more health and safety compliant in a number of ways. Safety procedures can be included on all job plans ensuring technicians are aware of the risks ensuring the organization is compliant and ready for those audits. Using a CMMS, you can schedule preventive maintenance work orders and get alerted automatically when PM’s are due. You can also see all the work done to an asset in the past so you can optimize maintenance schedules or troubleshoot existing breakdown issues.
Why is having a CMMS important?
There are countless books written on why a CMMS is so important but the following is a short summary. A CMMS:
Will assist the facilities maintenance manager with work reception, planning, control, performance, evaluation, and reporting.
Helps extend the life expectancy of assets.
Optimizes the use of scarce resources such as manpower, equipment, material, and funds.
Automates administrative tasks & digitally store all relevant information for effortless future recall.
Helps efficiently tracks proper maintenance, repairs, inspections, installs or upgrades of assets.
Eliminates extensive paper trails by automating processes through easy-to-navigate functionalities thus minimizing keystrokes and maximizing productivity.
Provides a one-source database for all asset related information.
Accurately predict the costs of materials and labor for future projects.
Objectives of CMMS Implementation
Improve machine availability and reliability by reducing downtime and emergency repairs.
Improve operational efficiency and optimize the life-cycle cost of assets.
Implement a mission critical business information system without any service disruptions or loss of revenue.
Manage cash flow and future costs
Be an adaptable organization that provides dependable service at optimum efficiency.
Accurately calculate true assets management costs using centralized performance management systems.
Efficient integration of software into work processes; increasing labour productivity and reducing maintenance related overtime by eliminating redundancies and duplicate entries.
Identify reporting processes, flow and techniques.
Understand and analyze maintenance and repair process/trends.