What is a CMMS?
CMMS stands for ‘Computerized Maintenance Management System’. Often also referred to as maintenance management software, planned maintenance software, preventive maintenance software, and facilities management software to name a few. Computerized Maintenance Management System, or CMMS, is a software package used by maintenance departments to manage all planned, reactive, and contract maintenance activities within an organization.
Which organizations use a CMMS?
A CMMS can be used by any entity required to carry out maintenance on equipment, assets or property, and is used across all industry sectors ranging from manufacturing, packaging, energy, health, education, food and beverage to facilities and fleet maintenance.
Organizations of all sizes, from the smallest maintenance companies requiring a more basic system to the large corporate businesses requiring a feature-rich solution, will have use for a CMMS.
Examples of a CMMS in use include:
Healthcare
Used extensively across healthcare organizations to enable departments to track and manage the maintenance of medical devices and facilities.
Manufacturing
Used heavily within asset-intensive industries such as manufacturing and production to manage the planned and reactive maintenance of plant equipment, machinery, assembly lines, etc.
Facilities Management
Used by organizations that manage the outsourced maintenance of buildings such as office blocks, apartment buildings, hotels, government buildings, sporting complexes, and shopping centers.
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Does my organisation need a CMMS?
It may be that you have no solution in place currently, or are using spreadsheets or an old legacy system or ERP solution, but whatever your situation, you may be encountering issues which you can no longer ignore. Do any of the following scenarios apply to you...?
No existing solution: Why consider a CMMS?
- New management drive to save time and money.
- T Cards and paper-based systems are cumbersome and not scalable.
- Work orders and scheduled maintenance are falling through the cracks.
- Mounting delays and mistakes are proving too time consuming and costly.
- Inefficient process of requesting repairs and receiving notifications.
- The asset base has significantly increased.
- KPI’s aren’t being monitored effectively.
Spreadsheets: Have you outgrown them?
- No automation or automated alerts or reminders.
- History is inaccessible and/or unreliable.
- Manually inputting all data is time consuming and leaves data vulnerable to corruption.
- Limited reporting and dashboard functions.
- Basic functionality / missing key features.
- Not available online.
- No external/technical support.
Legacy system: Is it high risk?
- Capability, customization, and technical support are limited.
- Slow and clumsy to operate/process information.
- Poor reporting and dashboard functions.
- Difficult or impossible to extract data.
- Basic functionality / missing key features such as requests and notifications functions.
- Not available online.
- Difficult to integrate with other e-business solutions.
ERP System: Need something more robust?
- CMMS in an ERP system is often just a complementary add on.
- Only basic functionality offered and often missing key features.
- Might not meet maintenance or industry requirements.
- Lack of scalability and flexibility.
- Lacks functionality and increases workload through inefficiency.
- System being underutilized by users due to inadequate or time-consuming steps.
- The initial and ongoing costs of ownership for ERP systems are typically huge.
