Computerised Maintenance Management Systems Adam Adgar School of Computing and Technology

What is a CMMS? Computerized Maintenance Management System Very important operational and management tool Management of assets, improving reliability, reducing downtime. CMMS functions: automating administrative tasks gathering relevant information develop and manage a maintenance strategy plan schedules for maintenance, replacements, upgrades. If you do not have a CMMS, should you be considering one? If your organization has a CMMS, are you optimizing its benefits and its return on your investment?

Why use a CMMS? The primary purpose of a CMMS is to manage, capture, and track inspection, maintenance and repair activities of an organization. Basic CMMS functionality providing work orders to cover repairs and maintenance of buildings, plant and equipment. They provide a scheduling facility for maintenance for planned preventive work on maintainable assets. And they also generally collect costing details for the labor and materials related to the work performed. Advanced CMMS functionality analyse maintenance and repair processes visualise trends eliminate manual data entry incorporate alerts, triggers, and escalation procedures shift focus from administrative tasks to maintenance activities. assist in planning and predicting future needs, prolong asset life, manage processes.

Requirement for CMMS Regularly scheduled equipment inspection and maintenance prevents sudden and unexpected equipment failure and reduces overall costs The management of these programs, in particular reporting their current status and future needs, requires a CMMS. Managing the operation of on-site maintenance staff and contractors is a daunting and difficult task, however, if there is a corresponding record within the CMMS then this tracking and management is much easier. Even if you are duplicating data to what is in your contractor’s CMMS (the contractor’s CMMS may not be on your premises), it is extremely important that you have your own copy of data. Your contractor may cease to exist and for the sake of future reference and reporting it is essential you have your own CMMS populated with your own data.

CMMS Information Consideration what information is stored – what do we WANT to keep, and what do we HAVE to keep? manufacturer’s specifications management requirements , there are many statutory requirements and regulations that impact on this question such as fire, health and safety, and environmental legislation. Statutory requirements (programs) could be entered into a CMMS as a scheduled maintenance plan with labor, materials and costs for projecting estimated future costs. By keeping a corresponding record in the CMMS and using the job number as a cross reference to the paper record, the organization is able to quickly report on the status of the statutory work in preparation to annual signoffs and/or audits. Those of you who have had work place safety audits are aware that the first question asked is ‘Where are the maintenance records?’ A maintenance plan that includes estimated costs can be compared with the actual costs to ensure the effectiveness in the cost of asset preservation.

Selection of a CMMS There are hundred of CMMS software packages on the market. A major problem is to select the most suitable package for the organisation. Look within your own organization and determine what is happening with the maintenance and inspection functions. Check if there is an existing maintenance program in place, check its functions and who manages the information gathering process. Determine what maintenance is required to be performed on the assets. Prepare some sort of brief as to the facility’s minimum and optimum requirements for a CMMS, the resources to manage the database and time frame for implementation. Research between 3 and 5 providers. Have them present their product to assess the package in terms of ease of use, functionality and ability to meet your requirements. Evaluate each proposal for specific CMMS functionalities: Does it address your specific requirements? Does it minimize unnecessary or duplicate data entry? Can you automate administrative tasks, reminders and notifications of upcoming events? Can you incorporate inspections, and other activities in your CMMS? Can you manage and track inventories? Web accessible? PDA version What is its ROI? This is a simplistic approach to the selection process, however, it will give most managers a good starting guide to the selection of a CMMS.

Benefits of using CMMS Guarantee that all required tasks and activities are completed on time. Incorporate various mechanisms to ensure execution of tasks, including automatic listing of activities, reminders, alerts, escalation procedures, and easy access to information. Improve reporting and analysis capabilities. Comply with Health and Safety Regulations. Improve Business Planning and make informed decisions. Improve operational efficiencies. Increase productivity and profitability. Perform activities effectively; simplify repeatable tasks; provide your staff with easy to use tools that focus on performing tasks. Let your staff spend more time performing service activities and less time on paperwork and data entry. Improve strategic and business planning; Analyze records, needs and patterns. Identify trends and highlight potential problem areas. Improve controls and accountability; Lead to better quality of work. Ensure that service is performed according to warranties, guidelines and regulations. Receive customized reports delivered to your email. There are many additional benefits of using a system using handheld devices, in comparison with manual or paper-based processes: minimizing errors, increasing accountability, and having the ability to quickly turn data into useful information. Last, solutions must be cost effective and providers must be able to demonstrate their business case and ROI (Return-On-Investment).

Need for a CMMS Requirements depend upon the size of the organization, type of assets, number and quality of staff available. Should data be kept on computer - can it all be done on paper? Often preparation of reports for management is difficult and time consuming because the raw data is not readily available Well-designed and easy-to-use CMMS solution can improve daily activities as well as index and sort through years of information related to the maintenance, cleaning and strategic planning of buildings, plant and equipment. Regardless of the size of an organization a database of the work performed must be maintained. Automation includes improvement of daily activities, automatic tracking of inventories, better work assignments, and shift of your focus towards exceptions, not routine matters.

Further Work Read the article Shibi, E. (2005) Common-Sense CMMS: Combining Software and Handhelds. Maintenance Technology, Vol. 18, No. 1, pp 47-49. www.cmmscity.com/articles/common_sense_cmms.htm