With the right people and tools, maintenance departments can serve as strategic allies to the broader organization. While there’s no one-size-fits-all solution for transforming maintenance, implementing a CMMS platform is a great way to start seeing the results of more strategic and data-driven decision-making.
What does a typical maintenance program look like?
A typical maintenance program will handle a wide range of important responsibilities for your organization including routine equipment servicing, facilities upkeep, scheduled inspections, preventive parts replacement, emergency repairs, and much more. And while much of this important maintenance work goes unseen, it is also this work that forms that backbone of your operation.
Why is a strong maintenance program important?
A robust preventive maintenance program can keep your critical equipment running smoothly, keep information flowing freely between relevant stakeholders, and keep your unplanned downtime to a minimum. It can also significantly improve the performance and lengthen the expected useful lifespan of your equipment.
But what happens when your maintenance program falls short of these expectations? What happens when your critical assets, operational continuity, and organizational productivity depend on a maintenance team that is reactive and prone to unexpected downtime? What happens when you don’t have a maintenance plan?
Let’s check out a few real-world examples to find out.
The pitfalls of reactive maintenance
- Before optimizing their maintenance program with the help of Limble’s Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS), Ohio-based steel service center operator MidWest Materials was losing an estimated $1 million per year on unplanned downtime and another $250,000 to unplanned overtime costs.
- Before transitioning to a preventive maintenance approach with Limble’s CMMS, Swiss industrial manufacturing firm Sulzer struggled to manage maintenance tasks with an archaic paper tracking system and a failure-based approach to initiating repairs, which resulted in a work order on-time completion rate of just 49%.
- When Todd Rainwater took over as the Director of Facilities and Operations for Hood River County School District in Oregon, he reported that “we didn’t have…a good way of disseminating and tracking work, annual maintenance, or the preventative maintenance that needed to occur.” The result, Rainwater noted, was that the district’s maintenance operation struggled to keep up with work orders. Some projects would remain open and unfinished for years at a time!
This is what it looks like when your business depends on an outdated, reactive, and emergency-driven approach to maintenance and upkeep. The costs of such an approach can add up fast, from expensive repairs and lost productivity to missed delivery deadlines and damaged brand reputation.
Fortunately, the businesses cited above have experienced dramatic improvements with the implementation of Limble’s CMMS and the corresponding move to proactive maintenance strategies. But countless businesses still struggle with outdated maintenance technologies and ineffective maintenance programs.
How do CMMS platforms support maintenance transformation?
CMMS platforms are helping asset-intensive businesses across a variety of industries move to more proactive, cost-effective and data-driven maintenance strategies. Indeed, the CMMS has been a catalyst toward digital transformation for many organizations.
By bringing together a suite of sophisticated maintenance management features, a user-friendly interface, cloud-based mobile capability, real-time data analysis, and advanced reporting tools, the right CMMS can help your organization make the transition toward a more tech-based and cost-effective maintenance program.
The right CMMS can contribute to the success of your next-generation preventive maintenance program by:
- Automating preventive maintenance (PM) scheduling and facilitating a preventive maintenance plan based on time intervals, usage metrics, or manufacturer recommendations
- Maintaining detailed records of every asset in your portfolio along with performance metrics, maintenance history, and repair logs
- Integrating with sensors and IoT devices to monitor equipment in real time and detect early warning signs of potential equipment failures, such as abnormal vibrations or temperature fluctuations
- Streamlining work order management to ensure that tasks are organized, prioritized, assigned to the right technicians, and completed on time
- Managing inventory more effectively by providing real-time visibility into stock levels, tracking the location and movement of inventoried assets and spare parts, and using predefined trigger points to automate reorders when stock is low
- Providing comprehensive data and reporting tools that allow organizations to analyze maintenance performance metrics like Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF), Mean Time to Repair (MTTR), and Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE)
- Supporting predictive maintenance by using historical data and real-time monitoring to predict when a piece of equipment is likely to fail
- Ensuring compliance with regulatory standards by keeping detailed logs and audit trails of maintenance activities, certifications, and inspections
- Offering mobile access to work orders, updates, and other critical information for maintenance technicians working in the field and remotely
- Facilitating collaboration between departments such as production, procurement, and maintenance, and consequently creating better alignment between maintenance strategies and broader operational goals
Building a tech-enabled maintenance program
Implementing a leading-edge CMMS may be the key to creating a tech-enabled maintenance program. However, the success of your new and more sophisticated maintenance program will depend in large part on the strategy you deploy to select, implement, and manage your CMMS.
Assess current maintenance practices
Start by highlighting inefficiencies in your maintenance program and identifying gaps that your tech-enabled maintenance program will address such as the frequency of equipment breakdowns, the sum total of unplanned downtime over a given duration, and the ratio of reactive versus preventive maintenance tasks performed by your maintenance department in a given period of measurement.
Take an honest and data-driven look at your current maintenance program, and use your findings to identify areas for improvement.
Identify maintenance program goals
Before you can identify the right CMMS for your business, identify your goals and priorities. What do you hope to achieve by implementing a state-of-the-art CMMS?
Possible considerations may include:
- Reducing downtime
- Lowering maintenance costs
- Automating inventory management
- Streamlining work order management
- Improving operational efficiency
- Transitioning to preventive maintenance strategies
Define relevant maintenance KPIs
Once you’ve defined your objectives, you need to establish the key performance indicators (KPIs) that you will use to measure your success. KPIs should generally align with business objectives such as reducing downtime, improving equipment efficiency, or extending the lifecycle of your assets.
Review prospective CMMS providers
Use this step to trim your list of potential CMMS vendors based on factors like reputation, customer service, technological capability, pricing model, and integrative compatibility with your existing systems.
Consider incorporating some of the key questions listed below in your vendor vetting process.
Key questions to ask CMMS vendors:
- Does the CMMS integrate seamlessly with existing tools and asset management software such as ERP systems, IoT devices, and other maintenance management platforms?
- Is the CMMS user-friendly for both technicians and managers? How long does it typically take to implement? How long does it take for new users to learn the platform’s features? When do customers typically see ROI?
- What kind of customer support is available? Are there training programs, online resources, and regular software updates?
- Does the CMMS offer mobile access, allowing your team to monitor and manage maintenance tasks on the go?
- Can the system provide real-time data, customizable reports, and advanced data analytics to enable better decision-making?
Implement your new CMMS solution
Successful CMMS implementation requires a structured approach, one that takes into account your existing maintenance strategy, existing maintenance management systems, operational protocols, and organizational culture. Succeeding at implementation will require comprehension, buy-in, and participation from stakeholders every level of your organization.
Build your CMMS implementation around the following key steps:
- Create a cross-functional task force consisting of key stakeholders (maintenance, IT, finance, etc.) to oversee the project and ensure that the system serves all departments
- Secure executive buy-in and encourage leaders to champion the CMMS in discussions with financial decision-makers
- Migrate existing maintenance program data, work orders, and equipment histories into the new system with procedures in place to prevent data loss and error
- Provide comprehensive employee training for all users, including administrators, technicians, and management
- Run a pilot program to identify and resolve any potential wrinkles in your new maintenance processes before full-scale CMMS implementation
Getting the most from CMMS technology
Now that you’ve selected an industry-leading vendor and implemented your CMMS solution, how can you be sure that you’re getting the best results?
Effective implementation and long-term success of your new maintenance program will depending on several ongoing efforts, including:
- Monitoring Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) like those identified above
- Conducting regular system audits and updates, as well as remaining informed on new features, product improvements, or updated industry best practices
- Integrating with condition-monitoring sensors and other IoT devices to engage in ongoing, real-time performance oversight
- Soliciting feedback from end-users and adjusting workflows or CMMS system configurations accordingly
- Leveraging predictive analytics and machine learning features to support the move from reactive to predictive maintenance strategies
Simplify maintenance program management
Simplifying maintenance program management can significantly reduce the burden on your team and ensure a smoother transition to a tech-enabled approach. Limble provides a number of easy-to-use resources that make it simpler to launch and refine your new maintenance program. Among them, Limble offers:
- User templates designed to help you easily create preventive maintenance schedules, work orders, and inventory tracking systems
- Guided workflows that take you step-by-step through setting up your maintenance program, from asset tracking to work order management
- Comprehensive setup guides that walk you through the entire process of launching a CMMS-backed maintenance program
- And a wide range of other valuable resources including webinars, white papers, and conversations with industry experts
Explore Limble’s resources and templates, and start transforming your maintenance program today.
See how these maintenance leaders leverage Limble
So how exactly are real maintenance leaders leveraging Limble in the field? Let’s revisit some of the businesses we mentioned at the start of our discussion.
- Midwest Materials was losing $250,000 a year on unplanned overtime alone before implementing Limble’s CMMS. After implementation, MidWest saw that number plummet by 80%!
- Sulzer was only completing 49% of its orders on time before implementing Limble. Within just two months of implementation, their on-time completion rate skyrocketed. Today, 92% of Sulzer’s work orders are completed on time.
- Todd Rainwater, facilities director for the Hood River County School District, used Limble’s CMMS to transform his district’s aging, outdated and, in his words, “bad” maintenance system into a state-of-the-art preventive maintenance program. “Before,” said Rainwater, “we weren’t very technologically advanced with our work order system — we kind of went from the Stone Age to the modern age!”
See for yourself
Each of these businesses deployed Limble’s CMMS to transform a struggling, outdated, and reactive maintenance operation into a tech-enabled, data-driven, mobile-ready PM program.
Want to experience this transformation firsthand? Take a guided product tour to see how our CMMS can help you streamline your maintenance operations. Or, to see Limble in action, schedule a live demo today!
