It’s easy to overlook just how much your maintenance team does on a daily basis. The reality is that your maintenance managers, technicians, and supervisors are at the heart of everything you do–from production to compliance, from quality control to cost control, from onsite safety to online security.
The typical maintenance team is tasked with an extremely wide range of responsibilities. For most organizations, the maintenance department will contribute to, or directly oversee, asset management, facilities upkeep, routine equipment servicing, and regularly scheduled inspections. In addition, maintenance activities will usually include a wide range of administrative tasks such as documentation of completed repairs, work order management, inventory management, and more.
These activities are essential to the consistency, continuity, and productivity of your operation, but they can also become cumbersome, complicated, and costly. This is especially the case for large organizations in asset-intensive industries like manufacturing, logistics, and healthcare. For businesses managing large asset portfolios that are distributed across multiple facilities, locations, and even across international borders, running an efficient, effective and affordable maintenance program can present a number of practical challenges.
The growing role of technology in addressing common maintenance challenges
Common challenges for maintenance include frequent equipment breakdowns, excessive unplanned downtime, missed delivery deadlines, premature equipment discharge, high overtime costs, and more. And these challenges are often directly connected to one another. A single inventory error can lead to a stockout of a critical spare part. This can delay a repair, prolong downtime, and cascade into a series of process failures with widespread consequences across your organization.
These challenges highlight the critical importance of a fast, effective, and intuitive maintenance program. Likewise, these challenges hint at the increasingly essential role of technology in facilitating the work of maintenance personnel. Today, advanced solutions like Computerized Maintenance Management Systems (CMMS) are dramatically improving the ability of maintenance teams to not only manage these responsibilities with heightened efficiency, but to enhance their efforts with data-driven insights, real-time performance monitoring, automated processes, and more.
Does your organization need a CMMS?
Most maintenance teams have a lot on their plates. From routine maintenance to emergency repairs, from safety inspections to compliance audits, maintenance technicians will usually be responsible for juggling a high volume of tasks.
The typical maintenance team workload will include responsibilities like:
- Responding to unplanned equipment failures
- Taking corrective measures to minimize unplanned downtime
- Implementing preventive maintenance tasks such as routine servicing and regular inspections to maximize equipment uptime
- Managing spare parts inventory and monitoring stock levels
- Tracking asset performance and maintenance history
- Keeping accurate records of equipment performance issues, repairs, and replacements
- Prioritizing critical assets, delegating work orders, and managing tasks to completion
- Aligning with safety standards, compliance requirements, and industry best practices
Are your maintenance needs growing?
Naturally, as the number of assets and facilities under your maintenance team’s care expands, the complexity of their job grows. And in turn, as the job of attending to these responsibilities becomes more demanding and complex, manual maintenance tracking methods like spreadsheets and paper records may no longer be adequate to handle your maintenance processes.
These traditional maintenance management methods become increasingly susceptible to error, inaccuracy, and process delays as the demands on your maintenance team grow. This is usually the first sign that your organization is ready to transition from manual maintenance management to a CMMS-based solution.
Why do organizations consider CMMS platforms?
An expanding asset portfolio is just one reason that your organization might be ready to implement a CMMS platform. The right maintenance management software solution can provide a broad suite of features and functions to help your organization streamline, simplify and organize your maintenance program.
Below, we take a closer look at some of the factors that might suggest your organization is ready to make this transition:
- High maintenance costs due to frequent and more severe equipment failures, as well as more expensive emergency repairs
- Excessive downtime due to unexpected equipment failures and longer repair lead times
- Difficulty tracking asset histories, warranties, and repairs due to human error and misplaced documents
- Frequent inventory discrepancies and consequent overstocking, stockouts, and long wait times for spare parts
- Work order management challenges due the size of your maintenance team’s workload and the difficulty of prioritizing, tracking, and delegating maintenance tasks
- Compliance failures including penalties, fines, or logistical difficulty aligning with stringent and often changing regulatory requirements
- Safety issues including frequent workplace injuries and accidents
- Expanding operations and the subsequent need for scalable maintenance solutions that can support growing asset portfolios, multiplying facilities, and increasingly complex infrastructure
Any number of these challenges may be an indication that your organization is ready to implement a CMMS. But if your goal is to reduce your operational costs, improve your efficiency, and streamline your maintenance operations, it is absolutely critical that you choose the right CMMS software for your organization.
What’s the best CMMS for you?
While the CMMS software marketplace is crowded with options, there are a number of key factors that make the true leaders stand out. As you seek out the best CMMS platform for your organization, you’ll want to focus on solutions boasting these qualities:
- User-friendly interface with features like customizable dashboards, detailed reporting, and secure user access controls
- Automation of features like preventive maintenance (PM) scheduling, spare parts reordering, work order creation, and more
- Real-time data on asset performance, downtime, maintenance efficiency, and more
- Customizable reporting tools for tracking key performance indicators (KPIs) like Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF), Mean Time to Repair (MTTR), and Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE)
- Mobile access, allowing maintenance technicians to update work orders, access asset information, and log completed tasks from the field or remotely
- Asset management features for tracking asset location, reviewing maintenance history, and monitoring warranties across the asset lifecycle
- Inventory management features for tracking stock levels in real time as well as triggering automatic reordering when stock levels are low
- Customization to your specific workflows, assets, and reporting needs
- Scalability so that the capabilities and scope of your CMMS grow as your organization grows
- Compliance checklists ensuring adherence to regulatory conditions, safety standards, and industry best practices
- Vendor support including comprehensive onboarding, training, and responsive customer service with features like 24/7 support, live chat, and dedicated account managers
- Integration capabilities supporting open APIs and compatibility with popular third-party platforms such as Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems, Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) systems, and a wide range of accounting platforms
How to review and select CMMS platforms
The success of your CMMS implementation will depend in large part on the strategy you deploy as you seek out the right provider for your needs. Below, we outline the process for reviewing and selecting the best CMMS platform for your organization:
1. Build a CMMS task force
The CMMS implementation process will involve stakeholders from across your organization. Be sure to involve these stakeholders at every step in the process. Begin by establishing a CMMS task force made up of stakeholders from key departments. Their cross-functional input will be essential to determining your CMMS software needs.
Your CMMS task force should, at a minimum, include representatives from the following departments:
- Maintenance
- Operations
- Production
- IT
- Finance
- Supply chain/inventory management
- Compliance/HR
2. Assess current maintenance practices
Now that you’ve involved key stakeholders from throughout the organization, you should have sufficient cross-departmental input to effectively highlight areas of inefficiency and identify gaps in your current asset maintenance program.
These inefficiencies and gaps may include:
- Frequent equipment breakdowns
- Excessive unplanned downtime
- High overtime costs for maintenance personnel
- Frequent overstocking and stockouts resulting in inflated delivery costs
- A high ratio of reactive versus preventive maintenance tasks
- Low on-time order completion and delivery rates
Take a closer look at the performance of your current maintenance program and use your findings to identify areas that are due for improvement.
3. Identify maintenance program goals
Now that you’ve identified your current maintenance program’s needs, what are the goals for your new and improved program? What do you plan to achieve by implementing a cutting-edge CMMS platform?
Common CMMS implementation goals may include:
- Reducing downtime
- Lowering repair costs
- Automating inventory management
- Streamlining and simplifying work order management
- Improving operational efficiency
- Data-driven decision making
- Transition from reactive, corrective, and emergency repairs to preventive maintenance planning
4. Calculate anticipated ROI
To secure the necessary buy-in for investing in a CMMS, you’ll need to prove that the CMMS system will deliver value quickly and dependably. There are several factors that you’ll want to incorporate into your calculations:
- Estimated cost savings from reduced downtime
- Estimated maintenance cost reductions
- Increased asset lifespan
- Reduced costs related to stockouts, overstocking, and spoilage
These calculations will prove useful as your work to secure the support of your organization’s key decision makers.
5. Secure executive buy-in
The success of your CMMS implementation will depend in large part on the commitment of your organization’s leadership. The ROI calculations rendered during the previous step will be valuable here.
Provide key decision makers in your organization with a compelling case for investing in this new solution. In most cases, executives will be primarily concerned with the impact of this investment on the bottom line. With this in mind, build your case by:
- Emphasizing the cost savings that come with CMMS implementation such as reduced downtime, fewer costly equipment failures, and more optimal use of maintenance resources
- Focusing on improved operational efficiencies including reduced reliance on manual record-keeping, streamlined workflows, optimal asset performance, and real-time visibility into equipment condition
- Demonstrating scalability by showing how the right CMMS can grow with the company, support new assets, and adapt to future needs
Executive support and advocacy are critical to ensuring CMMS implementation is afforded the resources necessary for success in both the short-term and in the future.
6. Define maintenance KPIs
What metrics will you use to gauge the effectiveness of your new CMMS platform? Identify the key performance indicators (KPIs) that you will use to measure the success of your program.
Common KPIs include Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF), Mean Time to Repair (MTTR), and Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE). Be sure that any CMMS solution on your list offers customizable KPIs to suit your organization’s needs.
7. Review prospective CMMS providers
Narrow your list of potential CMMS providers down to only those that match your specific needs, boast a positive reputation, and fit your budget.
Key questions to ask vendors:
- Does your CMMS integrate seamlessly with existing tools such as EAM systems, ERP systems, IoT devices, accounting platforms, and other asset management platforms?
- What technology does your CMMS platform use to track the location of assets (i.e. barcodes, QR codes, GPS, etc.?)
- Is your 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?
- What kind of customer support is available? Are there training programs, online resources, and regular software updates? Do you offer 24/7 customer support, live chat, or designated project managers?
- Is your CMMS customizable to match my workflows, reports, and standard operating procedures? Can the dashboards and user access controls be customized to suit my organization’s needs?
- What is your company’s pricing structure? Are there upfront costs for implementation? Iis it a subscription-based model? Both? Are there hidden fees for additional users or features?
- Is there a community forum, knowledge base, or company wiki where users can find answers and other reference materials?
- What is the expected ROI timeline? Can you provide case studies to support your projections?
- Does your CMMS offer cloud-based mobile access? Can maintenance team members manage assets securely from the field as well as remotely?
- Can your CMMS system provide visibility into real-time data, customizable reports, and a full spectrum of KPIs?
8. Implement your new CMMS solution
CMMS implementation will require a structured approach, one that takes into account your existing systems and protocols.
- Migrate existing maintenance program data, work orders, and equipment histories into the new system while taking steps to prevent data loss, duplication, and inaccuracy.
- Provide comprehensive employee training for all users, including administrators, technicians, and management.
- Run a small test pilot to identify and address potential issues before initiating organization-wide CMMS implementation.
Finding the right CMMS for your industry
CMMS platforms are used across a huge range of industries. Asset-intensive businesses in a wide variety of sectors depend on the sophisticated capabilities of CMMS software to reduce downtime, streamline preventive maintenance operations, monitor equipment performance in real time, and more.
However, the best CMMS software for your organization will likely also include a number of industry-specific features. Be sure to choose a solution that is either customizable or tailored to your industry. Below, we take a closer look at how different industries may leverage their CMMS software, and how this might impact your vendor selection.
- Manufacturing firms might use CMMS software to automate work orders for regular equipment upkeep, receive notifications for routine inspections, and monitor equipment performance in real time.
- Healthcare facilities might use CMMS software to schedule regular inspections of vital surgical machinery, maintain a record of repairs, and ensure compliance with stringent safety regulations.
- Facilities management teams might use CMMS software to automate seasonal HVAC system inspections, provide rapid response to maintenance requests, and monitor energy usage across multiple buildings.
- Hospitality businesses like hotels, resorts, and spas might use CMMS software to generate work orders for regular room maintenance, delegate specific repair tasks to qualified technicians, and trigger automatic reorders when the stock of critical spare parts or materials becomes low.
- Energy providers might use CMMS software to monitor the condition of power generators and schedule testing or repairs based on real-time equipment performance data.
- Food processing plants might use CMMS software to schedule regular sanitation of production lines, track equipment performance, and ensure compliance with food safety regulations.
- Transportation and logistics companies might use CMMS software to track the location, real-time performance, and routine maintenance schedule for a large fleet of trucks.
Why is Limble the best CMMS?
Limble’s CMMS stands out in a crowded marketplace for its customizable suite of features, its ability to scale alongside user organizations, and our team’s unparalleled customer service.
- Our user-friendly interface simplifies the day-to-day management of maintenance tasks like work order management, inventory management, and documentation. These features helped our client, Midwest Materials, cut unplanned overtime costs by 80%.
- With automated preventive maintenance scheduling, predictive maintenance features powered by IoT sensors, and streamlined task management, LImble’s clients have seen an average 30% reduction in annual downtime.
- With Limble’s streamlined inventory management and centralized asset tracking–including real-time location monitoring, real-time performance data, and warranty management–our clients save $68M per year in annual parts spend.
- Our cloud-based mobile app lets maintenance teams access work orders, update tasks, and track asset data from anywhere–a heightened efficiency which helped our client Sulzer boost its 49% on-time order completion rate to a robust 92%.
- Advanced data analytics and customizable reporting tools make it possible to track key performance indicators like Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF) and Mean Time to Repair (MTTR), a capability which allowed Limble’s clients to identify areas for process improvement and ultimately save $134 million in downtime costs just last year.
But you don’t have to take our word for it. We’d rather you see it for yourself!
Take a guided product tour to see how Limble’s CMMS can help you streamline your maintenance operations. Or, to see Limble in action, schedule a live demo today!
