By Lindsey Walker
NEXGEN
Have you ever considered deploying a computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) but rejected the idea because it would carry a huge investment cost? Are you of the opinion that only a large enterprise can afford a CMMS? Do you believe that a CMMS would be difficult to integrate into your existing maintenance procedures?
If you are intimidated by the complexity and cost of a CMMS, here are five reasons to consider one.
What is a CMMS?
A CMMS is a software application that allows companies to manage their maintenance work more effectively. It typically includes functions such as inventory management, work-order management, preventive maintenance (PM) planning, inventory control and reporting.
By using a CMMS, companies can improve their maintenance efficiency, reduce downtime, extend the life of their equipment, and ultimately save time and money. The software is widely used in industries such as manufacturing, health care and facility management.
Here are five reasons to assure you that it is worth the investment:
Effective and efficient PM
Unreliable systems often pave the way for equipment damage, inefficient use of energy, untimely replacements, missed PM, safety hazards, manpower shortages, unplanned downtimes and a damaged reputation.
All these issues can be easily prevented by deploying CMMS software that works with negligible human interference. It does everything from tracking and managing PM schedules to pumping out work orders and scheduling inspections. It streamlines periodic maintenance schedules so that vital equipment is serviced on time and issues are mitigated before they invite major repairs and replacements. This not only reduces the chances of sudden system failures but also extends the service life of mission-critical machinery.
Cost savings
Maintenance has always been viewed as a major expense, and this makes convincing senior management to purchase more spare parts or hire more maintenance technicians challenging. A CMMS ensures that all your machinery and maintenance processes run smoothly, and it minimizes the possibility of unplanned downtime, ultimately reducing operational costs by making optimum use of the available resources, whether that includes manpower or spare parts.
Shifting from a reactive approach to a proactive strategy
Reactive maintenance can be seven times more expensive than planned maintenance because it requires labor overtime, emergency call-outs and expensive replacement parts. Reactive troubleshooting typically takes longer to resolve as maintenance technicians might not have all the parts handy and schematics also need to be prepared from scratch. Also, while the reactive repairs take place, your vital equipment remains out of order.
A facility maintenance tool helps enterprises replace their traditional reactive approach with a proactive maintenance routine by generating timely PM checks and preparing predefined maintenance schedules that circumvent sudden breakdowns and system outages.
Boosted performance
Standard operating procedures increase equipment performance and reliability through predefined checklists that ensure the timely completion of maintenance tasks. This eliminates the scope of delays and discrepancies, and ensures conformity to safe work practices.
So how does a CMMS help? It ensures that everything is going just as planned by keeping constant track of work progress and equipment performance. It automates the allocation of maintenance tasks, collects data, generates reports and ensures that maintenance technicians are performing their tasks in a timely and efficient manner.
Instant access to performance metrics and maintenance reports
A CMMS keeps facility managers up to date on all maintenance schedules with real-time access to performance records, repair manuals and schematics. With instant access to who is allotted what, which work orders are completed and which are due, facility managers can streamline and speed up the troubleshooting process.
Real-time visibility into detailed metrics and maintenance reports facilitates an accurate analysis of what has been done and what needs to be done. Using maintenance key performance indicators, facility managers can focus their efforts on proactively identifying chronic issues and unacceptable outages. This helps in implementing changes that will improve workflow and reduce risk.
Supervising staff, balancing finances and managing time can get downright daunting when you are strapped for resources. But modern-day CMMS solutions come with intuitive dashboards, accurate reports and comprehensive graphics that can be used for analyzing past trends and assessing the efficacy of existing practices to make better decisions.
A CMMS is not only a sound investment but also a tool that takes your maintenance system to the next level by empowering enterprises to accomplish much more using the same resources available. It eliminates double jobbing, digitizes the seemingly endless paperwork, gives greater visibility into parts inventory and cuts all the additional costs related to enterprise-resource planning and work-order administration. When it comes to offering tangible results, a fully loaded CMMS can increase the service life of your vital equipment by 50 percent.
Lindsey Walker is the marketing manager for NEXGEN, an industry leader in designing advanced CMMS and asset-management tools for utilities, facilities, public works and manufacturing. She is committed to creating content that connects well with her readers, enhancing their digital experiences.
