Why Use a CMMS Software?
Companies both large and small recognize the importance and value of effective maintenance management. Maintenance software is an essential maintenance management tool that reduces equipment downtime and increases the capacity of your equipment by automating maintenance tasks. Below are some of the ways in which CMMS software can help your organization reduce costs and increase profits.
What Is Your Organization’s Maintenance Strategy?
The maintenance strategy that you follow has a significant impact on your company’s bottom line, but many maintenance managers have trouble selecting an appropriate strategy or overlook their approach altogether. It’s important to develop a mix of different strategies to properly maintain your assets and ensure that they remain in working order. There are three basic types of maintenance strategies:
Preventive
Reactive
Predictive
Unfortunately, some organizations wait until a component fails before they take action to repair or replace it. All assets require periodic maintenance to continue running efficiently. Finding the appropriate balance of maintenance approaches is key to minimizing asset downtime and repair costs while maintaining a safe environment for workers.
Preventive Maintenance
Preventive maintenance is maintenance that takes place before something breaks down. It is a time-based or run time approach that is carried out at predetermined intervals to reduce failure risk or performance degradation of assets. The aim of preventive maintenance is to minimize unplanned downtime and reduce repair costs. Preventive maintenance cannot always prevent asset failure, however.
Reactive Maintenance
Reactive maintenance, also known as the run-to-failure strategy, is when you take action after an asset fails. Since you only spend money when something breaks, the reactive maintenance approach might seem cheaper but it costs you more in the long run. Reactive maintenance shortens the life of assets and may cause them to break down more frequently. When you are in reactive maintenance mode, most of your daily maintenance activities are driven by unforeseen problems. This also increases production cost as inevitably a breakdown will occur in mid production due to improper maintenance.
Predictive Maintenance
Predictive maintenance is a condition-based approach to maintenance. Rather than servicing assets on a fixed schedule, you evaluate the condition of components to determine whether they need to be serviced. Predictive maintenance is suited to your largest, most expensive, and most complex assets. It should be combined with preventive maintenance for the best results. Examples of predictive maintenance include oil analysis, thermal analysis, and vibration analysis.
Once a robust predictive maintenance program is put into place, organization often find that they are able to optimize or even eliminate time-based or run time preventive maintenance routines. Predictive maintenance enables maintenance technicians to monitor and manage the condition of assets to a high degree of reliability, so asset failure is all but eliminated.
Tips for Optimizing Your Maintenance Strategy
Benefits of optimizing your maintenance strategy include extending asset life, reducing asset failures and downtime, minimizing repair costs, and improving health and safety. Start by assessing your current maintenance strategy to identify its strengths and weaknesses. Assign a maintenance strategy to each asset you have based on its level of criticality.
Assets that have a high consequence of failure are considered highly critical assets. Monitor the condition of highly crucial assets continuously with a predictive maintenance plan to protect them and predict failures. Assets of low-to mid-level criticality should be monitored with preventive maintenance.
A run-to-failure strategy (reactive maintenance) is ideal for assets that aren’t considered essential. Reactive maintenance should be used if the consequence of failure is so low that it makes sense to allow the asset to fail rather than spend valuable maintenance time performing predictive or preventive maintenance tasks.
Most companies find that they have to use a combination of predictive, preventive, and reactive maintenance strategies for the best results. When implementing a maintenance strategy, it’s important to have CMMS software in place to track your work and schedule. Documenting the condition of your assets with an enterprise maintenance management system over time also enables you to identify opportunities for improvement and increased efficiency.
10 Advantages of Using CMMS Software
Overseeing the maintenance of a facility, manufacturing operation, or fleet can be a daunting task, to say the least. The introduction of computerized maintenance management software has changed the face of maintenance and facilities management and improved the overall efficiency of maintenance departments both large and small. CMMS systems are invaluable tools that bring the following 10 advantages.
1. Plan and schedule preventive maintenance
Computerized maintenance management software automates the scheduling of inspections and maintenance, preventing the occurrence of maintenance problems and expensive repairs. Switching from reactive to proactive maintenance also extends the life of equipment while reducing the overall operating costs of the maintenance function.
2. Manage work orders efficiently
Software for maintenance and facilities management improves workflow and efficiency by allowing you to schedule, assign, and close work orders quickly and easily. A CMMS gives you the ability to automatically track all work orders in the system and capture the history associated with every piece of equipment.
3. Manage spare parts inventory
When a maintenance department is disorganized, it can be difficult for maintenance managers to find the parts they need, when they need them. A CMMS system allows maintenance managers to track assets that need to be maintained and set up the automatic reordering of parts, so they have the right parts on hand and can perform repairs quickly. A CMMS also tells you exactly where the parts you need are stored, so you don’t waste any time searching through storerooms.
4. Eliminate paperwork
Using software for maintenance and facilities management helps to eliminate the need for paperwork and clipboards because the software can be set up to capture information automatically. Furthermore, maintenance personnel can view all information related to work orders on their computers or mobile devices. Therefore, maintenance technicians don’t have to search through folders and filing cabinets to find the information they need.
5. Enhance productivity
Maintenance software can be linked to mobile devices, enabling maintenance technicians to access real-time information, check inventory, and initiate work orders without returning to the office. This reduces their journey time. Maintenance software also provides maintenance technicians with details about the procedures, parts, and tools necessary to perform a job, so they can work without delay or interruption.
6. Reduce downtime and repair costs
Downtime is costly both in terms of revenue loss and damage to an organization’s brand and reputation. When you focus on planned, preventative maintenance, equipment downtime is minimized. Because a CMMS system enables you to regularly maintain structures and assets, they are less prone to breaking down, which means that repair costs are also reduced.
7. Increase safety
Computerized maintenance management software aids organizations in regularly checking and maintaining equipment and meeting safety standards to prevent malfunction and critical failures. This minimizes the loss of work time due to accidents and makes your equipment safer both for operators and the environment.
8. Keep a finger on the pulse of your organization
Increase your understanding of your assets and organization by using the business intelligence dashboard feature in your CMMS to monitor key performance indicators (KPIs), look at the big picture, and create reports for decision makers. By using a CMMS to analyze historical data and trends, maintenance managers can identify problems areas, like rising costs, low productivity, or constant repairs.
9. Ensure compliance with regulatory standards
Maintenance and facilities management systems must often comply with national and international regulatory standards. All maintenance managers face periodic audits or random inspections by regulatory agencies. Maintenance software allows you to demonstrate regulatory compliance and reduce the amount of preparation and paperwork that’s required for an audit. Maintenance managers can simply generate reports detailing the maintenance work performed on vital machinery. This makes compliance easily traceable and reduces the risk of noncompliance penalties.
10. Reduce overtime
Computerized maintenance management software can cut overtime significantly by reducing the need for emergency maintenance and repairs. By scheduling maintenance, maintenance staff can work more efficiently and effectively.
The cost savings that organizations achieve with the implementation of maintenance software can be staggering, but it’s critical to choose a CMMS with the right functionality as well as work with the right partner to maximize your return on investment (ROI). An experienced vendor can provide you with the support you need today and as your maintenance operation evolves.
