6 key features to lookout for when selecting a CMMS for your business

The task of selecting a suitable Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS) for your business might prove to be a tedious one. Yet, once purchased and implemented, a CMMS for your company will be well worth your investment.  CMMS software offers a multitude of benefits including reduced downtime, improved inventory management, decreased costs, increased asset lifetime, and improved operational efficiency and productivity. 

To ensure your business reaps maximum benefits from CMMS implementation, it makes sense to purchase a CMMS software that has the following key features: 

1.Work Order Management 

One of the key benefits of a good CMMS software package is its work order management feature. Besides the ability to generate work orders automatically according to a predetermined maintenance schedule, this feature also allows authorized workers (technicians and management) to place maintenance requests and inventory orders on the spot. Thus, the ideal CMMS software also allows authorized workers to customize work orders for repairs and maintenance. 

Here’s a list of tasks handled by a CMMS work order management system:

• Processing of work requests
• Crafting a sound resource availability and assignment schedule
• Assigning available parts
• Tracking warranties
• Tracking downtime
• Open work order tracking
• Scheduled job information – frequency (time, hours, meter), job steps ( including safety requirements), resources needed (job estimates), parts and tools needed, required downtime
• Creation of scheduled and on the spot work orders
• Closure of work orders 
• Inventory management
• Extensive data analytics

2. Preventative Maintenance

The objective of preventive maintenance is to help you proactively perform maintenance, repairs, and replacements so as to prevent failures before they occur. A preventive maintenance plan will keep your company’s operations running efficiently; extend the lifetime, and enhance the performance of your assets; and lower your assets and equipment maintenance costs drastically.

Here’s a list of all the benefits of the preventive maintenance feature of a CMMS software:

• Increased productivity 
• Prevents downtime
• Reduction in maintenance costs/ prevention of major repair work
• Enhanced safety and work environment
• High return on investment (ROI)
• Extends the life of assets (and equipment)

The preventative maintenance feature of a good CMMS will keep your companies operations running optimally. Through the help of a CMMS, users are able to determine which maintenance tasks are required, schedule them, and determine the tools and equipment necessary for implementing the particular maintenance task. In this way, emergency faults are greatly minimized and the systems are always in top-notch condition.

3. Asset and Equipment Management

The role of assets and equipment is paramount to your business efficiency. A business’s assets and equipment are responsible for the production of its products, which in turn are what help in servicing customers and delivering value to them. Thus, it should come as no surprise that equipment failure leads to decreasing a business’s’ ability to function successfully. 

Whether your business is in one location or multiple locations, a robust CMMS will maintain a database to simplify asset and equipment management.

Here’s a list of metrics a robust CMMS should be able to track with reference to asset and equipment management that is crucial to a business’s success:  

• Information on what equipment you have and where (locations) you have it
• Maintenance tasks and schedules
• Safety certification procedure pertaining to each type of equipment
• Comprehensive equipment maintenance log (revealing record of instances of equipment failure)
• Information on downtime and reported error codes

4. Inventory Management

Inventory management is central to any maintenance management system. When it comes to scheduled maintenance, nothing is more crucial than ensuring that all parts and equipment required (inventory) for repairs are available on time. The role of inventory management is to ensure exactly that.

Here’s a list of benefits the best CMMS offer:

• A real-time inventory management function
• A requisition system for:
  • making purchase orders
  • invoicing
  • receipts and return forms
  • eliminating purchase delays

In a nutshell, this feature of a CMMS helps save time, simplifies the assignment of tasks, and eliminates the chance of errors. 

5. Maintenance Reports and Analytics

The information captured in the CMMS helps in overall inventory management and planning. Kinds of information stored include the work history, maintenance tasks and schedules, equipment specifications (including serial numbers and warranties), equipment lifecycle information,  and asset code numbers. CMMS software streamlines data entry procedures and has inbuilt capability to generate meaningful reports from recorded data. 

How are these reports useful to management? Using such asset or equipment information from the system’s database, the system identifies potential problems and automatically generates alerts to maintenance managers. Also, a good CMMS will generate easy-to-understand graphs or charts, which you can print, for quick analysis.

Basically, maintenance reports assist maintenance managers to identify the problem equipment and take the required steps. This will help businesses in reducing equipment break down,  saving them valuable time and money.

6. Mobile CMMS

Mobile CMMS software through mobile CMMS apps enable maintenance managers to see work orders, set maintenance reminders, and approve requisition requests, all remotely.

The key advantage of deploying a mobile CMMS system for your organization is to up the bottom line of your enterprise. A mobile CMMS app allows technicians to access all their tasks from their own mobile device (smartphone or tablet) with ease. In effect, they complete them in the most efficient order, thus, saving time and improving ROI.

Conclusion

Extensive Research and essential vetting are crucial if you want to improve the productivity of your business. The above CMMS software features are essential for today’s competitive business environment.