Plant maintenance management software (PMMS) is a tool that helps you plan, schedule, track, and optimize your plant's maintenance activities. It can improve your plant's reliability, productivity, safety, and profitability. But how can you streamline your PMMS to make it more efficient and effective? Here are some tips to help you.
The first step to streamlining your PMMS is to evaluate your current system and identify its strengths and weaknesses. You can use a SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) to compare your PMMS with your plant's goals and needs. You can also gather feedback from your maintenance staff, managers, and operators to understand their pain points and expectations. This will help you find out what features and functions are essential, what are redundant or obsolete, and what are missing or desired.
Moving to a new PMMS (CMMS, or EAM), for example a company moving to a new platform. Each plant may have different: software brands, process operations, procedures, complexly, needs, etc. They may have a system that “works for them” or “they know how to work”. The change of an endeavor like this needs to really be focused on the people that use it everyday. First - understanding the purpose and value the PM system is supposed to provide. Instead of finding a better software that does the thing you may not need to do….just better. Go to the floor, store rooms, and meetings where the PM system is being used. Spend days if possible with each business unit. Work along side them, listen to their take on how it helps their job or doesn’t.
The next step is to select the best PMMS platform for your plant. There are many options available in the market, ranging from cloud-based to on-premise, from modular to integrated, from generic to industry-specific. You need to consider several factors, such as your budget, scalability, security, compatibility, customization, and user-friendliness. You also need to check the vendor's reputation, support, and updates. You want a PMMS platform that is reliable, flexible, and easy to use.
The third step is to implement your PMMS properly and ensure a smooth transition. You need to prepare your data, hardware, software, and network for the installation and configuration of your PMMS. You also need to train your staff on how to use the new system and provide them with manuals and guides. You may need to assign a project manager or a team leader to oversee the implementation process and resolve any issues or challenges. You want to minimize the disruption and downtime of your plant operations.
The fourth step is to integrate your PMMS with other systems and devices that are relevant to your plant maintenance. For example, you can connect your PMMS with your enterprise resource planning (ERP), computerized maintenance management system (CMMS), asset management system (AMS), or Internet of Things (IoT) devices. This will enable you to share and synchronize data, automate workflows, optimize schedules, monitor performance, and generate reports. You want to create a seamless and smart PMMS environment.
Integration of the maintenance software with others, for example ERP (production planning, finance) are important. The integration with Production Planning helps schedule the planned / preventive maintenance for each asset, and completion of a maintenance order requires reconciling the effort and spares consumption. A reporting tool, integrated with the maintenance application will provide the standard reports asset-wise like MTBF, MTTR, asset wise failure propensity and other specific reports which will help in fine tuning the maintenance process.
In my experience integrating PMMS with your production planning and scheduling system is very important. Any planned or unplanned downtime data of machines should be available to production planning system so that MRP and manufacturing execution plan is accurate and practical.
The final step is to review and improve your PMMS regularly and keep it updated and aligned with your plant's needs and goals. You can use key performance indicators (KPIs), metrics, dashboards, and feedback to measure and evaluate your PMMS's effectiveness and efficiency. You can also conduct audits, inspections, and surveys to identify and eliminate any errors, gaps, or bottlenecks. You want to continuously improve your PMMS and make it more streamlined and powerful.
The key aspect of any maintenance process is the process itself. The process needs to be reviewed constantly and updated based on experiences. A simplified process with automation of the process, and proper capture of data (planned maintenance reports, breakdown maintenance reports etc) will help create a database and help determine the process effectiveness.