The CMMS consists of Software, Process, and Roles.

Introduction

For those of you who believe the CMMS is just a work order tracking system for creating tickets and measuring worker performance, you are dead wrong. The CMMS should be seen as a core system essential to asset management and the bottom line. But if you failed to see this potential or lacked the vision to set it up properly ... then what can I say. Hey, it's never too late to right a wrong.

The CMMS is Truly the Elephant in the Room

The CMMS is not just one inconsequential element. It may be represented as part of a larger framework for asset management, but without its existence, you are down the gurgler. Unfortunately there are many that never understood this potential. They did not care about data quality. They didn't have a utilization plan. Basically, they didn't know what they didn't know. As an implementer of CMMS systems, I've emphasized the importance of advanced processes which require a combination of software/data, process/procedure and roles/responsibilities. The potential is there to do great things but you still need a vision for excellence.

The Elephant Needs Direction

Who Provides Leadership in Asset Management for your Organization?

The executive level has the big picture but it is up to core team to pursue industry best practices and create the ideal path forward. The executive level is not going to tell you how to set up the CMMS. Nor should you assume the out-of-the-box product, once installed, will magically improve reliability.

The core team, led by the asset manager, is responsible for creating the asset management system. They will have cross-functional representation and include key roles such as reliability engineer, business analyst, planning/scheduling supervisor, CMMS administrator, and gatekeeper. As a group they will provide leadership in asset management - and have the power to get done what needs to be done. In summary, the core team will be accountable for the success, or failure, of the CMMS within the asset management system.

Best in Class Organizations have a Plan for Continuous Improvement

It is these organizations that understand advanced processes. In order to optimize cost and ROA you need to ensure you are doing the right work to the right asset at the right time. They also have a long range plan which identifies the prerequisites to each of these milestones. Lastly, they are aware of the shortest path to value.

Design the CMMS to Extract Knowledge and Manage by Exception

Seize the day. Create a living program for RCM within the CMMS. Anyone can implement a basic CMMS but only a few can design it for excellence. Yes, you can electronically track work order counts, worker productivity, and asset cost but there is little benefit beyond that. And, you could have the world's most powerful CMMS but only be tracking (asset) cost.

When Failure Data cannot be Aggregated, then This is What Happens

What exactly is failure analysis? Is it a group of people sitting at a table reading printed work orders to glean useful information?

This is What Should Happen

The reliability team should meet monthly. They go over a host of topics. But one of them is to run the bad actor report. This output would show the top 10 worst offenders based upon whatever metric the team chooses (by answering a report run option). You could also pre-filter the set on asset criticality or asset condition grading.

But don't stop there! The reliability team wants to know why these assets are in trouble. And with a properly designed failure analytic (or dashboard) the team should be able to point-click and drilldown on the 3-piece failure mode for the selected asset. And because the failure mode is captured as 3 individual fields, this drilldown can be shown as 3 separate pie charts. Now, we are truly leveraging data inside the CMMS.

Other Related Notes

(1) Most CMMS products do not have a failure analytic that can pull a bad actor report. Therefore this report must be designed.

(2) Most CMMS user communities do not have good sort-metrics to apply to the bad actor report and therefore cannot extract worst offenders with confidence. My preferred metric is the AVERAGE ANNUAL MAINTENANCE COST divided by REPLACEMENT COST (which is the #1 SMRP economic metric). But, the user communities either do not have total costs being calculated, or, they never populated asset replacement cost.

(3) Many do not have a reliability team. Or, the leadership simply believes the conference room approach reviewing one WO at a time is adequate to perform failure analysis. In other words, they do not trust the data in the CMMS, or do not believe this software will ever be capable of performing this process.

(4) The failure mode drilldown is usually not performed because they do not have validated failure data on the work order.

Define Your Plan for Success - Achieve Greatness - Sustain Excellence

Sometimes you have to reverse-engineer the prerequisites. You start by identifying the advanced process which delivers the most benefit and then work backwards. And for some, the best place to start is with training in asset management.

** Other Links to Advanced Processes **

How to Reduce Reactive Maintenance

The SMRP 80-20 Proactive Ideal Model

Automatic Resource Leveled Weekly Maintenance Schedule

Data Quality Plan

Essential Elements for CMMS Optimization

Qualities of a Reliability Culture

Create Comprehensive System for Asset Management

A Reliability-Centric Design for CMMS Products