The KISS Principle May Sound Good but Fall Short in the Long Run

A CMMS implementation can be done several ways. The size of the organization however can determine (or limit) the features that are selected - as well as experience of the implementers. Very small organizations (e.g., less than 5 technicians) will certainly be restricted. That said, even large organizations can make poor decisions.

Perceptions Matter

The legacy system may have been just paper, or it could have been Excel. Thus going to a modern CMMS can require significant change in routine, e.g., time to update a work order. Plus, there can be fears by the working level that management is using this software to track their productivity. But if done right, the CMMS becomes a foundational element of a broader asset management system.

What Goals does the Organization Have?

There are some organizations that only want to open/close work orders and record hours. And 15 years from now, that is still all they want. No worries.

But there are other small-to-medium size organizations that want to leverage the CMMS to make better decisions. Example decisions include refining PM strategies and frequencies; managing backlog growth; tracking maintenance budgets; extracting bad actors (as in assets); how to reduce reactive maintenance; and what work should be chosen for a weekly schedule.

Best-in-class organizations focus on the true endgame which is return on asset and profitability. More importantly, they rely on the CMMS to function as a core system that is essential to continuous improvement. Odds are great, they have a plurality of reliability leaders throughout the organization.

Assessing your Current Status

If you had a facilitator (usually an outside consultant) conduct an assessment, they would review the mission/vision statement, company objectives, interview leadership, and interview the working level. The facilitator would also describe industry best practices for reference purposes. The project team and facilitator would document future objectives and the necessary prerequisites to get there. This information is then converted to a long range plan based on "shortest path to value" and resource leveled. This plan might span 5 years and be reviewed annually to incorporate new technology.

Chronic Failure Analysis

Lets assume the company wants to use the CMMS to perform chronic failure analysis [this is not root cause analysis]. This process involves a reliability team that relies on a bad actor report . But seeing how they are just starting out with the CMMS and learning the system, they could be years away from this milestone. However, it would be a good idea to start capturing the failure data in year one. And that's the primary takeaway. Implementers that apply a standalone KISS strategy would not be aware of the long range plan and prerequisites to get there.

Is the Benefit Worth the Additional Effort?

Failure analysis requires failure data. The burden falls to the maintenance technicians as they must spend 1-2 minutes extra completing each repair work order (assuming it is a functional failure) to enter the failure data. Although this is not a lot of time, they may complain about the change in process. Or, they may fear that management is going to use this data to second guess their activities and perform a blame game.

Change Management

The trick is for the implementers to properly explain the purpose of this system and how it could help them make better decisions to stay competitive in the long run. With the help of a seasoned consultant, they might draw-up (on paper) the bad actor report, and show this to the technicians and explain how the reliability team would use this to manage by exception and improve maintenance strategies.

In Summary

If the KISS strategy does not include a long range plan and the endgame is never discussed, then the staff would never understand the purpose and benefit of chronic failure analysis. But if they did understand, then they could modify their work order update process to capture failure data and be ready-to-go once the reliability team is created and bad actor report is implemented 2-3 years from now.