Three Ways CMMS Brings Organizational Value and Drives Business

On October 23, 1989, the?Phillips Petroleum Houston Chemical Complex?– located in Pasadena, Texas – suffered a series of massive explosions. The explosions claimed 23 lives and injured 314 workers. Investigations into the incident later revealed that the cause was serious maintenance errors which could have been avoided with better supervision and monitoring. The plant produced high-density polyethylene and, during routine maintenance, an improper closure of valves led to a leakage of gases. When those were exposed to the source of ignition, an explosion resulted equivalent to that of 2.4 tons of TNT.

According to OSHA, the plant had several maintenance issues and facilities management gaps that were linked to the explosions. These included poor SOPs, inadequate maintenance systems, crowded process equipment, and faulty ventilation apparatuses. A disaster of this magnitude not only highlighted the deficiencies in the manual maintenance processes but also led to a slew of penalties, and financial and reputational damage for the organization.

The Changing Paradigm of Maintenance and Facilities Management

More than three decades later, maintenance specific challenges and pain points continue to plague enterprises.?For instance,?the cost of downtime has hit a high of $532,000 for every hour. Enterprises across asset-intensive industries including manufacturing, healthcare, and public sector continue to face an average of 25 incidents of unplanned downtime, resulting in a loss of about 27 hours of productivity every month.

In this revolutionary digital era, there is a growing need to modernize operations and take an outcome-oriented approach to maximize business value. As organizations focus on enterprise-wide digitization, there is a critical need for maintenance and facilities management functionalities to be holistically transformed. Aided by emerging technologies and an increasing emphasis on data-driven insights, maintenance will have to be smarter, faster, and predictive. By digitally reshaping maintenance and facilities management end to end, enterprises can automate various manual functions, ensure thorough safety, optimize asset utilization, and gain complete visibility. Computerized maintenance management systems (CMMS) will play a business-critical role in their quest of building a strong maintenance infrastructure.

A Data-Driven, Forward-Looking Approach to Maintenance Management

CMMS has played an integral role in documenting and standardizing maintenance practices for decades. In its modern form, it covers an even wider range of maintenance functionalities. Modern CMMS is capable of storing and processing maintenance and repairs data, proactively providing insights to enable asset health forecasts and driving outcome-driven maintenance practices. It plays a crucial role in combining preventive and corrective maintenance plans empowering maintenance teams across industries.

As the scope of CMMS grows, so has its market value and enterprise acceptance.?According to reports,?the global CMMS market is projected to be worth $3.8 billion by 2032, up from $1.5 billion in 2021, growing at a healthy CAGR of 8.8% in the forecast period. With emerging technologies like AI/ML, RPA, and IoT making large-scale impact, CMMS can help centralize all maintenance-related data and aid enterprises in maximizing their ROI in digital transformation initiatives. The role of CMMS is not limited to maintenance alone. By optimizing the value of CMMS, enterprises can achieve business KPIs, improve operational efficiency, and increase agility and flexibility.

The Unique Value of CMMS

With CMMS promising to transform maintenance activities, enterprises must leverage data-driven insights to make informed decisions that address current challenges and impact future business value. Maintenance can no longer be looked at as a siloed, tertiary function. Three ways why efficient maintenance must be treated as a critical driver of business:

• Building outcome-aligned strategies:?CMMS garners data and provides optimal value to enterprises with vital insights on their operational efficiencies and deficiencies, wear and tear of equipment, and the need for corrective measures. CMMS-enabled maintenance strategies take a reliability-centered maintenance approach that enables enterprises to proactively identify problems, increase productivity and reduce costs by making timely, insights-aided decisions. With end-to-end real-time observability through intuitive dashboards, CMMS can help enterprises radically improve their overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) while increasing the mean time before failure (MTBF).
• Utilizing cloud computing for faster, seamless outcomes:?Cloud-hosted CMMS availability offers maximum accessibility, on-demand scalability, and easy configurability. This greatly reduces costs, improves flexibility, and enhances overall data security. By opting for a cloud-enabled CMMS, enterprises can benefit from real-time maintenance data, minimal manual intervention, and zero investment requirements related to physical infrastructure or frequent upgrades.
• Ensuring complete compliance:?Maintenance and facilities management efforts are bound by strict national and international guidelines to ensure optimal safety and security. With timely reporting and tailored dashboards, modern CMMS allow enterprises to stay abreast of regulatory commitments, streamline processes, enforce enterprise-level safety policies that can reduce the number of workplace incidents.

The TMA Systems Edge

For more than three decades, TMA Systems has been providing valuable CMMS solutions to enterprises across healthcare, education, corporate, public sector, and manufacturing. With comprehensive technical support, TMA Systems has emerged as a partner of choice for several world-leading enterprises. Our robust solutions help facility professionals perform their duties with minimum hassle and maximum efficiency. To know more about TMA System’s comprehensive CMMS solution, contact us today at?[email protected].