What is a CMMS?

What is a CMMS?

A CMMS product is a software package that enables the creation of work order packages, stores job plans and safety plans, captures actuals (labor, parts), and maintains an inventory catalog and asset registry. It also generates PM/PdM work orders for servicing and condition monitoring. But, by itself, it needs the support of surrounding processes and procedures to enhance asset availability, worker productivity, or job safety.

There is a Benefit of Moving from Paper to Digital

If the organization is installing a CMMS for the first time, then there will be an efficiency benefit by moving away from paper files. But, after go-live, rainbows and puppy dogs are not guaranteed. The goal is to work on the right asset, using the right strategy, in the safest manner, at the right time, by the right resource, at minimum total cost. Unfortunately, many organizations are still mired in reactive maintenance after installing the CMMS.

Creating a Culture of Reliability

It’s really up to leadership to create a culture of reliability. Asset management is a profession and it requires knowledge. An asset management & reliability program combines managerial art with engineering science to coordinate all asset management activity within a business enterprise, to realize maximum operational and financial value from the business' critical physical assets.

What Comes With the CMMS Once Installed?

  • There is no bad actor report; no backlog growth/size trending.
  • No recognition of failure mode (the language of reliability-centered maintenance).
  • You might have WO priorities but you can't rank the backlog.
  • Cannot produce a weekly maintenance schedule.
  • There is no prebuilt PM library. You’ve got to load this, but should you assume the legacy (paper) “database” is accurate enough? This will be your biggest challenge/concern.
  • You may have an inventory catalog but odds are the reorder details are NOT good enough to activate automatic parts reorder.
  • If the organization was reactive before implementation, there’s a 99% chance you will be reactive after go-live.

Where did we go wrong?

Maybe there was no CMMS utilization plan.

Data is a critical tool in managing by exception. Having accurate data eliminates subjectivity and human bias. Capturing the right failure data enables accurate failure analysis. Conversely, bad data makes advanced analytics and automation impossible.

Actionable Data is Important. But that is not the End Game.

The end-game requires meaningful reports, read by savvy individuals capable of making decisions and taking action.

Do you have a plan for post go-live?

Does this plan address CMMS utilization? Is there a data quality plan?


Hannes Eloff

Superintendent I, Maintenance Planning at Ivanhoe Mines, Kamoa Copper, DRC.

8 个月

One day....i'll write a cmms book on what not to do...??

Adriaan Scheeres

Pragma Director and Co-founder

8 个月

Thanks for sharing

Fritz Cooper

ERP & Supply Chain Consultant @ The Supply Chain Guy | CSCP

9 个月

John, as always a direct, informative, highly readable article.

Hernán Rincón

SAP Plant Maintenance | Data Warehouse | CMMS | Reliability | Data Analyst | Aeronautic Maintenance Planning | Inteligencia de Negocios | Analista de Datos | Mantenimiento Aeronáutico | Consultor SAP PM

9 个月

a very important thing is to have clear the criteria to create the equipment into the CMMS and their criticality, based on that the maintenance strategy is the next

Vladimir Krasniansky

Founder at AnyMaint

9 个月

Great view on the very important industrial process! But some things are changes... - The database hasn't to be relational anymore. This says a little to the end users maybe, but NonSQL solution really changes the product. - AI related tools became a reality, seamlessly change a lot of things in the data analysis, planning, troubleshooting and PM policy. - IOT availability besides 5G bandwidth allows to connect much more assets faster and chipper than ever, and integrate the data in the CMMS As a CMMS company, we are less focusing on how to help users adopt our product, but mainly on how our product fits customers needs and processes, helping to improve without "forcing" to do so. The customer's process is reactive? Maybe this isn't best practice, but we will help to react faster, and to find the way to the proactive work.

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