Whether your organisation works in retail, hospitality, manufacturing or transportation, proper facility maintenance is essential to ensure product and service quality.
CMMS means a computerised maintenance management system, helping your industry develop by providing the maintenance team with the data needed to perform tasks and manage work orders.
A CMMS software will save the time your maintenance teams spend each week on routine maintenance of heavy equipment, machinery, parts, and more.
CMMS means maintenance software that helps create a virtual repository of data related to an organisation’s overall maintenance activities.
With CMMS, you can save time by automating manual processes like work orders, maintenance schedules, and tracking.
This article concerns what is CMMS means and how to buy the right CMMS software for your business needs.
What does a CMMS mean?
CMMS means a computerized maintenance management system, a software solution for automating an organisation’s maintenance activities.
It is a centralised web and mobile software that collects and stores all maintenance information of your company, such as work orders, assets, logs, work history, inventory, suppliers, purchase orders, maintenance reports and more.
So, your maintenance team can manage all these activities from one place.
CMMS in maintenance could do the following functions:
- Automate maintenance.
- Deliver maintenance team with real-time, actionable reports.
- Reduce manual work and costs.
Industries Needing A CMMS Maintenance System
Every industry with maintenance activities could benefit from CMMS software. But mainly, your organisation will go under one of these four CMMS users.
CMMS for big industries
Heavy industry includes mining, construction, manufacturing, energy, and aircraft.
Maintenance management costs a lot in these industries because equipment failure will cause significant damage and losses.
They have large and expensive systems with long system life cycles, very high downtime costs, and strict safety regulations.
CMMS for Fleet maintenance
It is used for fleet management and ensuring that the vehicles and transportation are in good condition.
For fleet maintenance, using CMMS means managing maintenance operations of car rental services companies, trucking companies, farming businesses, government organisations, and more.
CMMS for Facility Management
Building maintenance is essential in facilities management. It means the management of fractures, electrical systems, and other building assets and equipment.
CMMS will ensure all building systems are working correctly by managing the building maintenance.
It is used in hotels, casinos, museums, aqua parks, commercial buildings, and more.
CMMS for Field Maintenance
Field maintenance aims to manage a wide range of independently functioning assets.
CMMS for field maintenance can be used in most of the above industries, but we have some common specific examples, such as:
- Management of communication infrastructures such as base stations.
- Maintenance of various parts of the power network.
- Commercial properties and ground maintenance.
- Go to people’s homes and maintain and repair medical equipment.
All of these examples have one thing in common. The CMMS supports its maintenance team. Its maintenance team supports its assets. Its assets support its revenue. And that is what a successful CMMS will do for your organisation.
The Benefits of CMMS software
There are many advantages of computerized maintenance management system software you should know.
One of the key benefits is managing maintenance teams, contractors and resources more effectively and organising tasks with other departments and business goals.
Some of the main benefits are:
- Manage work orders.
- Optimise tasks.
- Automate job requests.
- Customer Portal for Service Requests.
- Manage preventive maintenance schedules.
- Control and assign employees, crews and shifts.
- Improve asset/equipment reliability.
- Reduce equipment downtime.
- Manage and reduce maintenance costs.
- Improve productivity.
- Inventory management.
- Maximise safety.
- Adherence to compliance and security regulations.
- Quickly adapt to changing technology.
- Extensive reporting functions.
- Generate KPIs for easy analysis of maintenance work.
What is the best CMMS maintenance system?
The best CMMS software will depend on your requirements and the maintenance team’s needs.
But there are some specifics you should look for when you choose a CMMS for your organisation. These aspects are:
Easy & Simple to learn and use
Easy CMMS means quick access to the necessary information and reports.
The best CMMS should be super easy to use by you and your maintenance system every day.
Integrated and Mobile
Your best CMMS should be integrated with other systems your company uses (like ERP).
It also needs to have a mobile app to have access from home and to be available online.
Good customer supports
The best CMMS will come with a support team to implement the maintenance system, assist you with a long-term plan, track results, and overcome errors or mistakes.
How much does CMMS Software cost?
CMMS costs depend on how you need it and on your business needs. Six factors affect the cost of CMMS, including:
1- Software costs: subscription fees are increased with the number of features, various levels, and customisation availability of the software.
2- Hardware costs: when you need a mobile CMMS app to access CMMS software from your phone, you will need to spend extra fees to purchase a mobile device.
3- Training & support: you may need some money for training on using the system to make your team comfortable while using the software.
4- Implementation: You are paying for the services of a CMMS vendor to configure the system and transfer data.
5- Integration fees: Integrating and linking the CMMS with other software your company uses is essential.
6- Scaling the CMMS: Scaling your software as your business grows can cost additional money.