CMMS: the advantages of an innovative maintenance application

Mobility Work

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28/12/2021

min

CMMS is an IT tool essential to the activity of maintenance professionals, especially in industry but also in other sectors of activity such as facility management or the management of a vehicle fleet. It facilitates the work of maintenance teams, reduces costs and increases productivity, and helps to develop a preventive maintenance strategy.

CMMS software has undergone significant developments in recent years. Old software that is expensive and difficult to use has been replaced by applications that are much less expensive and very easy to use, which is encouraging more and more companies of all sizes to adopt a CMMS to improve the monitoring and organization of their maintenance.

To help you understand what a good CMMS solution can do for you and to help you choose, we answer your questions here:

Definition of CMMS

The term CMMS refers to a computer-aided maintenance management method. More generally, it is an IT solution that helps company maintenance departments to monitor, organize and analyze their maintenance interventions and strategies.

This maintenance management method is primarily intended for industry but also for all sectors of activity that have equipment to maintain (real estate, vehicle fleets, sports equipment, etc.).

What are the functionalities of a CMMS?

The most common functionalities of a CMMS software are the following:

management of machines and equipment (inventory, location, etc.);
management of maintenance interventions (intervention reports);
management of requests for interventions;
spare parts inventory management;
management of the maintenance staff schedule;
management of maintenance costs (labour, spare parts, etc.);
monitoring of key performance indicators, or KPIs (MTTR, Pareto, MTBF...).

Why implement a CMMS?

A CMMS software has many advantages for the industrial sector but also for other sectors of activity. It thus allows:

to have a stocktaking complete and up to date of equipments to be maintained;
To have a tracking exhaustive of maintenance interventions carried out, and therefore to have traceability and the costs associated with these operations;
to centralize all of documents related to equipment, whether technical, administrative or financial;
to define and implement actions of preventive maintenance to be carried out on machines and equipment (cleaning, greasing, checks, regulatory controls...)
to manage the spare parts stocks and to provide alerts for replenishment according to defined thresholds;
to coordinate the work of all maintenance workers both internal and external (subcontractors, manufacturers...)
to measure, analyze andoptimizing maintenance activities: hours of work, costs and productivity gains, availability, reliability and lifespan of equipment...
to collect and process requests from operators of production (repairs, improvements...);
To take better rulings concerning maintenance (replacement of equipment, choice of suppliers...).

Who are the stakeholders involved in CMMS?

The use of CMMS software can involve a greater or lesser number of people depending on how it is used:

The techs maintenance workers are the first to be concerned: they use it to know their schedule, know what tasks they should perform, enter their intervention reports, etc.;
The service providers services that intervene regularly or occasionally on the equipment;
The chiefs maintenance engineers use it to schedule teams, assign tasks to different technicians, analyze and improve maintenance processes, etc.;
The teams of production make requests for intervention in the software;
The services spare parts and purchases can follow the evolution of stocks in the software and make the necessary purchases;
The chiefs of a factory or establishment can track the costs associated with maintenance and the productivity gains it allows.

What are the advantages of a CMMS?

Maintenance management software not only facilitates the work of teams but also:

to develop the share of preventive maintenance in the company, before limiting the number of breakdowns and production stoppages;
Ofimprove the security maintenance technicians, for example through mandatory checklists to follow for sensitive interventions;
of fluidify the inventory management Of spare parts and to avoid any shortage of stock;
to promote a good communication between the various departments of the company (maintenance, production, production, purchasing, accounting, etc.);
to analyze andoptimize maintenance processes in order to make them simpler and more efficient, by setting up APIs to automate intervention requests or by following key maintenance indicators.

The use of a CMMS is therefore beneficial both to the safety of maintenance teams and to the productivity of the company.

Une checklist de maintenance dans une GMAO

Mobility Work CMMS makes it possible to associate checklists with maintenance tasks.

Can Excel be used as a free CMMS?

Many factories use the Excel spreadsheet to track their maintenance interventions, which allows them to benefit from a kind of free CMMS software.

The main advantage of using Excel to manage maintenance is that businesses already have this software and therefore don't have to spend more money on a specific solution. In addition, keeping track of maintenance interventions in the spreadsheet is more reliable than doing it on paper documents such as a notebook or notebook. Finally, it is a very flexible solution that makes it easy to customize the categories of data to be filled in.

On the other hand, Excel also has a number of drawbacks: entering information can be painstaking, analyzing data is complicated, sharing information is limited, and there is no easy to use mobile version of this software. That is why more and more companies now prefer to choose a solution that is specifically designed for maintenance.

How to choose a CMMS?

Choosing the right software for your business may seem very complicated, but by studying certain criteria in particular, your choice will be easier.

Choosing a CMMS that is easy to use

While some companies operating in very specific sectors of activity may need a very specialized CMMS, most have an interest in turning to a multi-purpose solution, which will therefore be easy to appropriate by maintenance teams and by all other users.

A mobile application

Choose a CMMS with a mobile version is a real advantage: technicians can thus have access at any time to the information they need to carry out their interventions (safety checklists or technical documents, for example) but also enter their intervention reports as soon as they have finished a task. Numerous losses of time and information are thus avoided, and it would be a shame to deprive yourself of this advantage.

Une application de GMAO mobile sur smartphone

Mobility Work CMMS includes a mobile application

The importance of computer security

Since the data entered in the maintenance management software can be sensitive, it is important to ensure that the solution you choose provides serious guarantees in this area. If you opt for software that works in SaaS (which is the case with the most efficient ones), it must provide very serious guarantees of security And of reliability, in order to always be available and effective and to guarantee the integrity of your data. The most recognized hosts are AWS (Amazon Web Service) and Google. In addition, ISO 27001 certification is a guarantee of seriousness for information management.

The quality of customer service

As simple as it is, the implementation and use of a CMMS often involve calling on the publisher's customer service, or support,. It is therefore strongly recommended to ask the latter for accurate data on the responsiveness and effectiveness of its user support service.

Why choose Mobility Work CMMS?

Mobility Work's next-generation CMMS was created based on a simple principle: to be fully effective, maintenance management software must be used by all stakeholders and for all maintenance activities. Therefore, it must be easy to use and adapted to the tasks of those who use it.

The use of Mobility Work CMMS is therefore very simple. This solution uses the codes of everyday applications so that it can be used very quickly. In addition, it is easily configurable and customizable in order to adapt to the needs and preferences of all maintenance professionals.

Here are the main advantages of Mobility Work CMMS software:

Management in fashion Saas, no installation required
Friendly interface and optimized user experience, for a facilitated adoption by maintenance teams
Update regularly and at no additional cost
Data integration gratis
Limited cost
Connectivity to ERP (SAP and others)
Support service included
Mobile app at no extra cost and offline mode for use without an internet connection
Free “Production” and “Provider” profiles
Official catalogs from numerous suppliers available in the app

To start using it and benefit from a 7-day free trial, visit our solution page or download the mobile application on Google Play or the AppStore.