CMMS: what are the challenges for your business?

Just a few years ago, maintenance was perceived as a separate field, foreign to the company's activities. Overnight, the field of maintenance evolved at lightning speed to become indispensable for businesses. The arrival of Industry 4.0 and new generation CMMS has revolutionized this field, thus becoming the center of business concerns as well as a real driver of competitiveness.

Nowadays, factories are facing ever tighter delivery times and ever more demanding quality standards, making it difficult to ensure production deadlines. To meet all requirements, production tools must function optimally continuously throughout their life cycle. CMMS is therefore an indispensable tool: a CMMS (Computer-aided Maintenance Management System) is a software that helps companies ensure sustainable production and optimize processes through the monitoring and planning of their maintenance activities.

In the midst of traditional maintenance solutions, other solutions are emerging that are more modern, easier to use, and more in line with the needs of today's factory. These are new generation CMMS, like Mobility Work, the first social network and platform dedicated to maintenance professionals, offering both a maintenance management solution and an interface dedicated to suppliers.

Faced with all these traditional solutions or solutions from Industry 4.0, how do you choose the most suitable one for your needs?

Why opt for a CMMS?

Good maintenance of the machine park improves the technical and economic results of the company every day as well as the quality of its products.

The essence of maintenance is to ensure the smooth operation and availability of machines and various production equipment. However, the practice of so-called “corrective” maintenance does not make it possible to achieve this objective since this type of maintenance only occurs following a failure. So-called “preventive” maintenance was born to prevent breakdowns through planned and regular maintenance interventions. Unfortunately, visual inspection and preventive maintenance alone also do not guarantee the uninterrupted operation of the production line. This method provides very little visibility into the actual condition of the machine and may result in unnecessary operations and maintenance costs. On the other hand, the predictive maintenance, or predictive, which can be combined with a preventive maintenance strategy, provides better results. Predictive maintenance is a technical and administrative design that makes it possible to monitor machine data in real time to prevent potential failures and avoid pitfalls in an effective and efficient manner.

All maintenance strategies share the same vocation: to optimize production by minimizing breakdowns. However, these strategies are not foolproof and cannot eliminate the risk entirely. Therefore, the choice of strategy to put in place becomes all the more important in order to reduce the risk as much as possible.

Maintenance management software is there to help implement the chosen strategy, refocus communication and avoid information losses that are potentially disastrous for the entire production chain. Installing a computer-aided maintenance management solution facilitates the maintenance process in the company, also reduces the resources used, and facilitates maintenance planning. This system makes it possible to compile information in order to have a history of the condition of the machines and the costs generated by maintenance operations.

All the news relating to current interventions are available from the Mobility Work application news feed

The advantages of a CMMS

Choosing and implementing a maintenance management solution can sometimes be difficult if it is not intuitive or requires a long period of training. Nevertheless, these systems are increasingly present in all factories and are now an integral part of maintenance processes. Why is computer-aided maintenance management so popular?

It's very simple: these solutions meet a need and bring real added value to the company. For a factory, the main advantages of management software stand out, among others, in 3 areas: maintenance, data analysis and safety.

Maintenance

These solutions, and in particular the so-called new generation maintenance management software, from Industry 4.0, make it possible to reduce unexpected downtime by preventing potential breakdowns. This type of IT solution communicates and records machine data in real time (from sensor feedback or entered directly by technicians) to avoid unpleasant surprises and act as soon as necessary. This system streamlines production and maintenance processes, which makes it possible to improve quality while guaranteeing compliance with delivery deadlines.

Maintenance operations are requested in real time, and are accessible to everyone: easily and quickly at the right time. Communication between the various teams is facilitated, in particular thanks to the news feed inspired by social networks, offered by the Mobility Work platform: production teams can send intervention requests, and receive information concerning the consideration of their request in real time. In addition to this, the operator of a machine can also be trained to perform first level maintenance immediately, which empowers him and increases the availability of maintenance teams. They can then focus more on critical incidents. The indirect benefits of this fluid maintenance are the increase in the lifespan of equipment, the optimization of the availability and performance of the machine, the increase in productivity and energy savings.

Accurate data analysis

The data collected by the factory sensors is available in the maintenance management software thanks to the software's open APIs, and allows better visibility on the real state of the machine park. In addition, this data is analyzed in real time using the ultra-powerful Big Data tool directly integrated into the Mobility Work application. The user thus obtains a precise knowledge of the real maintenance costs supported by these very precise figures.

The major risk is to be overwhelmed by the massive amount of data that is sent and collected in a factory. Follow-up can be done via an Excel file but it quickly becomes unreadable. The alternative is to consult the data directly in the CMMS software, which was designed to eliminate this problem by filtering the data in order to provide only the information necessary for the proper management of the business. Thanks to dynamic dashboards, Mobility Work offers you a quick and real-time analysis of your field data.

Security process

The safety of people and the work environment is essential and numerous health and safety processes are put in place in factories to prevent the risk of accidents. Despite strict safety standards, maintenance jobs remain risky jobs. Defective equipment can be dangerous for anyone who comes into contact with it during production, maintenance, and repair activities.

Maintenance management makes it possible to reduce the risk of accidents thanks to a good preventive maintenance routine. Preventive maintenance makes it possible to anticipate breakdowns and to intervene before the equipment becomes dangerous or no longer meets its optimal operating conditions. In addition, the software manages the safety of equipment before maintenance activities (consignment, de-consignment, etc.) to be able to guarantee a healthy working environment as well as safe execution. In addition to this, new generation CMMS such as Mobility Work are establishing themselves as a real database dedicated to maintenance, and make it possible to put all technical and HSE documents, certifications, fire permits, etc. in a safe place.

Mobility Work is inspired by the ultra-intuitive interface of social networks to offer an optimal user experience (available on iOS and Android)

Every day, CMMS are becoming more and more efficient and adapting to the real needs of the industry. These solutions have become essential tools to ensure production and guarantee competitiveness in the era of Industry 4.0.

Why opt for a new generation solution, such as Mobility Work?

Traditional maintenance management software has been available on the market for years, but these solutions are expensive and complex. The complexity and lack of ergonomics of these software often leads to considerable loss of time and the added value is often zero. Some companies still use these restrictive and inaccessible software on smartphones or without a network, but they are increasingly turning to more flexible solutions from Industry 4.0. A break with conventional software, Mobility Work is distinguished by its ease of use.

Mobility Work is a next-generation maintenance management platform and the first social maintenance network. This platform combines all the functionalities of a traditional CMMS with the advantages of a social network and a community of maintenance experts. The Mobility Work platform is a channel for exchanging best practices, spare parts and opinions on suppliers that can be accessed from any medium.

Mobile and intuitive, the Mobility Work application, available in web, Android and iOS versions, does not require any training and offers features designed to simplify the daily activities of the maintenance department and optimize maintenance flows. For example, checklist and calendar features allow users to organize their workday, plan tasks, and manage priorities, while the news feed provides access to the latest machine park information in seconds. The application is also equipped with an analytical tool that compiles all maintenance data into graphs and tables in order to assess the effectiveness of the maintenance strategy.

To discover the full range of Mobility Work's functionalities, try the application now for 7 days for free and improve your industrial maintenance!