ERP & CMMS interface: testimony

ERP & CMMS interface: example of operation

Today, most industrial companies use CMMS and ERP software (Enterprise Resources Planning, management software in French). It is a central tool in a company's information system, which is defined by a group of modules (production, purchasing, scheduling, etc.) linked to a single database. The cornerstone of the company's information and decision-making system, ERP nevertheless tends to show its limits. At the time of the emergence of Industry 4.0, especially in terms of usability. This software is also characterized by particularly high purchase and deployment costs, and by a heavy and complex implementation, which locks the user into a relationship of dependency with the publisher.

At the same time, more and more business applications that are simple, affordable and easy to use, especially in SaaS mode, are appearing. They will allow you to easily connect your enterprise resource planning software to other tools that are more flexible, customer-oriented and take into account the latest developments in connected industries (Big Data, IoT, etc.).

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

ERP interface and asset management software: why this marriage?

Business resource planning software is an indispensable tool for many businesses: it makes it possible to connect operational functions and services by bringing together their common data, to establish standards and to make transactional data concrete and usable data (generation of an accounting entry in the sales journal following a sale for example). The field of application of ERPs is therefore very broad: purchases, sales, commercial management, accounting, inventory management and many others.

Enterprise resource planning software guarantees the uniqueness of information; however, this data is not always usable by field operators because of the complexity of using ERP software. This is indeed a recurring problem with these software packages, because they are generally quite far from the applications that we all use in our daily lives, both in terms of interfaces and user experience (number of clicks, number of clicks, number of fields to fill in, etc.).

Unfortunately, it's impossible for many businesses to do without enterprise resource planning software. Indeed, many of them want the financial management of stocks and orders provided by the maintenance department to be done in the ERP and not in the CMMS software (computer-aided maintenance management). There is a good reason for this: finance cannot be delegated, and after the difficulties encountered by companies when integrating their enterprise resource planning software, it seems unimaginable for them to change their purchasing processes.

However, some next-generation maintenance management applications from Industry 4.0 such as Mobility Work Aim to put CMMS at the heart of information in the company, and therefore offer the possibility of connecting to your enterprise resource planning software.

Putting CMMS at the heart of the business

Pierrick Pincemin, industrialization manager at FMGC, a subsidiary specializing in the foundry of the material processing specialist Farinia Group, has thus chosen to connect its next-generation maintenance software Mobility Work to its corporate resource planning software. He testifies: “We use CMMS in several ways: the maintenance department uses it internally to trace repairs, to make maintenance plans, to program technical shutdowns, weekend work, night work, night work, the methods service to trace all maintenance relating to tools... Other company departments also use it: the purchasing department to track maintenance expenses and the accounting department to gather financial information and calculate the price. Cost of our manufactured products. Mobility Work is used by around 100 out of 400 people at the site level, including the production department.”

The purpose of this connection is to centralize data in a single tool, in this case CMMS. It is thus possible to couple the cost of orders with the cost of spare parts and interventions in such a way as to be able to determine the total cost of maintenance intervention on equipment, a necessary step if one wishes to answer this question well known to maintenance personnel: should maintenance or invest? According to Pierrick Pincemin, Mobility Work is “very accessible and allows all curative, regulatory and preventive maintenance interventions to be traced very quickly. In addition, as it is possible to associate hours with tasks, which are attached to the equipment, we can easily identify areas of failure in the foundry so that tomorrow we can even better maintain or invest.”

To make such a decision, it is therefore necessary to cross-reference as much information as possible from different systems. The aim of Mobility Work is to help you optimize the management of your financial flow easily, and to draw from it performance indicators (KPIs) as well as ways to improve your management.

What are the concrete applications of this connection?

Purchase requests, as well as order and stock management, are carried out in the ERP interface. Orders are linked to Mobility Work via the intervention number. In this way, users have the opportunity to analyze the necessary information from their enterprise resource planning software in the analytical tool of the Mobility Work application.

Access all the information on your spare parts from the equipment sheet in your Mobility Work Application

The parts are associated between the Mobility Work Application and the Enterprise Resource Planning Software via the article code number. Thus, every hour, the SAP ERP updates certain information, including the quantity and location of parts directly in Mobility Work. This step allows technicians to easily access all spare parts information from their mobile without using the enterprise resource planning software installed on a desktop computer and offering a complicated interface.

Finally, the spare parts are output into the SAP ERP and associated with Mobility Work via a task number. All the parts released are copied into the maintenance management software at the intervention level, and feed the equipment nomenclature throughout the outputs.

Pierrick Pincemin adds: “We can cross Mobility Work Data with our SAP ERP. In the application, we are able to track the hours associated with the SAP hours as well as the spare parts of the machines monitored under SAP. From there, we can finalize costs, either in the production sectors, or in terms of equipment or sub-equipment, which leads us to ask ourselves the following question: should I maintain my equipment or invest? In the end, this allows us to justify our investments in terms of production.”

The data copied thanks to this connection can then be collected by the Mobility Work Analytics tool, in the form of tables, graphs and dynamic indicators. Thanks to the APIs of the Mobility Work Maintenance Management Application, connect any system (production for example) to your CMMS to send or receive all kinds of data (MTBF, availability rate, scrap rate, etc.). The possibilities are endless!

To learn more about connecting your enterprise resource planning software to Mobility Work, feel free to read our tutorial:

How do I connect my enterprise resource planning software to my maintenance application?

The interconnectivity of systems and services is a key issue of Industry 4.0, which promises to companies that have been able to fully appreciate its importance in boosting productivity and growth. Mobility, exchange and open systems already occupy a predominant place in our daily lives, and have in fact directly influenced business management methods. At Mobility Work, we believe in the power of the community and the sharing of information, which is why we founded the first next-generation community maintenance management platform, including both a CMMS solution, the first social maintenance network and a marketplace open to manufacturers and service providers.

For more information on the connection between your ERP interface and Mobility Work, feel free to Contact us. If you want to know more about the functionalities offered by our next-generation maintenance management application, watch our video presentation.