I have been involved with CMMS solutions for quite a while now, first as a CMMS user for a few years (maximo, SAP PM) and now as a vendor through the fact of being the TD for Parafernalia, Lda, developers of comma CMMS (see product page here/ see company page here).
So I have been on both the vendor and the user sides of the CMMS world and feel I can now express my views and opinions on a few key points related to company adoption of a computerized maintenance management system.
This article will hopefully be useful for future CMMS customers as it tries to categorize behaviors that result in either a purchase that is unfit or to no action at all.
Computerized management systems have been around for a long time. Virtually all maintenance professionals now know that there are dedicated computer programs that can assist their maintenance activities. Even the smaller, non-traditional maintenance operators are getting on to it.
Although, as stated above, most maintenance professionals generally know what a CMMS is and what it can do, that knowledge doesn't necessarily directly translate into a clear specification of actual needs.
Usually, there's a loose set of well-intentioned requirements that sends people out CMMS-hunting. Some examples are "collecting the number of working hours spent on each equipment" or "to have a work order system", or the more general "Improve maintenance efficiency and costs".
Because needs are not clearly specified (who doesn't want to improve maintenance efficiency and costs? The problem is how!) there's a lot of room for confusion and uncertainty, especially after reading the list of features of a couple of CMMS solutions.
The thing is, vendors tend to specify very long feature lists. With each new CMMS they look at, prospective clients start to dive deeper and deeper into a world of possibilities that diverts attention from the original simpler needs. A user that just wanted to have a work order system would soon be considering how great this new system will be to manage purchase orders.
It goes without saying that, to avoid unnecessary complexity, it is very important to know exactly what one needs. Then stick with those requirements in mind and choose the tool that you feel better fulfills those requirements and leaves some doors open for future developments.
If you find yourself confused about all the options you can find in the market that's because you have probably not defined what your needs are or are diverting from your original needs and are thinking too far ahead.
Not that there's a formula for CMMS application success but there's a point of note common to all the examples above that has a direct impact in the success of a CMMS implementation. The problem is low or nonexistent management commitment. This has been stated over and over again but here it is again: “if management is not behind a CMMS adoption, most likely the CMMS will fail”. In many cases it is not the CMMS as a tool, it's actually a deeper reason: a messy organization. First consider, in all honesty, if the maintenance operations are already organized. If they are not, that needs to be worked on first, otherwise the CMMS (no matter which one) will potentially only make it worse. Many users are looking for tools that do not require any extra work, yet those tools do not exist. I have developed a good eye to assess if a CMMS tool is going to be successful in the first 30 minutes of discussion with a company representative: a company that is looking for a solution that will allow them to organize themselves, is almost surely going to fail. An organized company that is looking for a tool that will optimize their already efficient operations will probably succeed. When you first install a CMMS, there's quite a lot of things to do. Those things can be done all in one go (better because everything will be available for users first, worse because it will take a lot of time and resources) or you can implement the CMMS slowly but surely. You can probably guess what technique I recommend: if at all possible, implement the CMMS slowly. Take care of the most important tasks first. You most probably will need to input some kind of asset structure. Don't jump to do all your plant in one go: you will have a lot of work and what happens if you realize you would like to make fundamental changes later? Slowly is better: users will get on with it and adjustments to the initial implementation can be made without major redesigns. However way you go about doing this, one thing’s for sure: you will have some extra work! Expect this extra work and disregard any possible vendor telling you that their system is SO simple you hardly have to do any work to use it. If you do not have to do any work to use it it's because you're not using it! ok, so we went through what you should expect to have extra work in the beginning, but what happens after that first initial step? Well, I'll be honest: more work! A CMMS (like any other tool) is only as good as what you put into it The good intention to organize your operations is not enough and most people have it; there also has to be some continuous action and constant follow-up, namely the monitorization of the quality of the information that is being logged - and that is a little harder. This is where, in line with one of the previous points, the management push becomes terribly important. Management needs to be getting usable information out of the system as early as possible and using that information constructively to improve maintenance operations. If management doesn't use the data, what's the point in collecting it? What's the point of making sure it's of good quality? Most importantly, how is the staff going to use an extra system if no one really cares much about it? In summary, consider that there's still some work to do before going all in for a CMMS when, among other points There are many parameters that contribute to the usefulness of a CMMS in an organization and the ones described in this article are but some of them. Others are addressed in some of the articles available on our company’s blog. I invite you to go through the list and see if there’s anything that can be of help to you and your colleagues. We regularly publish material designed to start internal conversations to assess the current and future CMMS needs of companies.