In the modern era of voice-recognition virtual assistants, self-driving cars and smartphones, it makes no sense to do something as crucial as maintenance manually. Luckily, there’s CMMS software for that! The benefits of CMMS software extend beyond maintaining functional equipment to provide a safer work environment and maximize revenue.

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What This Article Covers:

• What Is CMMS?
• Key Benefits
• Deployment
• System Comparison & Selection
• Conclusion

What Is CMMS?

A computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) is a tool used to centralize and smooth maintenance activities. It helps manage available equipment and assets like vehicles, machines, communications and infrastructure.

Computerized maintenance management systems include EAM software (enterprise asset management), CAFM software (computer-aided facility management) and facilities management software. One of CMMS’s advantages as a technology is that it tracks an organization’s maintenance operations and activities.

Facilities management and maintenance teams can use CMMS software to schedule work orders and maintenance and locate tools, parts and supplies within your facility. Inventory management capabilities allows users to control inventory, and labor management eases the process of managing labor resources.

Some of its best features include maintenance and technician scheduling, preventive maintenance, work order management, inventory management, and asset management.

A note about the “managing assets” component: it was once the purview of EAM, a more encompassing management solution that generally includes CMMS functionality.

Nowadays, you may see the two used interchangeably as CMMS grows in scope — many of the solutions listed in our maintenance management software leaderboard are defined as CMMS/EAM software solutions. We wrote another article about the differences between EAM and CMMS and a more in-depth breakdown of what CMMS is if you’d like to know more, but don’t sweat it for the time being.

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Primary Benefits

CMMS tools offer a collection of modules that support different maintenance tasks.

Here’s a look at some of the CMMS benefits to understand their purpose more clearly.

Increase Asset Life Spans and Performance

CMMS can track or record an asset’s data, including purchase date, expected lifetime, warranty, specifications, maintenance activities and service history. This data is stored in the asset’s profile for easy access later rather than searching through paper files. The system also logs service contracts, service history, additions, modifications and spare parts.

Asset tracking, mean time between failures, depreciation rates and other life cycle data helps users keep up with individual asset condition assessments. When an asset is nearing the end of its usefulness, they can plan accordingly to replace it rather than be taken off guard by unexpected failures.

Speed Up Work Order Completion

Maintenance staff can use CMMS software to schedule work and assign it to specific technicians.

By organizing work orders into a stratified queue, everyone knows what tasks need completing and who is responsible for them. Once technicians fix a problem, they can confirm that they have finished the assignment, and a manager is alerted automatically. Role-based access allows admins to restrict work order closure to managers to ensure proper oversight.

Computerized maintenance management systems also help track external work requests and property maintenance requests like repairs for rental tenants. Maintenance teams can use CMMS to enter work order request numbers automatically or manually. Work request modules then track and record the completion of work.

Enhance Inventory Control

The software can help organize and track inventory as well. Users can track special order items, the location of parts and materials and determine whether items are stocked or not stocked. You can also follow the movement of inventory, including items that move from one site to another or the stock levels within a facility.

A computerized maintenance management system can also help provide information about the cost of an item or the item’s substitute. Certain CMMS inventory control modules help inform maintenance teams of what tools are available, track the movement of tools, manage the tool room and assign tools to workers.

Improve Equipment and Employee Safety

CMMS software promotes safety on your site. It helps manage permits within the system for easy access and sharing. It documents safety plans and compliance requirements such as electrical safety, foreign material exclusion, lock- or tag-out procedures and confined space training.

CMMS software tracks material safety data for hazardous materials through spreadsheets and maintains safety standards and ratings for flammability, health and emergencies. The software can store employee safety training information to ensure all on-site employees are up to speed on safety expectations.

Centralize Maintenance Data

The computer systems help record maintenance personnel data such as skills, job categories, qualifications, work history and labor rates.

CMMS offers preventative maintenance scheduling modules that aid in scheduling maintenance to prevent rather than repair problems. Some of these features include authenticating and tracking maintenance extensions and adjusting to upcoming due dates. They also generate preventative maintenance work orders.

The software can also schedule repetitive work orders and send time-based reminders to the responsible parties so your technicians can’t forget to perform maintenance.

There are primarily four maintenance uses of CMMS, namely:

• Facility maintenance, which helps companies repair and maintain buildings
• Production maintenance, which produces tangible products
• Linear asset maintenance, which involves taking care of roads, telecom cabling and other assets
• Fleet maintenance, which is the maintenance of vehicles

Schedule Predictive and Preventative Maintenance

CMMS software offers predictive maintenance wherein facility managers can predict equipment breakdowns, failures and repair needs rather than waiting until the last minute. They allow for a proactive and not a reactive approach to maintenance.

But how does the CMMS predict maintenance needs? It does so with hard data. The system continually monitors equipment and assets, uses that information to understand their performance or lack thereof and offers timely notifications to fix issues before they occur.

CMMS applications are the ultimate preventive maintenance software. Since no equipment or machine can escape wear and tear, preventive maintenance helps postpone that moment of failure and prolongs asset life and utility.

Preventative maintenance is performed at regular intervals to ensure company equipment’s proper functioning and primal performance. CMMS solutions generate PM work orders based on certain criteria. After fulfilling these criteria, the system responds by sending maintenance tasks to relevant team members to fix any current issue.

Generate and Analyze Accurate Reporting

Data is available for any reports and analyses you require when you enter it into your CMMS. A database stores asset information, and any possible issue it uncovers automatically sends an alert to the maintenance department.

Reporting and analysis in CMMS systems offer deep insights into the health and performance of company assets. These reports generated are helpful in determining and scheduling future maintenance and repairs.

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Deployment

Choosing the best CMMS is a vital business decision, and evaluating cloud-based vs. on-premise CMMS systems is a key step in the selection process.

Let’s take a closer look at the two deployment types below.

On-Premise

On-premise software is installed on an organization’s hardware system. Your business buys a CMMS license for users to access the software and any equipment needed. Sometimes, you may have to pay a third party for the installation process.

However, having this type of CMMS allows an in-house IT team to have better control over the use and security of the software. It provides peace of mind that sensitive data is stored and handled internally as well.

Since on-premise maintenance software offers more control over data and processes, large companies with strict regulations often prefer to demonstrate compliance using CMMS deployed on-premise. This software can be easily customized and integrated with most systems. Even though a business faces a costly initial investment, on-premise software pays for itself over the long term, especially as an organization expands.

One of the biggest disadvantages of on-premise solutions involves the required work to manage the software. An organization must provide the IT infrastructure for the application, configure the network for access and install upgrades or security patches. Since the individual company is responsible for the system, it may take days to get back online after a hardware failure.

Web-based

What makes a CMMS web-based is a hosted service that is accessible from the internet. There is no need for a company to install hardware or software directly, as the vendor handles it. This allows a business to focus on other responsibilities without the need to staff a large IT department.

Some of the biggest benefits of a web-based solution are lower upfront costs, unlimited scalability and no need to use new infrastructure. Also, the software provider does all the maintenance, including backing up data, providing security and performing upgrades. Employees can access this kind of system at any time, on the go via mobile CMMS applications and at any location. Since a web-based system is usually housed on multiple servers, it is highly reliable and available.

Some disadvantages of CMMS hosted in the cloud are customization costs and security. It is generally easy to customize the CMMS to a company’s needs by inserting or removing modules or connecting to other integrated platforms, but not always. The costs of doing so can quickly pile up. As for security, because data frequently transfers to and from the cloud, it’s more vulnerable to compromises.

That said, these security worries are often overblown. Even though many people feel cloud software brings security threats, it is less likely to be affected by security breaches because of the capital and clout behind most vendors. There is no local data to hack, and vendors can regularly update the software with security patches.

Organizations must decide whether web-based or on-premise maintenance software is best for their business. Today, the costs of storage and bandwidth are decreasing, so cloud software is becoming a popular option. We surveyed organizations buying CMMS software and got their input on deployment preferences. The majority preferred whichever best served their current needs, with cloud-based deployment in a close second.

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System Comparison & Selection

CMMS features and modules are similar across platforms. However, no system is right for every business. Since there is no perfect solution for all companies, it is essential to carefully weigh the pros and cons before making a final decision. Here is a brief guide to the selection process.

Managing Requirements

First, you have to gather the specific CMMS requirements of your organization. For example, many systems offer property maintenance features — but if you don’t have properties, you don’t need a system that focuses on that. Extraneous features often come with an extra price tag that smaller companies can’t afford, so keep in mind that bigger isn’t always better.

Check out our interactive CMMS requirements template to deliver your personalized needs to vendors and get exactly what you need from a CMMS.

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Compare Vendors

The next step is to compare CMMS companies based on the features you have deemed important for your specific needs. A thorough CMMS systems comparison should break products down feature by feature to understand how well the system will meet your needs. We have a comprehensive CMMS software analyst report to help you get started on this step.

After you’ve researched the different products, shortlist vendors based on how well they can deliver a product that meets your specific needs. Make sure to ask for trials or demos so you can take the software for a test run. The last requirement to consider is the price — good software can be expensive, but it doesn’t have to be. To see how industry leaders price their products, check out this CMMS price comparison.

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Conclusion

One of the main benefits of CMMS software is that it helps management track activities of their maintenance teams, calculate expenses and allocate resources. CMMS improves accountability, reduces work outages, identifies the causes of certain problems and offers solutions. The systems also control inventory, helping businesses save on purchases and reduce losses.

To select the right system for your organization, you have to identify your requirements and compare them to the available features. Compare products by how well they match your needs and create a shortlist of the best matches. You should find a range of products at a range of price points, so the final step is to try them out!

This brief advantages vs. disadvantages CMMS selection guide should give you the confidence and resources you need to move forward in your software selection.

What questions do you still have about the advantages of CMMS? Do you have a topic you wish we would cover? Leave us a question in the comments!