A computerized maintenance management system is an important part of the modern day’s commercial and industrial maintenance activities. In the past years, many advances have been made to improve CMMS and many products are on the market.
The advancement of CMMS software has made it an important factor in enterprise asset management systems that have been adopted by many small and large organizations in the world. However, this article will not focus on EAM but CMMS.
Before going directly to the reasons for CMMS failure it is important to check out the importance of adopting a CMMs.
CMMS objectives
- The standardization of the work process
Maintenance is a constant process. This helps prevent inefficiencies and makes sure that the company’s processes are followed. This is where CMMS is adopted. It offers a platform for the facility to implement consistency in their work.
- Automation of maintenance works management
This is the basis of a CMMS. Maintenance works management involves scheduling and maintenance planning. This makes it possible to avoid human errors and an organization focuses more efficiently on maintenance activities.
- Management of inventory
Inventory maintenance and management are closely related. CMMS ensures that these links are efficiently utilized, cost-effective, and updated on all operational stages.
- Reporting
CMMS operates as a source of all information on the physical assets of any plant. The source of data is very important to get valuable information on the assets. The CMMS is expected to report the organization’s characteristics of the business asset hierarchy, asset classifications, work management backlogs, etc.
Reasons for the failure of a CMMS.
Now that we have seen the key CMMS advantages, we will now look at some of the reasons which may be a challenge for a CMMS in achieving certain objectives.
- Lack of commitment from the management
Just like any other initiative of the organization, CMMS needs the management’s commitment for it to be successful. This commitment should be in the form of total support for the implementation of the CMMS in the initial stages and then guide the role for the efficient utilization of the CMMS in the operational stage.
- Selection of the wrong CMMS
Most companies make a big mistake in choosing a suitable CMMS. To choose the correct CMMS, you need to review it from multiple angles such as maintenance functionality, Informational technology architecture or infrastructure, cost of interference, and ownership with other business systems. This decision is usually arrived at from only a single perspective while ignoring the rest.
A cross-departmental team should be gathered to look at the requirements of a CMMS from every angle, develop specifications, conduct comprehensive market research, and make an informed decision. However, some organizations choose the new CMMS based on initial acquisition cost. The initial cost should not be the main consideration for the selection of a CMMS but the total ownership cost should be evaluated objectively.
- The data quality of the CMMS is not met
CMMS is driven by data. It responds well to the idea of garbage in garbage out. It is important to make sure that the correct data is entered into the system in the operational and implementation stages. The master data should be handled carefully since it is the source of all the good things or evil emanating from any CMMS. It also comes in handy if all operations understand it.
The data fields should not have irrelevant information/data for the sake of the needs of the system but the real functions and intent of these fields need to be well understood and entered accordingly. The source of data should be verified to ensure that the correct information is keyed into the CMMS.
In the operational phase the CMMS data should be safely kept, and frequently updated and the operational data fields should be given attention when filling them. A proper change management process needs to be taken care of for making any system changes.
A vital area that businesses ignore is the proper entry of failure information. To arrive at a detailed history of any machinery and the relevant identification of the causes for various failures, the reporting of failure data is prime in CMMS. Any reliability activity that needs to be undertaken heavily depends on the history of the equipment.
Since condition monitoring and predictive maintenance technologies are being advanced regularly, they should be incorporated into the faculties of a CMMS and the required data are met properly.
- Complex or broken maintenance processes.
CMMS is a tool of maintenance management and does not replace maintenance processes and practices. If the actual maintenance activities are broken no effort or investment in CMMS can be able to bring positive results.
CMMS automates the process of maintenance but the real quality and value of these processes determine the outcome with improvement to the basis of maintenance.
- Lack of relevant training and support
Training should not only be done in the initial stages of the implementation but regular training is important to make sure that all technicians can reach the same expert levels and that their skills are updated. New people that join the organization should be offered the correct orientation of the system. You can save on costs when you have available in-house resources to carry out refresher courses.
Vendor support is important in the operational phase to make sure that the system is updated and issues are resolved based on their priority. With the current cloud technology trend, the support of vendor services may be an important factor that determines the selection of CMMS.
In summary, any organization despite its size can benefit from the correct implementation and application of its computerized maintenance management system by avoiding the mistakes above. For more information you can visit Limblecmms.com.