CMMS Software Review: How can CMMS Maintenance Management Software Optimize Your Operational Capability?

Can CMMS software really optimized operational capability? Can CMMS able to help you maintain the productivity of your assets or manufacturing equipment? These are the common question and justification for those firm or industries who really wanted to have thier own CMMS softare. Allow me share you this article from ezinearticles.com, written by Winston Jenkins entitled:

Optimize Your Operational Capability With CMMS Maintenance Management Software

Facility Management is one of the most important aspects of any business. Managing a large facility can be a daunting task. Facility Managers need to strike a balance between cost and profit. CMMS Maintenance Management software is the ideal tool to automate your tracking system for optimizing operational capability and good maintenance.

CMMS Management system helps to monitor and maintain the present and the budgeted cost for an organization's machinery, human resources, stock and properties. They also ensures quality control and liability reporting are in place during production to prevent unnecessary losses or customer dissatisfaction. Some of the functions performed by CMMS are scheduling tasks, reserving and distribution of materials, recording expenditures and tracking any unusual incidents in the production process. CMMS is an important part of any plant or facility functionality. Some of the most important CMMS Maintenance Management software packages used are discussed below:

• Inventory Control: This is a type of CMMS Maintenance Management software used to manage spare parts, tools, allocating materials and managing other materials. Inventory Control also deals with proper storage of all materials, purchase order management, tracking all shipping goods and measuring actual inventory stock.
• Safety Monitoring: This particular CMMS Maintenance Management software helps to track and monitor all the important documentations along with regulations regarding safety. Safety Monitoring CMMS Maintenance Management software also helps in ensuring proper safety of the equipment and personnel
• Asset Management: This particular CMMS Maintenance Management software helps to record updated data about all the actual properties including equipment. It helps to keep the warranties up to date, update the renewal dates of the service contracts, monitor the depreciation of spare parts and its purchase date. It also helps to assess the overall expected lifetime of all equipment so as to measure the real worth of business at a given point of time.
• Preventative Maintenance: Periodic inspections of all equipment and facilities are necessary to reduce maintenance costs. This particular software uses checklists for monitoring the maintenance progress and updates the concerned department responsible.

CMMS Maintenance Management system is an important tool for liability protection. CMMS ensures that a plant or a facility is being audited to check the safety procedures. A CMMS package should be purchased with much care after seeing its scalability and scope for future development and expansion. facilligence.com is a leader in CMMS Maintenance Management solutions and Business Project Management Software which can be a reliable partner for your inventory management.

Source: http://ezinearticles.com

CMMS Software Review: How can CMMS Maintenance Management Software Optimize Your Operational Capability?

The CMMS Setup In A Maintenance Partnership

by Ken Bannister

Maintaining an interactive collaborative partnership with inter- and intra-departmental groups and outside groups is essential if a maintenance department is to be successful in delivering asset reliability and availability at a level suitable to achieve production throughput and quality targets. To achieve this, a maintenance department must understand the difference between "what it manages" and "what it controls."

The maintenance department must work diligently with all of its partners to attain useful data, information, resources, accessibility, permits, etc. to effectively vet work requests and plan and schedule value-added work that will cause the least interruption to the production process. Maintenance, though, only controls its internal processes and relies heavily on its partners to manage the execution of its work. For example, effective barriers to maintenance execution are waiting for parts, waiting for tools, waiting for equipment and waiting for contractors—all of which are out of the control of the maintenance department.

Understanding our own needs and our partners' needs is all part of managing an effective partner relationship through communication. Arguably, the most important tool used to understand what we control and how we are managing our relationships is the Computerized Maintenance Management System, or the CMMS.

A CMMS is a unique type of software tool that was developed specifically for the maintenance industry in the late 1970s. The pioneer CMMS programs were rudimentary mainframe computer database systems that were text-based and menu-driven; display fields were fixed and presented to the viewer/user in a highly pixilated ‘eye burning' green or orange display color. Every program used a proprietary user interface and navigation system that often required weeks of training and continual use to master. Those old enough to remember "the good old days" will not dispute how the CMMS industry has rocketed light years ahead with today's offerings that are both highly sophisticated and complex, yet user friendly to the point of intuitiveness.

Many a company has upgraded its CMMS to the latest and greatest, but few have changed the way they use this software on a daily basis.CMMS programs of the past were no more than basic equipment databases that allowed work and parts to be tracked against identified pieces of equipment with basic text reports and completed work listings. Today's offerings have benefited greatly—and grown—as a result of the early 1980s IBM Personal Computer (PC) revolution in which software and hardware quickly became standardized and allowed a host of entrepreneurs to develop affordable and flexible software solutions for the maintenance industry.

The latest CMMS programs continue to retain an equipment database at their core, and still track work and parts usage against the listed equipment. They differ from those of the past in that they can be navigated with a simple ‘point and shoot' device or touch of the screen. Today's CMMS screen layout and text can be user-customized and changed ‘on the fly' without need of a programmer. Programs are graphic-based and allow photographs, videos, drawings and catalogs to be linked on many levels and displayed anywhere in the program—for example, to the work order, to an inventory part, to an equipment record, to equipment history; work orders can be triggered from voice recognition, a phone, a beeper, a machine alarm, an infrared or radio wave signal, other control software, the Internet or just the plain old keyboard.

Today's CMMS can interactively gateway with other programs such as manufacturing software, accounting software, HR software, supplier software, etc. The CMMS software reporting system allows any authorized user to pull up any combination of data held or accessed by the CMMS and display or print the easily formatted results, in color, and in seconds; the list goes on.

Ironically, just as automobiles have gained in their sophistication, reliability and user-friendly interfaces, over the same time period, we haven't changed our approach to driving or vehicle maintenance in the slightest! Similarly, many a company has upgraded its CMMS to the latest and greatest, but few have changed the way they use this software on a daily basis, and remarkably we continue to believe the CMMS tool is a panacea for improving the maintenance process.

The true power of the CMMS is derived from its ability to provide management reports. Unfortunately, most CMMS setups are inadequate to deliver the type of input/output reporting to both control and manage maintenance relationships effectively.The true power of the CMMS is derived from its ability to provide management reports. Unfortunately, most CMMS setups—even today—are inadequate to deliver the type of input/output reporting to both control and manage maintenance relationships effectively.

The most successful CMMS implementations are those set up to deliver against a set of goals and targets that measure department and
relationship effectiveness. A series of reports are built to feed data into a set of Key Performance Indicators (KPI's) that show how well the department is in control, along with a series of reports that provide feedback to partners showing them how well we have provided to them and how well they have provided to us the services and information required to manage the maintenance operations.

CMMS registers and data filters are set up to deliver the required reports, which then dictate the design of the data collection instruments—the work request and work order. When set up to only capture exception data (data that is meaningful), the system is assured to only have meaningful data in storage. But what happens when a PM requests the maintainer to check and record a pressure reading on a daily basis? The work order is closed and the meaningless data is captured in the equipment history each day. If the work order started to record only when the pressure were below 750 psi or above 800 psi, however, the CMMS would be easier to administer and the PM would be more meaningful.

The best CMMS setups are those that deliver exactly what we need to manage and control our maintenance operation. Such setups result from implementing them backwards, knowing up front what we expect from our maintenance operation now and in the near future.

Information is power—and the CMMS is the most powerful tool in a maintainer's arsenal. Still, the collection, manipulation and analysis of data can only be meaningful and informative when delivered in a format that the maintainer or maintenance partner can understand. Understanding our own requirements and understanding our business partners' requirements is paramount to implementing and sustaining a successful CMMS software.

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The CMMS Setup In A Maintenance Partnership

Web-Based CMMS Versus Network Based CMMS

By Stuart Smith

There are basically two different type of scenarios for CMMS and companies must decide which works the best for them as what might be the best option for one company may not be the best choice for another company. So lets briefly introduce the two options and then briefly discuss each one.

For starters, those who are not familiar with CMMS perhaps an introduction is in order. CMMS or Computer Maintenance Management System is in essence a record or database of an organizations maintenance operations. This allows those in charge to have a record of maintenance, spare parts, repairs, etc. Once a company decides to employ CMMS they need to decide will they be taking a web based approach or a network based approach to CMMS.

A web-based approach to CMMS means that the software the runs CMMS is housed on computers that your company typically don't own. It is common for the software to be running off of a server or running on servers that make up what is called a server farm. It is important to point out that when using a web based approach the physical location of the servers running the CMMS software could theoretically be anywhere in the world. However, typically these servers will reside in the United States. You might ask what is the benefit of using a web based solution. One of the biggest advantages to a web-based CMMS is that you can access your CMMS from anywhere in the world. All you need is an internet connection and you are ready to connect. Another benefit this approach provides is that you don't have to worry about the maintenance and repair of the powerful servers that are required to run the CMMS software. If there is a hardware failure, that is not your problem.

The second CMMS approach is the network approach. This typically means that instead of your software running on a server outside of your company the CMMS software will be running on a server that is running somewhere within your company and your IT staff would be responsible for the upkeep and the maintenance of not only the CMMS software, but also the server hardware. So if there is a failure, your company is responsible for the repair. One popular benefit of this approach is you usually have a faster response due to you not having to contend for traffic over the internet.

That is the two basic methods of implementing CMMS. After weighing the pros and cons you can decide which CMMS solution fits best with your needs.

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The company should decide which CMMS or asset tracking software is suited for their application.

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Web-Based CMMS Versus Network Based CMMS

CMMS Maintenance Software

CMMS which is the abbreviated form of Computerized Maintenance Management Software is a powerful tool used by many industries today as a method of controlling industrial maintenance operations. Initially, CMMS maintenance software was introduced so that the costs involved with the machinery maintenance setting in the manufacturing industry can be controlled. Since then, most of the industries and companies have learned that this software can prove to be really beneficial in almost any type of team industrial maintenance setting.

A large number of maintenance groups in medium as well as large facilities and buildings utilize the CMMS maintenance software. All sorts of maintenance plants find that the CMMS software is helpful when it comes to controlling the costs associated with maintenance which eventually helps increase the overall value of the business. Both materials and labor can be managed with the use of the CMMS software. Together with this CMMS helps controls costs even on machinery that are meant for long term work, vehicles, facilities, buildings and all the other assets associated with the business. The CMMS technique can be learnt easily and used within a short time.

The CMMS software market is vast and quite active because of the fast return on the money spent realized as soon as CMMS is implemented. These packages range greatly in cost as well as breadth. It can be quite challenging to find the best software for your business and this is the reason there are a number of websites set up that can help you make the right decision.

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CMMS Maintenance Software