There are a number of arguments for and against the use of the CMMS system. The measure of how beneficial a CMMS system is to any site comes down to number of site-specific requirements. In order to realise the true benefits of a system, the site must map out its goals before the evaluation and implementation are considered. Once these goals have been set, it becomes an easier process to establish the true benefits to the site, and allows the site to set new KPIs throughout the life of the project.

During the development of our CMMS system, we have considered the negatives and positives the current systems can bring to a site.

As part of the consideration, we have made the decision to offer the CMMS system as a complete package. The system has the benefits as stated below:

The collection and placement in the system of live process data from the line and function locations.
The FMEA tool is installed as part of the package. This FMEA tool allows the user to see the area where the largest amount of downtime is occurring and to relate it to the failure modes developed once completing the FMEA studies. As a result, the site can update and change the planned maintenance tasks to optimise the benefits of the tasks.
It comprises an on-board updating criticality tool.
It is web-based and doesn't require high installation costs.
It makes the combination of features easy to use.
It can be tailored to the site's requirements.
It includes features for stores management.

We would like to offer this different approach to the implementation, tracking, monitoring and updating of the CMMS system.

Understanding what maintenance tasks need to be carried out is critical to the success of the site. In addition, it is important to understand what the equipment is telling us from the process data being collected from the existing or newly installed sensors. In order to really fulfil the benefits of this process, we will work with the site to optimise the maintenance tasks and also realise the optimum placement of labour.

The next step in maintenance management systems

In today's manufacturing environment, the management of maintenance has become a critical element to the success of the business. As a result, companies have been paying more attention to the work carried out on their site. In order to track the work, sites have been using well-established CMMS systems available to manage this workload.

One question always asked is how much value your current maintenance management system is bringing to the site.

With this question in mind, we would like to introduce a new addition to the current CMMS system approach. The suitability of the planned maintenance tasks needs constant reviewing and may vary depending on the personnel experience.

The New Approach using live collected data

As part of the new approach, we are working towards optimising the amount of tasks that need to be completed. We are achieving this by collecting live process data from the existing or newly installed sensors on the line/area and importing the data into the CMMS against the line or function locations. The benefits of this approach is that the analysis can be based on up-to-date information. We can setup limits per group of datasets, which allows us to see the areas of the plants that need actual maintenance and also allows us to plan for the actual requirement of the equipment.

The current CMMS systems bring a number of well-established stated benefits as shown below.

Improve Maintenance Productivity.
Improve Machine Quality.
Reduce Down Time.
Monitor and Improve Employee Productivity.
Provide Better Service to Other Departments.
Monitor/Control Maintenance Costs.

Alternatively, there are also a number of discussions around how much benefit the implementation of a CMMS system brings. The benefits of a CMMS to a company is an area of great discussion.

The link between failure modes and criticality are not always considered enough due to time limitations during the implementation and also throughout the life of the system.
The planned maintenance tasks need to be reviewed and changed on a constant basic to ensure the plant availability, in collaboration with production data.
It is difficult for the users to know the level of details required for the reporting of planned maintenance.
The programme of preventive maintenance is not always realistic or reachable, which may lead to inaccurate or incomplete actions due to time constraints.
Emergency reactive tasks take priority over planned maintenance schedules, which results in a backlog of planned maintenance tasks.
The transferring of tasks from legacy systems would often require a complete review of their benefits.