Event Recap
RECAP | ROUNDTABLE | CMMS: considerations and suggestions
A computerized maintenance management System (CMMS) has become a vital tool for any maintenance program. However, selecting and implementing a CMMS has proven to be challenging for many operators. Products tend to vary widely in features, structure, ease of operation, and support. Juan Orozco, Uptime Institute consultant, contributed to the session where attendees discussed CMMS experiences, products, and what constitutes a best-in-class CMMS. What constitutes a best-in-class CMMS? What are the benefits of utilizing a CMMS? What are the challenges/risks of implementing and utilizing a CMMS?
Juan kicked off the session by saying the CMMS is the heart of a comprehensive maintenance program. Having a non-computerized maintenance management program is really not the right approach anymore. A CMMS is now pretty much a requirement for effective data center operations. Also, programs that utilize software as a service (SaaS) for CMMS are becoming more the norm. Present concerns for CMMS that utilize SaaS are around who owns the data. At a minimum, the CMMS should include maintenance scheduling, dispatching, tracking, and reporting capabilities.
The following represent attendee comments provided during the session.
CMMS best practices discussion:
• A first key step is to determine the scope of the CMMS - why do you need it and what are you trying to accomplish. A comment was made, “We use maybe 30-40% of the features.” There is no need to purchase and implement what you will never use.
• Consider looking for something easy, user friendly, with one dashboard, and search capabilities.
• The CMMS should be used for dispatching work orders, attaching vendor reports and history.
• Maintenance scheduling, tracking, and reporting are additional key elements of a CMMS.
• If just getting started, consider adding elements of the CMMS in bite size chunks.
• A CMMS must include a list of all equipment, with all the particulars about each piece of equipment, including equipment end-of-life estimates. This information is critical for life-cycle capital planning and budgeting.
• A CMMS should also be used to justify staffing, using calculated and actual hours for maintenance tasks.
• The CMMS needs to have inventory management (spare parts), something you can modify and work with.
• Easily customizable. A comment was made by an attendee they can add and change the name of fields, move things around on forms, essentially tailer to what they want, without the supplier’s involvement (leans more toward best in class in his view). Basic screens are the same for everyone but working with a team they refined and modified the views to what they want with a central administrator now in control. This attendee uses eMaint for their CMMS.
• Team internally created CMMS user guides, inventory guide, and established failure cause remedy codes.
• Several attendees indicated they utilize the CMMS supplier to make changes based on their requirements without any major issues. MCIM was mentioned as the CMMS being used.
• Incorporate change management into the CMMS. One attend mentioned they use IBM Maximo for the CMMS, and ServiceNOW for change management, and how integrating and optimizing the systems is ongoing.
• Establish CMMS standards for consistency. This is best accomplished by establishing control through a primary point of contact or core group with full responsibility for the CMMS.
CMMS challenges discussion:
• It was stated the biggest challenge is managing the change for the people. Natural tendency is for people to resist change in systems and processing. This can be overcome by education and training, showing the benefits and the strategy, essentially being fully transparent. The result will be you get the buy-in from the end user, making them understand why the CMMS is important and necessary.
• Another issue is driving consistency between all sites. This can be overcome by creating standards and establish controls through a primary point of contact. An attendee mentioned they have 12 sites, so they created scopes of service, and coordinators at each site to work with the CMMS primary administrator to drive consistency.
• If you have separate systems, say one for CMMS and another for change management, integrating systems and getting them to talk is another challenge.
• Spare parts management when you are leveraging key vendors for critical parts can be a challenge. Because of supply chain issues, leveraging vendors is more prevalent, but now tracking these parts and where they are located has become more complex. If utilizing the vendor’s distribution network, you need to know what they have and where, and be able to confirm and validate, while tracking using the CMMS.
What’s next for CMMS?
• CMMS on mobile devices. Some of the attendees are presently using mobile devices for recording of rounds, and they are working on using them more for other maintenance activities. To help facilitate this, QR codes are being installed on all equipment. One example mentioned is how Entel previously presented to the members about how they are implementing the use of tablets with virtual reality goggles for training purposes and maintenance activities.
• SaaS: Most systems are now utilizing the cloud to house the owner’s data generated by the CMMS. This makes all site maintenance data easy to access across sites, improves reporting across sites, spare parts access across sites, etc. The key is to confirm the CMMS data is the property of the owner and not the supplier.
CMMS suppliers mentioned as being utilized by attendees during this session (listed in no particular order):
• eMaint
• MCIM
• IBM Maximo
• Asset Essentials (formally Big Foot)
• ServiceNOW (for change management as well)
Juan kicked off the session by saying the CMMS is the heart of a comprehensive maintenance program. Having a non-computerized maintenance management program is really not the right approach anymore. A CMMS is now pretty much a requirement for effective data center operations. Also, programs that utilize software as a service (SaaS) for CMMS are becoming more the norm. Present concerns for CMMS that utilize SaaS are around who owns the data. At a minimum, the CMMS should include maintenance scheduling, dispatching, tracking, and reporting capabilities.
The following represent attendee comments provided during the session.
CMMS best practices discussion:
• A first key step is to determine the scope of the CMMS - why do you need it and what are you trying to accomplish. A comment was made, “We use maybe 30-40% of the features.” There is no need to purchase and implement what you will never use.
• Consider looking for something easy, user friendly, with one dashboard, and search capabilities.
• The CMMS should be used for dispatching work orders, attaching vendor reports and history.
• Maintenance scheduling, tracking, and reporting are additional key elements of a CMMS.
• If just getting started, consider adding elements of the CMMS in bite size chunks.
• A CMMS must include a list of all equipment, with all the particulars about each piece of equipment, including equipment end-of-life estimates. This information is critical for life-cycle capital planning and budgeting.
• A CMMS should also be used to justify staffing, using calculated and actual hours for maintenance tasks.
• The CMMS needs to have inventory management (spare parts), something you can modify and work with.
• Easily customizable. A comment was made by an attendee they can add and change the name of fields, move things around on forms, essentially tailer to what they want, without the supplier’s involvement (leans more toward best in class in his view). Basic screens are the same for everyone but working with a team they refined and modified the views to what they want with a central administrator now in control. This attendee uses eMaint for their CMMS.
• Team internally created CMMS user guides, inventory guide, and established failure cause remedy codes.
• Several attendees indicated they utilize the CMMS supplier to make changes based on their requirements without any major issues. MCIM was mentioned as the CMMS being used.
• Incorporate change management into the CMMS. One attend mentioned they use IBM Maximo for the CMMS, and ServiceNOW for change management, and how integrating and optimizing the systems is ongoing.
• Establish CMMS standards for consistency. This is best accomplished by establishing control through a primary point of contact or core group with full responsibility for the CMMS.
CMMS challenges discussion:
• It was stated the biggest challenge is managing the change for the people. Natural tendency is for people to resist change in systems and processing. This can be overcome by education and training, showing the benefits and the strategy, essentially being fully transparent. The result will be you get the buy-in from the end user, making them understand why the CMMS is important and necessary.
• Another issue is driving consistency between all sites. This can be overcome by creating standards and establish controls through a primary point of contact. An attendee mentioned they have 12 sites, so they created scopes of service, and coordinators at each site to work with the CMMS primary administrator to drive consistency.
• If you have separate systems, say one for CMMS and another for change management, integrating systems and getting them to talk is another challenge.
• Spare parts management when you are leveraging key vendors for critical parts can be a challenge. Because of supply chain issues, leveraging vendors is more prevalent, but now tracking these parts and where they are located has become more complex. If utilizing the vendor’s distribution network, you need to know what they have and where, and be able to confirm and validate, while tracking using the CMMS.
What’s next for CMMS?
• CMMS on mobile devices. Some of the attendees are presently using mobile devices for recording of rounds, and they are working on using them more for other maintenance activities. To help facilitate this, QR codes are being installed on all equipment. One example mentioned is how Entel previously presented to the members about how they are implementing the use of tablets with virtual reality goggles for training purposes and maintenance activities.
• SaaS: Most systems are now utilizing the cloud to house the owner’s data generated by the CMMS. This makes all site maintenance data easy to access across sites, improves reporting across sites, spare parts access across sites, etc. The key is to confirm the CMMS data is the property of the owner and not the supplier.
CMMS suppliers mentioned as being utilized by attendees during this session (listed in no particular order):
• eMaint
• MCIM
• IBM Maximo
• Asset Essentials (formally Big Foot)
• ServiceNOW (for change management as well)
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