Computerized Maintenance Management Software (CMMS)

Well-designed Computerized Maintenance Management Software (CMMS) will simplify, streamline and automate the entire maintenance process. High-performance CMMS will easily manage detailed and unwieldy equipment maintenance requirements. It preserves a company's investment in and longevity of its equipment by planning and facilitation of executing on preventive and predictive maintenance activities.

Most CMMS programs share many common features. They include:

• Work order processing: cerate work orders for maintenance needs and assign tasks that can be managed automatically, ensuring tasks are done timely
• Facilitate preventative maintenance management by prioritizing, assigning and automatically notifying individuals of specific preventative maintenance required to be completed
• Manage equipment and spare parts information effortlessly by using a central repository that provides easy access to all details of individual equipment and spare parts
• Facilitate proper response to breakdowns in equipment by providing instant access to historical maintenance records and procedures
• Purchasing management
• Inventory and material control: determine spare part re-order needs, by viewing inventories on-line anytime
• Real-time status reporting and ability to generate comprehensive custom reports to help you understand how your equipment is operating, associated maintenance costs and what predictive/preventive maintenance can be done to improve overall efficiencies
• Manage all aspects of equipment including warranty information, serial numbers, date placed in service and much more
• Accurate labor and material cost tracking
• Corrective, preventive maintenance and on-demand work scheduling
• Advanced scheduling tools
• Maintain and accurately track maintenance histories to facilitate predicative maintenance by tracking metrics of mean time between failure and equipment downtime
• Bar code and light pen data collection options
• Internet- and intranet-enabled work management
• Reduce data input and time by defining and coping preventive maintenance procedures to multiple pieces of equipment if applicable
• Available route management capability
• Able to runs on Windows PCs and your choice of SQL, Oracle, Sybase, or DB/200 database servers
• Seamless CMMS integration with Oracle Financials ERP Applications in multiple languages.

When testing a trial version, be sure to have all employees that will use take it for a spin. This includes technicians and stockroom attendants. If factory-floor line technicians are going to make extensive use of the CMMS, make sure its data-entry interface loads and updates quickly and becomes ergonomically "second-nature" when used.

Look for a CMMS that:

• Maximizes efficient production through effective maintenance work order processing
• Minimizes planning time and warrants machines are maintained timely by automatically generating and managing preventative maintenance schedules based on equipment usage or calendar days
• Minimizes production downtime via effective maintenance scheduling and execution
• Reduces or eliminates downtime and the resultant late delivery by managing and tracking equipment spare parts inventory
• Minimizes session time with an efficient, user-friendly system
• Warrants all quality requirements (ISO 9000:2000 and 1994; ISO 14000, QS 9000; TS 16949; TE 9000; AS 9000) are met or exceeded