Using Your CMMS to Boost Maintenance Profitability
Using your CMMS to turn your maintenance organization from a cost center to a profit center requires rules and guidelines for use by all who interact with the CMMS.
I noted with earlier discussions the need to correctly manage your CMMS in-order to turn your maintenance organization to a profit center from simply being a poorly managed over budget cost center. I made the analogy that your “CMMS is only as good as a well-organized file cabinet”.
Personnel interaction is crucial to achieving this goal. Also developing rules of use and interaction guideline requirements with responsibilities is the main scope needed.
Examples of a poorly managed CMMS would be:
- All task work being done to assets not captured on a work order
- All materials, not stock, being used not captured on a work order
- Parts and materials removed from stock inventory not recorded on a work order
- All labor being done not captured on a work order
- Accurate labor hours recorded on a work order
- No formal requirement for work request completion, including training
- Inappropriate staffing to correctly manage daily work
- No/limited formal work order planning team
- No/limited “work order ready to schedule” scheduling team, with set scheduling meetings
- No formal scheduling meeting with required personnel attendance
- No RASI created for personnel to know responsibilities and participation
- Not reviewing completed work orders for inaccuracies and making corrections for repeating work.
- Lack of KPI’s to accurately measure and continuously improve the CMMS activities
Listed are just a few of the day-to-day activities that should be considered for total reliability in managing assets. What are the benefits of a well-managed CMMS?
Examples of benefits of a best practice CMMS management system:
- Knowing total asset cost over the life of the asset
- Accurate budgeting for the maintenance budget
- Knowing what assets are most critical
- Knowing what material movements are used to the asset
- Supporting the planner process for accurate work order labor and materials
- Understanding of what assets can have reduced evasive preventative maintenance, moving towards predictive condition-based maintenance activities
- Accurate budget planning for the 3- and 5-year outlook forecast
- Ensuring all sold labor to cost centers is accurate
- A better understanding of costs of the maintenance team
The bullet lists are a brief summary of developing a “Best Practice” maintenance CMMS, knowing there are many other significant benefits.
Applying the right resources, ensuring all personnel are engaged and doing their part, and analyzing the process with KPI’s for continuous improvement are the beginning steps to organizing your CMMS file cabinet.
Terry Alexander CMRP – REC
Sr. Reliability Engineer
Life Cycle Engineering
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