CMMS solutions have been available for decades, but have only in the past ten years gained renewed prominence. This is in part due to cloud-based architectures that allow for the rapid adoption and ease-of-implementation when compared to past systems. Today many organizations can purchase, implement, complete onboarding and training, and be operational in as little as a few weeks.

What is a CMMS?

A computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) is a software package that maintains a computer database of information about an organization’s maintenance operations. This information is intended to help maintenance workers do their jobs more effectively, such as determining which facilities or machines require maintenance and which storerooms contain the spare parts they need, and to help management make informed decisions.

A CMMS is the ultimate choice.

CMMS solutions have been available for decades, but have only in the past ten years gained renewed prominence. This is in part due to cloud-based architectures that allow for the rapid adoption and ease-of-implementation when compared to past systems. Today many organizations can purchase, implement, complete onboarding and training, and be operational in as little as a few weeks.

Organizations seeking to improve their facilities management and maintenance processes, adopt preventive maintenance techniques for critical assets, and gain greater insights into operational metrics have a host of options available to them in the market. However, few can support their needs as well as a CMMS solution.

Let’s take a look at the pros and cons of many of the options being considered today.

IT Service Management (ITSM) or help desk software

Pros

  • Ideal for ticket management processes
  • Easily accessible by all employees, anywhere

Cons

  • Focused on IT-centric use cases
  • No preventive maintenance capabilities
  • Limited or non-existent inventory controls
  • Limited scheduling functionality
  • No event scheduling capabilities
  • Little to no reporting focused on maintenance-centric activities
  • Can be expensive and complex to use depending on the platform

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems

Pros

  • Ideal for supporting various departments, divisions, and functions across large organizations
  • Data can be captured and analyzed in infinite ways
  • Facilities, maintenance, inventory, purchase order,
    scheduling, and other use cases are typically supported

Cons

  • Known to be very complex for facilities and maintenance teams to use
  • Difficult to learn, requiring costly and time-consuming training programs
  • Difficult to configure for specific use cases
  • Incremental costs per user can become expensive
  • Upgrade cycles for on-premise products are time-consuming and expensive
  • Key stakeholders for each department

Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) offerings

Pros

  • Very effective at capturing and managing various
    manufacturing production operations
  • Useful in capturing key maintenance procedures and required inventory
  • Can offer preventive maintenance support but typically in the form of detailed work instructions

Cons

  • Limited in their ability to manage maintenance requests and preventive maintenance processes
  • Support for scheduling is often missing
  • Limited scheduling capabilities
  • Can be costly and expensive to operate
  • Can be complex to learn and use

Asset Management Software

Pros

  • Very effective at capturing detailed asset information
  • Support routine inventory and related planning processes
  • Often useful for large, complex organizations with
    numerous plants, property, equipment, or assets

Cons

  • Limited in their ability to manage maintenance requests
    and preventive maintenance processes
  • Support for scheduling is often missing
  • Can be costly and expensive to operate
  • Can be complex to learn and use
  • Low-cost systems only include basic capturing
    capabilities without reporting or advanced capabilities

Spreadsheets (e.g. Excel) & Collaboration Platforms (e.g. Sharepoint)

Pros

  • Easy to get started with little to no cost
  • Easily accessible by everyone in the organization

Cons

  • Limited to no ability to request maintenance services
  • No specific support for maintenance processes,
    preventive maintenance, scheduling, or asset
    management
  • Limited to no reporting options

Space Management Platforms

Pros:

  • Purpose-built to help organizations plan office layouts, workspaces, and employee office moves
  • Useful to show a visual directory of where employees sit and their role in the organization

Cons:

  • Limited workflow orchestration and typically suited for simple, basic workflows surrounding office needs
  • No specific support for maintenance processes, preventive maintenance, scheduling, or asset management
  • Limited to no reporting option

The choice is clear!

A CMMS solution provides organizations the purpose-built capabilities they need to manage their facilities and maintenance management processes.

Today’s modern computerized maintenance management systems are:

  • Ideal for managing maintenance processes, adopting preventive maintenance techniques for
    critical assets, and gaining greater insights into operational metrics
  • Typically cost-effective to purchase and own
  • Easy-to-implement and adopt by their organizations
  • Easy to use by experienced and inexperienced maintenance technicians

Try FMX!

FMX is a computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) that allows organizations to manage work orders, plan preventive maintenance, manage assets and inventory usage, track staff and equipment performance, and more, all in an easy-to-use calendaring system. This enables organizations to streamline processes, increase asset productivity, and turn actionable insights into meaningful results.

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