Maintenance Management Software – Is It Worth The Cost?

Maintenance management software can be a tough sell!

Recently one of our sales people was in touch with a possible customer regards the value of CMMS software for maintenance of their equipment and facilities. Their managers had some serious concerns whether a maintenance management software program would help or hinder them.

Have you ever had this happen to you?

Common complaints about CMMS software

1. It takes too much time to update

It forces maintenance personnel into a different sort of workflow where they have to keep updating items in the software. Tracking all your equipment and entering information about them makes it an unwieldy system to use. It also eats up a lot of staff time.

2. You will not be able to capture all data and interactions in the software

Even if it was possible it would take a lot of time. Maintenance technicians and others will often skip doing updates since it holds them up from doing their jobs.

3. Without all the data the statistics you capture are inaccurate!

This means you do not have a true picture of your maintenance program. Managers and others unfamiliar with the nuts and bolts of the maintenance program will use this inaccurate data to make decisions.

In defense of maintenance management software

These concerns are quite valid. However, using maintenance software even if you are not able to exploit its full capabilities still provides benefits. You have to aware of the limitations of using it as part of your maintenance management program. Let us try to address each of these concerns.

1. It takes too much time to update

It may seem that using a CMMS program wastes time! You have spend time entering or updating information instead of working on a maintenance job. However, being able to track and capture job status provides a valuable benefit. You are less likely to miss critical maintenance work. You also have a good idea of what is pending so that you can adjust your schedule to get critical jobs done.

The concerns of a convoluted workflow that slows down work are quite valid. To reduce this, in FastMaint CMMS you have the ability to email or text work orders to technicians. You can also process their email or text responses to update & close these work orders.

What could this mean?

This makes a much simpler workflow. Technicians can do their jobs and easily send back updates. They avoid spending time navigating through different screens and entering data. This can also make the life of the maintenance planner or manager easier. They can have the system send out reminders to technicians if work orders are pending for more than say two or three days and so on.

2. You will not be able to capture all data and interactions in the software

You really will not be able to track all data or interactions in the software nor is it desirable. It may seem good to have a large amount of information in the system. However, most of it will not be relevant to taking care of maintenance management. Collecting all such information will take up time! So it is likely to be skipped or entered inaccurately after some time.

The important information from the CMMS software is work orders pending and work orders completed. Everything else is really secondary. Even in terms of work orders, you do not need to track all possible work orders! Many will be for low priority jobs. What matters are the high priority breakdown and preventive maintenance work orders. These work orders if not done, will keep critical equipment or facilities unavailable due to a breakdown. Or they will perform poorly to deliver a poor quality product or service.

3. Without all the data the statistics you capture are probably inaccurate

Since you cannot capture all data or interactions only a few critical metrics will be accurate and useful. See “3 Quick Maintenance Metrics For Maintenance Planners” for more information. This is why in FastMaint CMMS these few important metrics are on a single page Statistics report. These handful of metrics provide a good view of how your maintenance program is running. You can identify areas you may need to address.

Just think about it…

It may be tempting to look at various colorful graphs or meters showing different statistics. Unfortunately over time most of the data being collected is probably inaccurate! Making decisions based on them is not a good idea. Plus even if accurate many items will not tell you the entire picture and could lead you down the wrong path.

See for yourself! Get a CMMS software trial

Are you are thinking about getting CMMS software for maintenance management of your equipment and facilities? Hopefully this has convinced you of their worth. You can try an online demo or download a 30-day trial of FastMaint CMMS software. See how it will work for you. Use the five minute video tutorials to help you setup FastMaint quickly and get started.