A CMMS is one of the most underutilized tools used by facilities.
To us, that’s shocking data.
Facility maintenance is a necessity, yet many facilities find their software to be cumbersome and extremely difficult to get off the ground.
Nevertheless, these solutions are robust.
How are you using your system?
Are you using your maintenance software for all its capabilities?
Are you even using what you have?
Maintenance software has many benefits to offer, and we don’t want you to miss out.
Today, we’re going to show you how to squeeze the most value from your software.
We want you to utilize it and reap all the benefits.
Keep reading, because we’ll show how to streamline your facility maintenance for good, which allows you to execute in a way that’s expected by your customers – and your boss.
7 WAYS TO EXTRACT THE BENEFITS OF YOUR CMMS
You won’t find many maintenance solutions that facility managers like using. As we mentioned above, they’re cumbersome and problematic to get moving.
Let’s change that.
These solutions are extremely valuable. We want you to appreciate and use yours.
Putting a system in place can help you maximize your facility maintenance in the following seven ways we talk about in this article.
Are you ready? Let’s get you using your solution for more than merely ‘addition.’
1. Effective Work Order Management
Would you consider your current system to be paperless?
We hear this all the time.
- “We have a paperless maintenance solution in place at our facility.”
- “Our paperless system does X, Y, and Z. It makes our work orders easier to understand when we print them out.”
How paperless is that “paperless” system if you still print out work orders? Or, if you have stacks of paper on your desk?
Your system isn’t paperless after all, is it?
When you put a real paperless system in place, you can reap some incredible benefits.
Trust us; you want a system in place that’ll let you create, track, edit, and automatically communicate work orders to your engineers or technicians
They’ll never have to click the Print button again.
You’ll be reducing the time it takes for your team to handle work orders. You’ll also reduce the time it takes you to enforce accountability.
Now, you can be sure things are getting done.
You’ll reduce, and eventually eliminate, the amount of paper required to perform daily maintenance activities.
It’s time to ‘correct’ your corrective maintenance efforts.
2. Streamline Vendor Management
When an outside vendor or an employee from a different department needs to submit a work order request, how do they currently do this?
Do they have to find you or an engineer? Do you have a system in place?
You can use a streamlined solution. A solution that allows you to create a web-based form where people can submit work order requests for approval via the internet.
It’s such a simple yet powerful tool.
A barrier-free way for people to report issues directly to you is a considerable increase in efficiency!
Have peace of mind knowing that nothing slips through the cracks. Everything that needs to be fixed will be fixed.
3. Organize Chain of Command for Efficient Work Order Approval
Chain of command is best explained with an example. So, let’s put it into perspective.
Let’s say one of your engineers is working on an air handler. They’ve concluded that it’d be more cost-effective to fix the equipment rather than replacing it altogether.
They’ve also determined the cost of the replacement parts will run $1,350-$1,500.
- What happens now?
- Who approves it?
- Does it need to be approved by you directly?
If you’re getting the most benefit from a progressive system, you’ll be able to organize these approval processes.
Using a chain of command, your engineer or technician will be able to submit a purchase request for $1,500 based on certain criteria you define:
- Work Type
- Request Amount ($)
The purchase request will be sent to the associated person for approval.
Now, $1,500 may be on the lower end of what you’re used to having for purchase requests. Your senior engineer needs only to approve the request then, not you.
This reduces the time it takes to move purchase requests through the funnel. It also reduces any confusion and frustration when your engineers or technicians have a project schedule to stick to.
4. Master Preventive Maintenance
A great challenge we hear throughout the industry among facility managers is ‘Preventive Maintenance.’
It’s a vital process they need to control to be successful.
It’s also one of the most troublesome aspects of facility maintenance.
There haven’t been many maintenance solutions on the market that allow facility managers to maximize their preventive maintenance (PM).
We have good news, things have changed!
Software exists that allows you to eliminate your preventive maintenance issues.
Yes, preventive maintenance can be quite tricky.
But, implementing the right solution will reduce your inefficiencies while simultaneously increasing the effectiveness of your PM.
With an optimized preventive maintenance solution, you can manage and track:
- PM Schedules
- Activities
- Tasks
You know who’s doing what, when.
We’ve seen maintenance solutions that take the flexibility of the system even further.
Keep reading, because we’re talking about next-level features like…
The ability to track preventive maintenance in a calendar format with drag and drop ability to change dates.
How’s that for peace of mind?
Manage your activities with ease.
View your scheduled activities on a global view:
- Monthly
- Weekly
- Daily
‘Proactive Operations’ extends to your maintenance initiatives too.
5. Control Maintenance Initiatives through Digital Checklists
Do you ever have trouble communicating the correct way to complete maintenance to existing staff or new technicians?
It takes some time to remember every procedure, right?
- How to inspect and fix an air handler.
- How to respond to a water main leak.
- How to ensure life safety equipment is functioning correctly.
All of these are vital processes to your facility’s wellbeing.
Why wait weeks or even months for your team to perform up to par, though?
There’s no reason to wait. You can have them producing today.
You can reduce the time it takes for your team to complete maintenance the right way – from the start.
With a digital system, you can create web-based checklists for performing all types of maintenance. Use your checklists to direct your staff effectively.
Take full control of your maintenance initiatives and have peace of mind. Everything is being handled according to the steps you’ve laid out.
6. Expertly Track Inventory for Peace of Mind
Do you ever run to your warehouse to retrieve material only to find you’re out of the materials you need?
This is a frustrating experience that can be avoided.
It’s essential to reduce the problems of low or unavailable inventory, especially when you need it the most.
When the time to reorder material is close, you won’t have to remember it yourself.
With a first-class solution in place, you’ll be alerted, so you never run out of what you need ever again.
As importantly, the expense of ineffective purchasing is stopped, and instead, you gain profits from smart purchasing.
7. Data Will "Show You the Money"
Most people agree that they like to be in control of their facility’s wellbeing – both its physical and financial success.
We can all agree that drastically reducing stress, downtime, error rates, and all the problems associated with maintenance is a challenge to overcome.
So, if you want to move your maintenance from a cost center to a profit center, you’ll need goals in place.
You’ll want to put your operation on a path for elimination of all these problems we just mentioned.
How do you accomplish this?
Analytics.
They’ll let you organize, manage, and analyze the data the way you need.
See the data how you need to see it. Be proactive in moving your operation in the best direction.
We’d never leave you hanging, which is why next, we want to share nine tangible examples of maintenance reports you can use to squeeze the most benefit – and ROI – from your solution.
9 Reports for Optimizing, Cutting Costs, & Proving ROI
These nine reports will give you a professional snapshot of how your people, processes, equipment, materials, and money are being used.
1. Preventive Maintenance Report
A Preventive Maintenance Report allows you to see all of your preventive maintenance activities and tasks as they are sent, scheduled, received, or closed.
You can examine all preventive maintenance activities by date range to analyze by date for a more comprehensive snapshot.
Don’t stop there, look further into your analytics and cluster your preventive maintenance by the department it’s assigned to, the person it’s assigned to, its associated activities, the associated facilities, the specific location of the activity, and equipment category, location, and vendor.
2. Work Order Report
A Work Order Report shows work orders through the full cycle - created, scheduled, started, completed, or closed.
Examine the work orders by a date range to further analyze by date.
Go even deeper into your analytics.
- group your work orders by the department the work order is assigned to;
- the person the work order is assigned to;
- by whom the work order was requested, the department requesting the work order;
- the type of work requested, the status of the work order;
- which one of your facilities the work order is associated with; and
- the specific location for the work order.
This is a powerful report that takes the pain out of managing your work orders - finally. Use this summary report to start loving your solution.
3. Purchase Order Report
A Purchase Order Report shows purchase orders as they're created, sent, scheduled, received, or closed. Examine purchase orders by a date range to dive deeper into specific dates.
Group your purchase orders by the department the purchase order is for, which one of your facilities the purchase order is for, what the priority is, the type of purchase order it is, who it was requested by, and the status of the purchase order.
Many facilities tie purchase orders into their accounting software.
However, this is an excellent report for managers who like to further scrutinize the information for next-level facility management. It’s that extra mile during your journey to peace of mind.
4. Activities Report
An Activities Report will give you a comprehensive snapshot of maintenance activities, inclusive of the associated tasks, equipment, materials, labor, and estimated material and labor costs associated with each activity.
5. Equipment History
An Equipment History report breaks down all equipment by work order, purchase order, and preventive maintenance.
Analyze equipment by each category as it’s:
- Created
- Scheduled
- Started
- Completed
- Closed
- Suspended
- Denied
There are many ways to see the equipment the way you need it.
6. Labor Summary Report
Your Labor Summary Report is the next generation in management reporting. This is a holistic view of your maintenance efforts.
With it, you can view all associated labor by work order, purchase order, and your preventive maintenance.
Examine each record by date and see each as they are created, scheduled, started, completed, closed, suspended, or denied.
Take a closer look at these analytics to exceed your current decision-making capabilities and reap the benefits.
As a facility manager, you can see labor records by their associated facility, priority, and the department each item is assigned to or has even been requested by.
Take it as far as the person it’s assigned to or requesting the work, purchase, or maintenance activity.
7. Vendor Work History Report
Use a Vendor Work History report to manage your vendors and analyze their associated work orders and all related costs.
8. Vendor Purchase Order History Report
Use a Vendor Purchase Order History report to manage your vendors and analyze their associated purchase orders and all related expenses.
Use your Vendor Work History report and this report for optimal management of your maintenance-related partnerships.
9. Vendor Insurance Report
A Vendor Insurance report gives you the ability to oversee your vendors and the status of their insurance proactively. This is a must-have report that’ll keep you compliant and always on track.
Use this to see whether their insurance is current or expired.
Fortunately, many of the modern maintenance systems will keep you aware of this information through the use of alerts and notifications.
OVER TO YOU
Pulling the most benefit from your CMMS starts with understanding the possibilities. We believe we’ve shared those possibilities with you today.
We also believe you’ll take what you’ve read here and apply it to your facility. That way, you can derive maximum benefit from your maintenance solution.
So, after reading today’s article, do you think you’re squeezing the most benefit from your maintenance solution? Let us know.
Editor's note: This post was originally published in March 2016 and has been updated for comprehensiveness and freshness.
