A well-implemented computerized maintenance management system will improve efficiency, reduce cost, and enhance maintenance operations. To get the full usage and performance out of the software, it’s important to consider CMMS best practices and how they affect your processes.

8 CMMS Best Practices To Improve Functionality and Results

Fully optimizing assets and implementing preventative maintenance processes dramatically transform your company’s ability to effectively and efficiently manage maintenance and equipment needs. Just investing in a CMMS isn’t enough.  You must support the system with best practices to ensure your company reaps the benefits.

1. Educate Employees and Gather Organizational Support

For your organization to succeed with CMMS implementation, everyone needs to understand the benefits and purpose of the program. This applies to top management and executives all the way to entry-level technicians.

The entire organization needs to commit to the software and the changes it brings, and you can help motivate acceptance and enthusiasm by demonstrating how the program helps achieve business goals. Conduct departmental workshops, management seminars and one-on-one instruction to keep everyone informed.

2. Create a Custom System

Mass-produced software isn’t able to meet the unique processes of your business. If the CMMS is too cumbersome or challenging, you won’t see your team using it. If the system has unnecessary or unused functions or capabilities, you’ve wasted your money. CMMS best practices encourage full functionality of your platform.

CMMS platforms can manage maintenance activities but also do so much more. A customized CMMS application gives your users more comfort and capabilities with the system. Customized labels or windows make system navigation easier, and role-based user types keep employees from becoming overwhelmed with access and information they don’t need.

Creating custom dashboards will let you quickly track common maintenance KPIs, such as the mean time between failures and the mean time to repair. Customizing features lets you prioritize what you need for important decision-making.

3. Integrate Mobile Access and Capabilities

Digital integration takes away the communication delays and oversight challenges associated with paper-based maintenance programs. Thanks to smartphones, your technicians, supervisors and managers already possess a CMMS tool that provides centralized access to scheduling, logging hours or scanning barcodes while working in the field.

4. Take Full Advantage of Reporting Features

By providing access to massive amounts of data, digital programs open up new possibilities for decision-making. Through the help of your CMMS partner, you can collect data regarding equipment performance, asset management and preventative maintenance tasks. While you can use this data to schedule maintenance or get a big-picture look at asset health, you can use the reporting features for much more.

With the data, you can see trends in assets and start to forecast future equipment needs. This informs your budget decisions and guides you on whether you should buy additional equipment or continue making repairs. With the right CMMS provider, you can have custom reports generated that closely align with your business objectives.

5. Create Uniform Data Entry Standards

Another recommendation in the list of key CMMS best practices is standardized data entry. Your software is a database capable of holding information on asset operating conditions, repair history, scheduled maintenance and more. Accessing and using the data is difficult when people don’t enter the data consistently.

Poor data quality has an immediate and negative impact on revenue, but it also increases the risk of poor decision-making in a complex and incoherent data ecosystem. Maintenance data standards are important best practices because of the uniformity and consistency they bring to data analytics and your overall processes.

It does take some work to identify or create a data standard that works with your company’s structure, but this is where your relationship with your CMMS vendor takes over. Your partner can help create a simple standard and work with you to train your employees on the how and why of the standard. From there, conduct training until your users can both understand and recognize the basic codes.

6. Maintain Your Vendor Relationship

Your CMMS vendor is a partner that brings experience, skill and valuable insight into your CMMS implementation. You don’t just buy its program and hope for the best. Communicate regularly with your vendor and work with its team to ensure the full functionality of the platform.

Vendors may release new features or software updates, so it’s important to stay in touch. Don’t wait until after you’ve bought the CMMS program to check on the vendor’s continued involvement with clients. Ask about online or phone support resources, problem-solving strategies, webinars, communication options and other potential scenarios where you would need professional CMMS help.

7. Create Real-Time Asset Tracking

Real-time monitoring of your assets is another top consideration with CMMS best practices. This is commonly termed an enterprise asset management platform. Key features that benefit your processes include:

• Asset warranty tracking
• Inventory and depreciation value
• Preventative maintenance schedules
• RFID/QR code tracking
• Asset location and rotation

Real-time tracking is the key to knowing exactly what’s going on with your assets regardless of where they are or what project they are on. You won’t be surprised by maintenance needs while assets are in the field, and you won’t get caught off guard by missing equipment.

8. Continue Investing in Training

A CMMS presents your team with a lot of tasks to learn and execute, as well as data to understand and evaluate. Ongoing training is critical if your users are going to embrace and use the system effectively and fully. Training new users is important for opening, managing and closing requests, but training shouldn’t stop there.

Upgrades to the system often require new training, as do modifications. Certain employees may have limited access until their skills and experience warrant additional training, which is why a training protocol should be in place. Make full use of any training offered by your CMMS partner.

Work With a Partner To Implement CMMS Best Practices

While these tips can get you started with CMMS best practices, working with a CMMS partner such as DreamzCMMS will ensure your team and organization reaps the full benefits of a computerized maintenance management program. Contact our team today to learn how to improve your maintenance operations to reduce costs while increasing efficiency.