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Your maintenance team faces new challenges every day.  Equipment breakdowns, a growing backlog of work, missing parts, increasing pressure regarding costs – the list goes on. It is no wonder they always look so stressed. If only there was a simple, cost effective way that your business could address these issues and reduce your maintenance teams stress levels? Well in a world short of good news, here is some cheer, there is!  Maintenance management software or as it is commonly known CMMS will not only help eliminate your daily maintenance challenges, it will also often correct the root cause.  The good news doesn’t stop there either.  The right software, from the right provider, will address your most common maintenance headaches straight out of the box. So, what maintenance management problems do customers most often report and how will your CMMS help?

A real-time, overview of your entire maintenance operation

When you log-in to your CMMS the first thing you will most likely see is your maintenance dashboard. This vital module gives you a real-time, overview of your entire maintenance operation with access to the key data you require to remain in control just one click away:

KPI’s & Performance Metrics: View and review all your important data in one place, you can filter what you see to suit your changing needs.

Work Order Status: See the status of live, upcoming, and overdue work orders and PM’s

Real-time Data: Get an up-to-the-minute look at your maintenance operation in real-time.

Customised Dashboards: Create dashboards based on an individual’s rights or roles or needs. You can include custom reports too.

As your maintenance dashboard gives you a real-time, overview of your entire maintenance operation it also provides all the maintenance intelligence you require to continually improve and increase your operational efficiency, and not simply after the fact but during the same shift.

Maintenance Overload: Maintenance backlog will always exist, will quickly get out of hand and overload your maintenance team if not managed appropriately. Your CMMS dashboard allows you to see what tasks are due and when they become overdue. Presenting you with all the information you need to adjust your plan of attack and address this productivity stifling problem.

Bad Communication: It’s hard to make decisions, delegate work, and fine-tune maintenance schedules when you don’t have access to up-to-date information. Not only does the dashboard give you live insights into your maintenance operations, a shared dashboard will also ensure your whole team is looking at the same key metrics, allowing your team to work as one.

Team Performance: Having key metrics front and centre makes it easy to analyse your team’s performance – a key asset in any operation, identify areas that need improvement, and make changes that increase asset performance.

Build, Assign, Process, Complete & Document Work Requests

The Work Order module is a vital component of your chosen maintenance management software solution, in fact we are often approached for ‘Work Order’ software. It is where you build, assign, process, complete, and document work requests and work orders:

Work Requests: Allows your entire team, including and perhaps especially those outside of your maintenance team to record problems and create work requests for your maintenance team to address. 

Instructions and Documents: Adding manufacturers manuals, SOP’s, drawings, photos, and more to work orders ensures more efficient communication across your team and boosts the likely hood of Work Orders being completed successfully first time.

Spares, Tools & Safety Equipment: Associate all the spare parts associated with an asset or Work Order, produce Kit’s and include the safety equipment or tools needed for a task.

Failure codes: Outline a problem, cause, and action for asset failure and report on it

Scheduling: Set deadlines, choose a priority level, and assign an appropriately skilled team member.

Additional notes: Include helpful details, like the sound a machine made before breaking down in work requests and orders.

Tracking: See the status of work, monitor costs and store closed work orders in a secure and easy to interrogate manner.

The additional control the Work Order module provides will solve many of your maintenance problems by contributing positively across your operation by driving efficiency and saving you money:

Costly Downtime: The Work Order module makes the work order process faster than with pen and paper and more accurate than Excel. The quicker a work request or order is created, assigned, and completed, the less time an asset is down. Assets will get running in less time reducing your costs and ensuring output targets are achieved.

Poor Workflow: This feature allows staff to document, submit, and see requests instantly without writing it down twice or by searching through paper files – maintenance becomes a team effort. Also, your Maintenance team can access the resources required to get the task done fast, first time, and safely without wasting your most precious and costly resource TIME.

Lack of information: The work order builder ensures every detail for a task is available. This eases communication, makes troubleshooting more straightforward, enables smarter decision-making and improves outcomes.

Deliver on your maintenance plan

Your CMMS will allow you to create a Preventative maintenance schedule. Not only will it make building an effective preventative maintenance schedule easier, it will also help your team deliver on your maintenance plan because of features like:

Planned Preventative Maintenance: Automatically trigger scheduled tasks based on date, meter hours, seasonality or any combination of these factors.

Activity: See your teams schedule and assign tasks intelligently, dependent upon availability, workload and craft.

Purchasing Insight: Make sure inventory purchases critical to upcoming tasks are made and the items are held in reserve against tasks.

Planned Maintenance Metrics: Quick and easy access to key performance data such as planned maintenance compliance, or indeed non-compliance.

Complete PM Equipment Builder: Add all information available from a work order to a scheduled maintenance task enabling smarter decision-making and therefore improve outcomes.

The maintenance intelligence the Preventative Maintenance scheduler module of your CMMS provides will solve many of your maintenance problems, by enabling you to make decisions based on data, rather than gut feelings and other more subjective reasons:

Increased proactive maintenance: The single largest advantage of this module is that it will help you establish a preventive maintenance schedule and not only that the means to help you manage it. This will reduce your over-reliance on fire fighting and improve everything from safety to boosting asset uptime.

Doing too many PM’s: There is such a thing as too much maintenance. The maintenance planner helps you establish the best frequency for tasks based on real data and maintenance intelligence, so your team are better utilised.

Overspending: The planner tool gives you a view into every part needed for scheduled maintenance so you never order too many parts, schedule too many people or the wrong skills, overpay on expediting parts, or lose sight of how your department is performing.

Your team and your successors will feel like they have worked on your Assets all their career

A Digital Asset inventory provides you your business with a complete overview of your assets and not just that but their history too, helping you, your team and your successors feel like they have worked on them all their career:

Asset Hierarchy & Location: Organize assets into a hierarchy, be that based on asset type, function, or production cell and know exactly where each asset is located.

Work History: See an asset’s entire work history including past problems, fixes, trends and which skills are required to support specific assets.

Documents & Notes: Attach bills of materials, manuals, drawings, safety notes, and more to assets to empower your team’s decision making.

Asset Costs: See how much an asset is costing your business to maintain, just how much has been spent on parts and labour for each specific asset.

Asset Status: Set the status of an asset and track availability, how much time has been spent online or offline, MTTR (Mean Time To Repair), MTBF (Mean Time Between Failures) and more.

Supplier Information: Associate warranty and vendor or manufacturer information to an asset.

The additional insight and easy access to critical asset data your digital Asset Inventory provides will solve many of your maintenance problems and contribute to increasing your operational efficiency:

Audit ready: Audits can be stressful. They require the provision of very specific information about assets and their maintenance history. Digital asset profiles give you the ability to find and present critical information in a stress free and professional manner.

Building accurate budgets: Digital asset profiles contain all the details you need to calculate how much maintenance costs for each piece of equipment within your facility and therefore allows you to make better informed choices about repair or replace decisions, and more.

Inefficient PM’s: It’s hard to see the value of preventive maintenance if it’s inefficient. This tool helps technicians avoid having to search for all the information they require about an asset before they start, making it easier for them to complete scheduled maintenance quickly and safely first time.

Get to grips with your spares stock

If it is quick wins you are looking for (who isn’t) the Inventory feature is going to be your new best friend.  It will quickly help you get to grips with your spares stock:

Parts Monitoring: Know exactly what parts you have, where they are located, how many you have available and what your stockholding days are.

Barcodes: Pick the right parts, first time and automatically update stock figures.

Stock Alerts: Set minimum and maximum quantities and automatic reordering for critical parts when stocks are below minimum.

Part Tracking: Use parts based on date of purchase or use by date or any other method you prefer.

Multi-site Organization: Have access to spare parts across multiple sites, not just your facility.

Equipment/Work-associated Parts: Add commonly used or recommended parts to work orders and Preventative Maintenance tasks.

Purchasing: Automatically create and send digital purchase requisitions and purchase orders and track this activity too.

A robust inventory management system will address some big headaches for your maintenance team by taking control of the many and various spares fundamental to their day to day activity. Your purchasing department will be much happier too:

Mystery Maintenance: Your maintenance team isn’t your only department relying on accurate inventory numbers. A CMMS makes it possible to share important data with financial software, like an ERP, so maintenance costs are always reflected in company financials.

Spiraling Costs: Spare parts can be expensive, especially if you are purchasing them in an emergency. Your CMMS should eliminate these circumstances and cuts costs by forecasting inventory needs and establishing just-in-time delivery.

Stock Redundancy: Excessive stock holding is a drain on your profits, your CMMS will help you identify redundant parts and slow movers and introduce controls over your future purchases.

Elusive Inventory: Hard to find inventory wastes time and can extend downtime – which is super costly. Not only will your CMMS identify parts it will also give you the precise location of each part, down to a bin number so you can always find what you’re looking for.

Track, Analyse & Optimize Maintenance Performance

By simply using your CMMS you will create lots of useful data. The ability to Report on this data will make it easier to track, analyse, and optimize maintenance performance, as well as inform other key departments within your business:

Pre-built & Custom Reports: Choose from many pre-built common reports or create your own to find information tailored to your very specific needs.

Dashboard Reports: Get real-time metrics sent to your CMMS dashboard.

Scheduled Reports: Set up regular reports to automatically run and shared with whoever needs to see them.

Other Reports: Create reports for maintenance spending, audit compliance or other related functions

A universal truth is the data doesn’t lie, which makes your reporting tool essential for making better, more informed decisions, which will in turn further improve your operation moving forward:

Maintenance ROI: Effective maintenance provides value, true. But how do you show it? The numbers will back it up. Easier reporting helps you connect better maintenance to higher production and lower costs, so your team becomes recognised as the profit centre it is.

Time Creation: Creating reports by hand in Excel can be tedious, time-consuming and often leads to errors. Pre-built, reports eliminate this issue and save everyone time.

Value Creation: Meanwhile, Custom reports provide everyone from management to technician exactly what they require.

Identify Problems Build Solutions: Answers to your biggest problems can be hidden amongst a mountain of numbers. Your CMMS makes it easier to sort data, pinpoint problems or what is causing them, then develop and implement a strategy to fix it.

So, there you go. Do any of these problems resonate with you and your business? Do you think implementing a new or upgrading your CMMS would help you address your pain points (and their cause) Would a product 35 years in the making and the support of a company like Ashcom Technologies supercharge your maintenance management operation? If you’re thinking about implementing a CMMS, Ashcom Technologies is here to help why not get in contact.

Workplace safety has never been higher on the agenda. Driven by the global pandemic new legislation has required companies to take extensive precautions to protect their workers from the threat of COVID-19 and create COVID safe working environments here in the UK. This made me think about what a CMMS or maintenance management software solution can contribute to improved workplace safety.

Supporting Legislation

Even before COVID-19 made employees and employers more aware of workplace safety, a CMMS was a useful tool in promoting a safe work environment. It can already help businesses comply with existing Health & Safety Executive (HSE) guidelines. If you’ve worked in maintenance or facility management, you’re probably familiar with the HSE, it is a UK government agency responsible for the encouragement, regulation and enforcement of workplace health, safety and welfare, and for research into occupational risks in Great Britain.

On the HSE’s website, there is lots of guidance for employer’s including what a business should do to maximise workplace safety and create an environment where the opportunity for injury is reduced. One of those responsibilities is to make sure work equipment is selected, installed and maintained to protect the health and safety of yourself, employees and others who may be affected by the way you use it.

That sounds like the reason that maintenance management software was first developed, to help manufacturers maintain equipment and assets, track tools and ensure that your maintenance team has what it needs when they need it.

Another of HSE’s employer responsibilities that can be supported with maintenance management software is the requirement to provide “a safe place to work”.

Conforming to HSE standards depends on your industry, company and equipment amongst other things and should not be taken lightly. A CMMS will promote and support a regular examination of workplace conditions with scheduled, reoccurring preventive maintenance. Maintenance management software will remind users when a Preventative Maintenance task (PM) needs to be performed, which usually requires a comprehensive examination of equipment.

Here’s another safety reason to keep a CMMS around, it can help prevent the often cited, costly and reputation damaging violation of Machinery and Machine Guarding.

Take, for example, an injection moulding machine. These machines always have safeguards that prevent workers from putting their body in harm’s way while it’s in operation.

A trained maintenance technician conducting preventive maintenance on an injection moulding machine would spot a faulty safeguard and could perform a Lock-Out Tag-Out (LOTO) on the faulty machine and alert the rest of the maintenance team via CMMS. Maintenance management software notifies the maintenance team that this equipment needs repairs, facilitating quicker response times and thus a safer workplace, sooner.

Preventive Maintenance = More Reliable Equipment

Reliability equals predictability and when it comes to large industrial machinery, predictability means safety. When preventive maintenance is ignored, larger more dangerous problems can arise. There are far too many stories where improper maintenance of equipment has resulted in employee injury, or worse.

What we often learn when we read these unfortunate stories is the largest peril of poor preventive maintenance: the loop of reactive maintenance. When preventive maintenance is performed it is planned for and accommodated into a schedule, when unplanned maintenance is performed it can lead to poor repair jobs because of operational pressure. It can also have the knock-on effect of other important tasks being neglected, or worse forgotten.

Anything in a facility can fall victim to poor preventive maintenance which can lead to a more dangerous environment, not just equipment but the structure of a building and the infrastructure. The best way to ensure, drive and record that a maintenance management team is following a proper preventive maintenance schedule is with a CMMS.

Digital Documentation

A CMMS is more than just a tool for preventive maintenance though, it’s also a place to store important documentation on standard operating procedures, preventive maintenance procedures, and in-house safety plans.

And unlike paper documents, your maintenance management software stores this vital information in one easily located, searchable place.

The digitization of documentation such as Work Orders and the like can even limit the amount of physical interaction needed to perform maintenance and maintain social distancing, which in the age of COVID-19, is a plus. When information can be accessed digitally, there’s no need to pass along paperwork orders or even necessarily be within close proximity of the work requester. 

Maintenance Reporting

By providing Safety Equipment Reports, a CMMS’ reporting function can be another boon to a maintenance management’s workplace safety.

So, what goes into a Safety Equipment Report? A CMMS, like MaintiMizer, will include the equipment description, equipment condition, risk level, as well as all of the work orders associated with that equipment so you can accurately assess the reliability and safety level of that particular equipment.

A CMMS is built to manage maintenance and by doing so it mitigates many of the risks that come with poor maintenance practices. If you’re thinking about implementing a CMMS, Ashcom Technologies is here to help and can guide your implementation with the safest, most responsible methods possible.

Manufacturers in the UK are placing more and more importance on what they can do to achieve tough net zero targets set by the government after the UK becomes the first major economy to pass net zero emissions law. Whilst 2050 may seem a long way off, the spotlight is upon the manufacturing sector – not just from the Government, but also from investors, shareholders, activists, suppliers and consumers to see what manufacturers will do to clean up their act. There is also a growing sentiment that sustainability and perhaps the savings associated with energy efficiency can be a key driver of the UK’s economic recovery in a post Covid-19 world.

The list of big energy users in the UK is not surprising or unique. It is not a shock to learn that Chemical manufacturers, Engineering, especially Metal producers and workers, the Food & Beverage, and other process sectors use more energy and contribute the most emissions to the UK’s 0.4 metric gigaton annual output.  In these energy-intensive sectors, energy costs can amount to as much as 20% of operational costs. Why? Firstly, energy is expensive. Secondly, because even basic goods require huge amounts of energy to produce. Energy in the volumes consumed by these types of manufacturers is usually measured in units called megajoules. Aptly named, perhaps because in part of the huge volume’s energy is being consumed in. As an illustration, it would take approximately 1 megajoule of energy to move a one-tonne vehicle at a speed of around 100mph. It is perhaps shocking then to consider that to produce just one 1 kg bag of pasta, you need about up to 2.4MJ of energy – that’s from field to packet. What then a much more complicated product like a car? Incredibly, the manufacture of your average family saloon demands 119,150MJ³ for its entire build and assembly – a figure so large it is difficult to fathom!

Clearly, any efficiency gain available in a manufacturer’s process or plant brings with it a huge potential benefit. So, what can be done to reduce emissions and energy costs and what part can maintenance management software play in this process?

Let us first think about that term maintenance, a dictionary definition may read something like this. Activities required or undertaken to conserve as nearly, and as long, as possible the original condition of an asset or resource while compensating for normal wear and tear. Straight forward enough, but no easy task in an environment that operates around the clock like a busy production facility. It is a fact that deterioration of manufacturers systems’ condition, and its capability, begins to take place as soon as the system is commissioned. In addition to normal wear and deterioration, other failures may occur especially when the equipment is pushed beyond its design limits or due to operational errors. As a result, equipment downtime, quality problems, energy losses, safety hazards or environmental pollution are likely outcomes. All these outcomes have the potential to impact negatively the operating cost, profitability and productivity of a business. One of the major challenges of any maintenance team faces is implementing and delivering an effective but also practical maintenance strategy. One which maximizes the availability of assets, but also controls the rate of equipment deterioration and minimizes the total cost of the operation – which means both production and energy cost. This is where your maintenance management software begins to show a return on your investment.

So how can the effective use of your maintenance management software help manufacturers reduce their energy consumption, their energy costs, help them become more sustainable and perhaps begin to contribute toward that bigger net zero objective?

A Robust and Practical Preventive Maintenance Strategy

A great preventive maintenance strategy is fundamental to keeping your assets in peak condition, it is the implementation and delivery of the strategy, in the form of a schedule that achieves this goal for as long as possible. It goes without saying well maintained assets are more likely to perform better for longer. However, this is about more than asset longevity, it is about the amount of energy an asset requires to maintain the required output or performance. Take the example of a compressed air system. Maintaining a consistent supply of quality compressed air requires regular maintenance. Failure to undertake even rudimentary activities like hose inspections may result in your previously very economical system costing your business more than you bargained on. There are multiple examples of where the simple activity of maintenance has been proven to reduce energy consumption and your energy costs straight of the bat. Conducting regular checks on important assets and equipment to identify problems and correcting them, before they begin to negatively impact an asset’s performance is bread and butter for a forward-thinking maintenance team. What is vital is that your preventive maintenance strategy is built on a solid foundation of facts. The generation and collection of high-quality data will help users determine the most efficient way to maintain specific assets whilst maximising performance and energy efficiency. Maintenance software is one way to create, instill and deliver a solid preventive maintenance management strategy, considering the many variables that determine this and achieve peak asset efficiency throughout their lifetime.

Automated & Electronic Work Orders

Using maintenance software to automatically generate Work Orders both regulates this key maintenance activity and can contribute to the goal of reducing energy in marginal, but repeatable and impactful ways. Not only can work orders be created to direct your team to undertake energy monitoring tasks, such as powering equipment down, checking heating temperatures, taking meter readings, etc. With mobile technology in place, your maintenance management software also eliminates the need for paperwork. This both reduces your environmental impact and the associated costs of the paper itself and of course the printing. A digital work order also includes the option to attach standard operating procedures to ensure that maintenance tasks are undertaken correctly further contributing to the long-term efficient performance of equipment and yet further reducing paper consumption.

Actionable Data

Another way to address runaway energy consumption and therefore save money is to identify potential issues with assets and address them before they happen or become too onerous and costly. Remember, the asset may be performing as expected in terms of output, but a lack of maintenance may mean it is working harder to do so. Potentially having an impact on its longevity, not to mention that it may be costing you more to operate in terms of energy and by default producing more emissions too. This process starts with collecting solid data and using this information to make informed decisions. One way to ensure actionable data is accurately collected and turned into useful reports is through maintenance management software. By simply using your CMMS you will generate data. Reports based on the facts collected can used to identify trends, patterns or possible problems before a breakdown, or worse an asset that continues to perform, but outside of its acceptable range accelerating its decline and at risk of repeating myself costing the operator more. Addressing the likely issue, offers many returns these include less scrap and rework, reduced energy use and lower operating costs.

Get to Grips with your Spares

Getting your spares under control will help companies stop wasting energy and cut costs. Having a spare part on hand for every eventuality may be comforting, but it is also costly and unnecessary in a world where next day or even same day deliveries are commonplace. Simply storing an expansive inventory of spares requires energy. Reducing your stock on hand will have a positive impact on reducing energy consumption and your operating costs. To do this with confidence you need to understand your stock – what spares are critical, what spares will be needed for which task and how many of a part to hold in stock. This is the kind of functionality your CMMS will provide. Not only that but your software can also automate purchasing from suppliers, help you with forecasting and identifying redundant items. There are also associated upstream benefits, in terms of energy consumption. If you purchase fewer spares, because you know you need less, less would be produced, which in turn saves energy and money.

This list is by no means all-encompassing there are many more ways that maintenance management software can positively impact a business’s operating costs, more specifically by maximising energy conservation strategies. A CMMS is not a silver bullet, simply choosing a system and having it deployed at your business will have no measurable effect. In fact, a survey in 2008 found that it is not uncommon for manufacturers to suffer the consequences of insufficient or inappropriate preventative maintenance, even though they have computerised maintenance management systems (CMMS) to assist with maintenance management decisions, data collection and record keeping. There is certainly a challenge to further understand the interdependencies between energy performance and maintenance. It is clear, however, that a lack of a structured methodology inhibits companies from effectively managing their facilities and assets and reaching their maintenance and energy performance goals.

If you would like to learn more about MaintiMizer, Ashcom Technologies inhouse developed maintenance management software and how it can help you proactively manage your maintenance operation, boost productivity, control costs and help you take the right steps to reduce your energy consumption please get in touch.

Ashcom Technologies is delighted to announce we will be exhibiting at the Backing Britain Live 2020 ‘virtual exhibition’ organised by the Made in Group. In response to the global Covid-19 crisis, like many other exhibition organisers the Made in Group has been forced to cancel their annual manufacturing expo. Rather than simply rearrange for next year the group will now hold a first of a kind ‘virtual exhibition’. Beginning on August 17th, this will be a 2-week “Digital Business Festival”. Its aim is to keep industry connected and help manufacturers collaborate, share best practice, and promote British manufacturing. The virtual expo will include: Webinars, Conferencing, Round Table Discussions, Networking, Virtual Expo Hall, Digital Mastermind Groups, and a Physical Goodie Bag for all attendees.

Jason Pitt, Chief Executive of the Made in Group, said: “Made in exhibitions are significant events that many members and visitors look forward to, but like many aspects of our way of life, we have had to make considerable adjustments. We are an innovative organisation when it comes to technology. We do more than many realise. As a business, we have developed a digital platform that allows members to create their own social media microsite, upload news, attend virtual webinars and soon to include virtual mastermind groups, question-and-answer sessions and panel discussions.”

All at Ashcom Technologies are incredibly proud of our 35 year track record contributing to the growth and success of our customers, by helping them harness the power of technology to drive their business forward. During this period of global disruption, we recognise the ability to take advantage of technology has never been more important. Technologies such as maintenance management software are key to improving productivity and contribute significantly to increasing our customer’s long-term capabilities.

Ashcom Technologies UK Sales Manager, Guy Charteris said, “It’s important to have a strong national supply chain so that we can deal with crises like the one we are working through, any event that aims to secure localisation of supply chains can only be a good thing. We are long term suppliers of software solutions into the United Kingdom and recognise the vital role the Midlands manufacturing sector can play in driving the recovery.”

Ashcom Technologies are excited to be exhibiting at such an iconic event and position themselves at the forefront of technological innovation. It is the time for industry to not only stand up and be counted, but to ultimately embrace change and be enthusiastic in the face of new ways of working, such as virtual networking.

The exhibition already has more than 200 exhibitors confirmed with a footfall target of 5,000 delegates. We’d love to virtually connect with you on the day and have as many of our customers and supply chain as possible involved in this innovative event click the link to book your place  

Whatever your industry, whatever your company culture or size what separates ‘spend’ from ‘investment’ is the expectation an investment will bring you a return. When you decide to invest, whether from your annual budget or making a CapEx request you can be sure there will be a justification process, be that to yourself or the board.  This is a conversation the team at Ashcom Technologies are often party to, you see when purchasing software like a computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) that expectation is no different, in fact, it is often heightened.

Whilst the concept that a CMMS will have a significant and positive impact on your maintenance operations is not challenging to illustrate, we are often asked ‘Just how can we measure that impact’ or ‘what will the ROI be’ my boss will want to know.

An often-quoted study conducted some time ago by Jones Lang LaSalle suggested that preventative maintenance itself could achieve an ROI of 545%. This exercise considered the cost of replacing equipment – in this instance particularly expensive equipment, the impact preventative maintenance had on equipment life expectancy and the impact on energy consumption, amongst other factors. Again, it is not challenging to appreciate if you maintain equipment, in a proactive manner you increase the likelihood of it working better and more efficiently, for longer. Therefore, pushing that date you need to replace said equipment further and further into the future. And, there you go all the factors you need for an impressive ROI.

Every provider of maintenance management software will provide you with an ROI calculator, why, we even have one.  The truth of the matter is, however, how much you save and the speed of return depends on many variables –  The software you choose, the level of investment, how you purchase it, how well it is implemented and the list goes on and on. Add in the specifics of your very own business and it is easy to see why this process becomes so complicated and any result could easily become misleading. 

Key Performance Indicators

So how can you reliably measure the impact of implementing maintenance management software at your business? Which key performance indicators can you can use to gauge the success of your chosen solution and measure the positive impact it has on shaping maintenance operations? Whilst the most revealing will inevitably vary from organization to organization, there are some indicators that are applicable to most maintenance teams. Here they are:

Choosing the right maintenance management software will supercharge your maintenance team’s productivity by introducing Workflow Improvements. If you can schedule preventive maintenance tasks in a CMMS, your work order process will be more organized, you’ll get more done and you will get it done faster. The right system will create team accountability by allowing you to measure scheduled, completed, and overdue work orders at the press of a button. Improving your team’s efficiency and workflow in a measurable way.

How much time did you really spend completing a task, compared to the time you estimated? Maintenance management software makes Estimated V Actual Time – a key performance indicator easy to measure. It will also provide the specific data you need to help you make informed decisions, which in turn will facilitate future efficiencies, allow your team to work smarter, and improve outcomes.

As your preventive maintenance activities increase, by default your reactive maintenance workload will decrease, leading to quantifiable cost savings. Unexpected Maintenance Costs – as a result of breakdowns may not be budgeted for, and production may need to cease whilst repairs are undertaken meaning your team is working under pressure. Production stopping or being slowed may also damage both your company reputation and your profits.

A widely used method for measuring the output of equipment is Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE). A CMMS will provide meaningful data on repair times for individual assets, one of the key variables involved in calculating your OEE. Mean Time to Repair (MTTR) and Mean Time Between Failure) MTBF can also be determined quickly by a CMMS and contribute to assessing OEE.

Quantitative and Qualitative benefits

Whilst some benefits of deploying a CMMS is easy to measure, others are less so. Both the more obvious or quantitative and less tangible – let’s call them qualitative can both add value by providing the insight you need to establish whether your chosen software is having the expected impact. So just what are these mystery benefits?

Your CMMS will facilitate improved decision making. The ability to record and analyse data, and then draw conclusions from it, is much easier to do with all the necessary information at your fingertips. The ultimate pay-out is that you are making decisions based on facts, not feelings and this will result in better outcomes. Not only that you’ll be able to prioritize maintenance jobs more efficiently, allocate labour hours more effectively, order spare parts in advance.

A computerized maintenance management system leads to improved communication not just within your maintenance team but across the company. Why?  You and your colleagues will be able to check the status of jobs, assign and close work orders, automatically adjust inventory numbers and raise PO’s, all without leaving your desk. Information will pass freely throughout your maintenance team and beyond at speed. You can also present critical and pertinent data, in a user-friendly way to stakeholders throughout your business at will.

Another metric that may seem difficult to measure is extended asset lifecycles. It can, however, take years to collect enough data to draw meaningful conclusions.  Assets can last for many years, even decades, so a true comparison of asset life before and after deploying your CMMS could take an entire career to measure. However, logic says you will reap the rewards of your assets lasting longer in the immediate future by implementing a regimented preventative maintenance schedule.

Perhaps, the most important intangible result you will see from using a CMMS is the raised visibility of your maintenance team positioning them as an asset and critical to the ongoing function of your organization, rather than simply a cost. In fact, the right CMMS may change the way your business thinks about maintenance altogether.  

The manufacturing sector is coming under increasing pressure to become more sustainable. From simple benefits like reducing paper usage, your CMMS can drive your need to reduce the impact of your business on the environment. Through energy efficiency measures, limiting scrap and shrinking your inventory will enable your business to do more with less, which makes both sound environmental and commercial sense.

A happy maintenance team is a productive maintenance team. Your chosen software should improve employee well-being, by reducing stress through the presentation of a manageable workload in an organised and logical manner. Less stress means a stable team and reduced employee turnover resulting in reduced onboarding and recruitment costs.

The key areas of impact resulting from deploying maintenance management software will depend on the stakeholder. There is no blanket response to the question ‘has it worked?’ because what may be important to one team within your business may be less significant to another. Your line managers’ opinion may be simple. Are they still hearing about problems a CMMS was supposed to solve? If they are hearing about them less or not at all, they may consider the deployment to be a success. Your finance team will want to see it has had a positive effect on controlling spend and getting to grips with your inventory.  Perhaps ultimately, if your maintenance team is more productive because of your chosen CMMS you can consider its implementation to be successful. Another truth is that whilst there are fast wins – the benefits will of course increase over time as the software beds in and as users get to grips with the technology at their fingertips.

One final important way to assess the impact of your CMMS is through reporting – it is also a whole new blog post! However, in short, the right CMMS will allow you to correlate all and any data to find the comparisons and numbers you’re looking for. CMMS systems have standard reports available on work order completion, mean time between asset failures, estimated versus actual labour hours, inventory counts, and purchasing information, the ability to create your own takes reporting to another level.

If you are investigating introducing maintenance management software at your business or are concerned what you have in place is not delivering, why not give the team at Ashcom Technologies a call? We would be delighted to hear from you, develop a thorough understanding of your needs and deliver a solution that will integrate into business seamlessly and efficiently generating maximum impact and ROI in the minimum amount of time.

There are maintenance teams in almost every industry, from manufacturing to hospitality. This means there are maintenance teams of every size, from 1 man-bands of maintenance to entire companies dedicated to the upkeep of critical equipment. So, CMMS software must be adaptable to each company’s varying needs and concerns. One of the most critical questions to consider is whether to deploy a cloud-based CMMS or an on-premise CMMS.

To put it simply, cloud-based CMMS software is hosted on the CMMS software vendor’s servers whereas on-premise CMMS software is hosted on the client’s server.

“Hosting” software on a server is sort of like hosting guests at your house. As host, the brunt of the work/implementation falls on you, but it does have its advantages, like not worrying about having to make the trip home.
In reality, it depends on your company’s resources to determine which is right for you.

Here are 3 things to consider when deciding whether cloud-based or on-premise CMMS is right for you.

Security

This is one of the most common reasons cited for choosing an on-premise CMMS over cloud-based CMMS; limiting unnecessary exposure to data. If you’re deciding between the two, it’s one of the first things you should consider, as cybersecurity becomes more important.

The common thinking is cloud-based software sends data in and out of a facility, so it could be exposed to more vulnerabilities and cyber-attacks. 

If we go back to the hosting guest’s analogy, it’s like when your guests (data) leave your house and make the trip home (vendor’s servers) while you sleep soundly and safely in your bed.

Of course, the matter of which is more secure is not so black and white.

Some security experts would argue that cloud-based software is actually more secure.

When you host your data on a CMMS vendor’s server, more than likely, you’re sending your data to an organization more equipped to handle the security than your own. 

Of course, if you work for a company or organization in the military or energy sector, chances are keeping your valuable data behind a firewall and on-premise is not only more secure, it’s required.

Usually, the biggest determining factor of whether a company chooses on-premise CMMS or cloud-based, is whether they have the resources to support an on-premise CMMS.

On-premise CMMS software requires server hardware, an IT team, and the ability to integrate the software. If your company or maintenance team doesn’t have access to those resources, chances are a cloud-based CMMS would be a better choice.

Convenience

Those required resources make convenience one of the biggest reasons companies pick cloud-based CMMS.

For cloud-based software, deploying it is often as simple as logging into a provided URL.

For on-premise software, the implementation will likely need all the resources listed above.

And even if your company has all the above resources, oftentimes an IT team won’t necessarily have the time to execute the implementation. If this is the case, a cloud-based CMMS may be a better solution.

Of course, convenience is a double-edged sword. An on-premise CMMS solution can be more easily tailored to a facility’s particular needs. So, while the initial set-up may be less convenient, the personal configuration may prove to provide more convenience in the day-to-day.

Costs

You probably knew costs were going to mention at some point, right?

Now, you might assume, due to the extra resources involved, that an on-premise solution is more costly. And you would be right, at first. On-premise CMMS software can usually have more initial costs, but most cloud-based CMMS services are subscription-based, meaning you can only access the software for as long as you pay for it.

With on-premise CMMS solutions, it’s possible to buy the software license outright. Over the course of a few years, the initial investment in hosting the software yourself will prove to be more cost-effective than paying for a subscription model.

Now that you know the big 3 considerations when it comes to the debate of on-premise CMMS or cloud-based, meet with your facility manager, maintenance manager, and IT team (if you have one) to figure out which CMMS deployment is right for you. Schedule the meeting at your house, so you don’t have to worry about the drive home.

Maintenance Management is considered an old-fashioned industry. You’ve probably come across headlines proclaiming the end of manufacturing facilities as they struggle to replace their aging workforce.

While it’s true that the average age for management positions in facility management, manufacturing, and similar industries skews higher than other industries, according to the IFMA the average facility manager is 49 years old with 28 years of work experience, these industries are often on the cutting edge of emerging technology.

These industries that rely heavily upon maintenance management are huge drivers of implementing IoT technology, one of the most fascinating industries in tech. In fact, the top 3 use cases for IoT technology were remote monitoring, preventive maintenance, and asset tracking. If you’re in maintenance management, you’re probably very familiar with all three.

2020 will be no different. Maintenance Management, Facility Maintenance, and Manufacturing will be on the cutting edge. Here’s 3 Maintenance Management trends to watch in 2020.

5G

5G is here. Well, sort of. Cellular carriers are slowly implementing the technology that’s up to 10 times faster than 4G.

Right now, for the most part, it’s in select metropolitan areas. But carriers, like AT&T, plan to have nationwide coverage in the first half of 2020. So, how is 5G going to affect the maintenance management industry?

Well, faster internet speeds mean faster flow of information. For companies that span across multiple facilities, being able to download reports or other pertinent information 10 times faster than before is huge. Even more important than speed is reliability. At the end of the day, maintenance management is all about reliability – and cellular networks inside a manufacturing facility have a reputation for being not so reliable.  5G’s reliability and adaptability might be able to change that.

Predictive Maintenance

Every year, technology improves and organizations’ ability to implement Predictive Maintenance becomes easier and more costs effective.  2020 will be no different. More companies will adopt and implement predictive maintenance technology because being able to predict downtime or when maintenance needs to be performed is incredibly valuable to maintenance management. 

Predictive Maintenance is possible because of the wealth of data that machine sensors provide, such as an increase in vibration. An increase in vibration picked up by a sensor may indicate that maintenance needs to be performed to avoid downtime.

Cyber Security

Destructive malware attacks are on the rise.  In 2019 companies saw an increase in malware attacks by 200%.  If that trend continues it’s going to become more and more pertinent that organizations protect themselves from any would be hackers.  

So, what does that have to do with maintenance management? Remember when we talked about predictive maintenance above?  The technology needed for facilities to move to predictive technology means more ways for a hacker to access a organization’s information. 

If your facility is interested in acquiring predictive maintenance or 5G technology, they must consider how those technologies will affect their cyber security and plan accordingly.

Maintenance Management is at the forefront of industrial technology. Like all emerging technology it can be insanely valuable or it can leave an organization vulnerable, depending on how it’s utilized. These are the 3 we believe that any maintenance management team should be aware of and consider as they head into 2020. 

“Let’s Stay Together…” There’s no way Al Green meant maintenance technicians and slowing maintenance turnover when he sang his 1972 classic, Let’s Stay Together. But if you employ a maintenance team and know some of your employees are on the way out, you may end up serenading your exiting workforce.

Why? Because turnover in any industry is a huge drain on resources. In fact, some studies suggest that replacing an employee can cost a company 6 to 9 month’s of that position’s salary. Even if you lose an employee who is less than ideal, replacing them is still going to cost time and money. In industries where maintenance technicians are needed most, like Real Estate and Manufacturing, turnover can be at its most frequent.

Manufacturing, one of the industries we work most closely with, reported a turnover rate (or what the Bureau of Labor Statistics calls “separation rate”) of 32.6 percent in 2018. 32.6 percent. Real Estate, another industry that employees a high number of maintenance technicians, clocked in at 35.3 percent.

It’s tough to find a golden number for a healthy turnover rate. We often hear a 10% mark thrown around but it varies from industry to industry. We do know that routinely rehiring a third of your workforce is not healthy, but it is the reality.

There are ways to lower turnover but even if you operate the most stellar company, turnover will still happen. Luckily, we’re here to show you how a CMMS, a staple of high-functioning maintenance teams, can help you get through the inevitable turnover. 

A CMMS Tells Your Company’s Story

In a nutshell, a CMMS is a place to store valuable maintenance information. From there, you can track trends, identify issues, and create routines. When you do that, your CMMS software will create a history of all the maintenance tasks performed. One of the biggest losses, when someone leaves a workplace, is the knowledge they take with them. Utilizing a CMMS allows you to store that valuable information. Now, when you replace your maintenance techs, they can pick up where the last guy left off, because all of his tasks we’re notated in the CMMS. 

Helps New Employees Become Autonomous

Let’s take inventory, an important aspect of a typical maintenance tech’s job, i.e. “Where’s that freakin’ part located?” Instead of new workers asking old workers where something is located, they can simply refer to the CMMS, which shows exactly where a part, a machine, or a tool is located. This frees up your current employees and empowers your new ones to be more effective workers.

Enforces Standardization

Workers can see all past work requests, work orders, purchase orders, PMs, etc. in a CMMS.  Now, a freshly minted employee will be able to reference this past work and compare their current work. This allows, assuming the past work was done correctly, the new employee to adopt the practices of the company in a practical and visual way.

A CMMS is a serious way to transfer tribal knowledge, workplace practices and culture, slow maintenance turnover in a convenient package that just makes your workday easier. So now, with your new workers integrated into your workforce, maybe instead of looking for the exits, they’ll be working away, humming, “Let’s Stay Together…”

Over the past few years data has become the currency of business, companies are even giving away products for free – just for personal data! But not all data is created equal. So, how do you distinguish your company’s $100 data from $1 data?

There are plenty of factors that go into the value of your business’ data, depending on the sort of information your company wants.

It could be internal operations data, which can affect leadership decision-making or client data, which can affect customer satisfaction.

No matter why the data is valuable to your organization, in order to get the most value out of it, it needs to be clean and clear. But what does “clean” data look like?

According to this analysis, conducted by Siemens, any data cleaning technique should satisfy several requirements: 

• Should detect and remove all major errors and inconsistencies both in individual data sources and when integrating multiple sources.
• Should be supported by tools to limit manual inspection and programming effort and be extensible to easily cover additional sources
• Should not be performed in isolation but together with schema-related data transformations based on comprehensive metadata

Let’s try to translate that. Into English. When cleaning data, you should:

• Identify and remove all major errors and inconsistencies in data and the data sources
• Limit the possibility for human error and make it easy to integrate new data sources
• Make sure you’re aware of how your data cleansing will affect the rest of the data or databases that it’s tied to.

Sounds like a lot of work, yeah? Well, if you’ve ever had to work with unorganized, inconsistent, or inaccurate data you know the legwork needed to keep data clean is worth the time and effort.

If you haven’t, here are a few more reasons why “clean” data is absolutely worth the effort:

1. Improved Decision Making

The more information you have the easier it is to make decisions, that’s not a complicated concept. But when leadership can’t trust the information it’s given – well you might be better off having no information at all, instead of having data that could steer you in the wrong direction.

2. Costs Saving

Let’s take, for example, a manufacturing facility. If the data regarding inventory numbers is inaccurate it can lead to inaccurate stock orders. Now, extrapolate that over a year and you could be looking at hundreds of dollars in money your company is throwing away. (That manufacturer should probably read our article on symptoms of an unhealthy facility)

Or not just hundreds, it might cost you millions. In 2013, Gartner surveyed a wide range of companies and found that poor data hygiene was costing them $14.2 million a year. This was in 2013. In 2019, companies are gathering more data than ever.

3. Time Savings/ Loss of Productivity

We know time is money. So, having to sift through a cluttered database or unorganized CRM will cost your organization. If you plan on using certain sets of data in the future, the time it takes to organize and cleanse data will pay for itself.

4. Customer Satisfaction

B2C organizations pile up tons of customer data, so keeping your client’s data accurate and consistent can be the difference between a satisfied customer and a customer abandoning your services.

Also, if a customer is willing to trust a company with their data, it’s up to that company to do everything possible to protect and maintain the integrity of that data. If your organization deals with customers or is based in an EU country, you may also be subject to the legal bindings of the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR).

5. Missed Opportunities

This might be the most obvious of benefits, gathering data isn’t just for keeping a repository of records, it can be used to gain distinct advantages as a company. For example, if a marketing research team conducts a survey and discovers that a new prototype product would be adopted by a majority of users – that’s data creating opportunities. Alternatively, if the survey conducted by the marketing research team returns with inconsistent and inaccurate data or data that can’t be easily analyzed – that’s a missed opportunity.

Cleaning data is a bit like exercising, it sounds terrible in theory and isn’t all that fun in practice, but the benefits are extraordinary.  It could grow your business, increase profits, increase customer satisfaction and even improve productivity. Actually, that sounds way more rewarding than working off those 4 extra slices of pizza from Saturday night.

 

Written by Steven Garcia

 

Wherever we work, whether it’s a manufacturing facility or a software company – we want to practice continuous improvement. It’s our nature, as human beings, to try and determine the best solutions to our problems. That’s why we’re on top of the food chain, baby! Here at Ashcom Technologies, we like to practice what we preach. So we put together an article with basic tips on how to improve your manufacturing facility’s preventive maintenance program. Let’s get started!

1. Set Goals

Admittedly, this is not some grand revelation but it’s surprising to discover how many maintenance teams either don’t set goals at all or let them fall by the wayside as time goes on.

Plenty of manufacturing maintenance teams have goals passed down to them from corporate, but if you are part of a smaller maintenance team and in a position to set goals – this could be an incredible opportunity to not only boost your team’s productivity but earn some recognition.

So, the next question is, how to set goals for a preventive maintenance program?

One common technique is S.M.A.R.T goal setting, which stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Timely.

Now, S.M.A.R.T may trigger memories of middle-school teachers desperately attempting to get students to finish their homework but there’s a reason why so many organizations use it: it works. It gives simple guidelines that can be applied to almost any goal-setting scenario.

If you’re reading this article, there’s probably some internal issues that caused you to seek out answers. So, take a moment to think of SMART goals, that could put your team on track. For example, if a certain asset’s PM schedule is being neglected, try giving your team a goal of 95% PM compliance for next year.

2. Set Key Performance Indicators

After you’ve brainstormed a few goals the next step is measuring progress, and that’s when we turn to the ever-reliable Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).

KPI’s can be as simple as keeping track of open, closed, and past-due work orders or they can be as complex as calculating the MTBF or Mean Time Between Failure, they’re simply the statistics that you use to track your performance.

There are a few advantages of using KPI’s. Not only will you be able to track progress towards your team’s goals, but you’ll also be able to identify weaknesses in your preventive maintenance program.

If you’re not using KPIs at all, start with the basics, like tracking work orders in categories illustrated above. After a few months time, you’ll be able to track trends and analyze team performance, which should give you clues into how to improve productivity and reduce downtime.

3. Talk to Your Maintenance Team!

A lot of maintenance teams are so busy that they don’t have time to reinvent the wheel – maintaining and making sure everything is running smoothly can be a challenge in of itself.  So, give your maintenance team an opportunity to air any issues they’ve discovered in their day-to-day tasks.

Talking to your maintenance team can uncover ways to improve your maintenance program and it can also determine if the PM goals you set are realistic.

4. Create Company Specific Best Practices

You’ve established goals for your preventative maintenance team, you’ve established KPIs to measure your progress towards the goals. Now, it’s time to make sure that your organization can replicate those processes moving forward.

As you progress closer to your goals, take the time to create documentation on the practices that helped you achieve those goals. Staff turnover is inevitable, but it’s the conscious effort of creating an organizations’ identity through goals and best practices that separates good companies from great companies.

Hopefully, you can use this article as a guide to begin correcting issues in your preventive maintenance program. For further reading on KPI’s check out this article from Ins Research or for setting PM goals and strategies, check out this article by Plant Engineering.

If you’d like additional expertise in achieving a reliable manufacturing preventive maintenance program, please contact us! We have over 30 years of experience in maintenance management and maintenance management solutions.

 

Written by Steven Garcia