Preparing To Implement CMMS At Your Facility

Bill Klein

Over the past months, this magazine has provided educational and health care facility managers with the appropriate tools for making the best use of a Computerized Maintenance Management Software (CMMS) System. You know what elements to look for in a CMMS program and you have a plan for producing exactly the kind of reports that both you and the executive staff are looking for. As the facility manager, you can now just simply sit back and wait around for the software contractor to install the system and you will be ready to operate your new, computerized maintenance management system, right?

Well, it is not quite that easy. Actually, if you are the person responsible for CMMS implementation, you have a couple of action items that should be completed before your system is installed.

In order to go on-line with your computerized maintenance management software as quickly as possible, you should have two databases, or one database with two integrated sections, prepared and ready to load into the CMMS when it is completely installed. This pre-installation data includes:

A complete and accurate Equipment Inventory
An approved maintenance plan that identifies all Maintenance Actions required for each item in your equipment inventory.

Without these, your CMMS is just another pretty face, not capable of producing anything meaningful in the way of maintenance information. Too many educational and health care facilities purchase very expensive and very capable CMMS and because they were not prepared, use it only for generating work orders. Do not fall into this embarrassing class.

An accurate Equipment Inventory should contain a list of equipment at your facility that you have determined to be maintenance worthy. It should identify the manufacturer, size, model number, location, serial number and any other information that you feel is pertinent such as: "impact of loss of operation" or related data necessary to help you make decisions regarding both preventive and corrective maintenance actions.

The listing of Maintenance Actions is just that. Each piece of equipment should have identified for it, all the preventive, corrective and predictive maintenance actions that you have determined as necessary to properly maintain that item of equipment. Along with the Maintenance Actions, information regarding maintenance frequency, responsible craft, repair and/or consumable parts necessary to compete the maintenance action, and time estimated to compete the maintenance action are some of the additional information items that will enhance the usefulness of this database. Many actions for maintaining similar equipment will be nearly identical but they must still be listed and identified with each piece of equipment. Changes and modifications to equipment can quickly render what were once similar maintenance actions now to be completely different.

These two database elements will allow you to begin using your CMMS software as soon as it is installed. You can begin scheduling and work load smoothing your preventive maintenance actions immediately and you can start producing your next month's work orders at the same time.

You can also start to identify the additional data that is going to be necessary to fully utilize all the features of your CMMS. Facility managers will first need to determine what maintenance data is going to be used. The very first maintenance action you schedule will begin generating data. The maintenance action was either completed or it was deferred—not completed. How will you get this data back into the CMMS system? Probably the best way to do this will be via feedback from the maintenance technician using the bottom half of the work order. You have just begun to generate an equipment, or maintenance, history.

What additional kinds of data will you need to make this maintenance history more complete? Your decisions should include date performed, person performing, time to perform actual procedure, "other labor time", equipment performed on, any condition evaluation required by the maintenance action along with parts and consumables used in the performance of the maintenance action.

As a value added feature, system level reports on maintenance effectiveness, labor costs and operating costs (cost of energy, procurement costs, life expectancy, salvage value, training costs, and so on) can easily be integrated with other equipment data to provide senior management with budget information. Life Cycle Cost Analysis, replace or repair evaluation, energy alternative and system effectiveness are just a few areas that a good CMMS can support if it is given the proper data.

Does your CMMS include provisions for the analysis of Predictive Maintenance (PdM) results? If you are going to perform PdM you need to identify what parameters you are going to measure that will tell you, either directly, through trend analysis, or through application of an analysis algorithm, when a piece of equipment is most likely to fail. A facility air conditioning plant can be monitored for heat exchanger efficiency, compressor output and compressor motor insulation parameters such as Insulation Resistance, Polarization Index, Dielectric Strength and several other parameters. An analysis of these measurements can provide an indication of deterioration and that deterioration can be trended over time to establish when it might exceed some predetermined level which corresponds to "out of spec low" and overhaul of the entire system. As an alternative, a procedure that measures the return air temperature and the supply air temperature at the same settings and the same ambient temperature may be accurate enough for you to determine when some repair action is due.

Having identified the parameters to measure and record in CMMS, ensure that you have also identified field sizes and formats, units of measure, validity ranges, standardized equipment operating conditions (to ensure that data is comparable with previous and subsequent measurements), or develop "normalization" algorithms.

Once you have identified what kind of information you want for establishing your maintenance history, including any performance or condition monitoring measurements, you have also identified what the bottom half—the completed portion—of your work order should look like. Now you merely need to establish some routing for completed work orders...to you, for review and approval, then to a data entry clerk to enter your maintenance history into your CMMS. Minimize the routing of competed work orders by using CMMS to generate reports that can convey so much more information and that can be tailored to provide only what the individual recipient is interested in.

Depending on the modules included with your CMMS, the ongoing need for data during the life of your CMMS will be further defined. If your CMMS interfaces with other divisions at your facility, you also will need to ensure that those other divisions are getting the correct data to help them do their jobs, and also to help them provide you the best support possible. Data links to Repair Parts Inventory must be accurate. Usage data will determine safe stocking levels as well as providing you with parts of the right part numbers, etc. Configuration control can also be originated with the CMMS so long as you have established links where necessary, to identify equipment modifications, changes to repair parts design or to specifications for lubricants and similar changes. As the owner of the CMMS, you will also be the owner of the responsibility for seeing that these changes are getting into CMMS and that CMMS has the appropriate links to other divisions e.g., Technical Documentation, Engineering, etc. to ensure positive controls over configuration exist.

Your CMMS should be in full swing once the foregoing has been established. It is the accumulating and tracking your facility's equipment history, scheduling maintenance, generating reports, establishing supply levels for repair parts and consumables, forecasting when major repairs, overhauls or replacement will be required and even reporting to the executive staff on maintenance effectiveness, life cycle costs, capital equipment budget requirements and in general performing those feats of magic that the CMMS vendors described to you. Now is the time that you can just sit back and relax, right? Well, not quite yet.

There is an on-going need to keep your equipment and maintenance data fresh, accurate and truly representative of actual conditions. Your CMMS can do this itself, but only if you show it how and only if you are feeding it the correct data. For example, you perform a condition monitoring routine on the facility's main air compressor. It provides for vibration monitoring, measures output volume at various discharge pressures, cylinder temperatures at maximum pressure, performs periodic lubricating oil analysis and several other measurements. The condition monitoring has indicated that this compressor is going to fail to deliver the volume of air at the minimum pressure necessary to support the facility requirements within the next three months. Since there is a scheduled major outage at the end of the present month and another in six months, you decide to send it out for a complete overhaul at the end of this month.

The compressor overhaul is the opportunity for you to validate the performance data that your condition monitoring has been collecting. How? By requiring the overhaul facility to report the compressor's actual condition as they tear it down. They should be taking individual piece measurements as a routine part of repairs just so they will not replace some parts unnecessarily. Have them identify "as found" conditions for items like "O"-rings, gaskets, piston rings, cylinder walls and heads, bearings, lubricated surfaces, shafts, couplings, etc. Do not let the repair facility decide what to report to you. Provide them with a detailed, comprehensive set of data sheets to complete and return with the overhauled compressor. When you have received this feedback, compare it with the conditions that your predictive maintenance and condition or performance monitoring measurements have been telling you. If they do not compare reasonably, you may have some adjusting to do in the interpretation of your data. To some degree, you need to establish feedback comparing "as found" conditions, for as many items or equipment as possible, with predicted conditions. This feedback will provide the fine tuning for your maintenance program.

Feedback is the key to continuous improvement. All aspects of your CMMS should be examined for a feedback mechanism. The cliché that "garbage in equal garbage out" is, unfortunately, very true. The data that you feed your CMMS will determine the quality and accuracy of the CMMS generated reports. Getting the full benefit will be at the expense of some substantial preparation on your part. Not only prior to installation, but also during the implementation phase and again during the entire life of the CMMS, there will be demands on you for continuous involvement with the data, which is the lifeblood, going into and coming out of the CMMS.

Bill Klein is a principle engineer with Life Cycle Engineering, Inc. (LCE) where he has been involved with Maintenance Engineering and CMMS implementation for more than seventeen years. LCE is a multi-disciplined engineering firm with special expertise in maintenance engineering and condition monitoring technology.