In today's business
environment, maintenance and engineering managers must be able to accurately
track and analyze operating and maintenance costs while taking advantage of
opportunities to improve the reliability of equipment and operations.
Computerized maintenance management systems (CMMS) have become the backbone of
such efforts in many facilities.
A CMMS provides the capability to
document, schedule and monitor the maintenance, repair and project costs
associated with facility equipment. It provides historical records of labor and
material expenses on which to base maintenance and capital improvement budgets,
manpower, and storeroom stock levels. Properly selected and implemented, the
CMMS is one of the most powerful tools in any organization. And with the
proliferation of software options and their implications for other areas of
facilities, managers face an even more important decision in selecting the
“right” CMMS.
A systematic
approach
Managers have hundreds of CMMS
products from which to choose. Although most packages offer similar basic
functionality, some are better suited for a facilities-based operation.
Selecting the most appropriate CMMS must be an organized and precise effort,
driven by the goal of implementing a system that will provide effective
maintenance planning and history. The basic steps in selecting the proper CMMS
are:
- Create a CMMS
selection team.
- Determine the
functionality required, and create a specifications document.
- Solicit proposals
from vendors and review the proposals.
- Require the
finalists to demonstrate their system.
- Select the
CMMS.
This process might
sound simple enough, but many challenges await managers. In a single-site,
facilities-only environment such as a hotel or hospital, selecting a CMMS might
be a fairly straightforward task. But in a multi-site environment of any type —
a school system or municipality — managers might consider selecting an
enterprise asset management (EAM) system capable of managing the maintenance and
repair efforts of all the sites from a centralized system.
The final
selection must be based on maintenance specifications and functionality, not
solely on what fits with the computer network infrastructure or on the lowest
bid. If the CMMS selection is made by the IT department based solely on
compatibility of the software to the existing network, or by the purchasing
department based on the lowest bidder, it is likely that the CMMS selected will
be inadequate to support the maintenance organization’s
needs.
CMMS selection team
The first step in the
selection process is to create a CMMS selection team. This team must include
representatives from each functional area of an organization that might use or
interact with the system, as well as a member of the IT group to advise on CMMS
database integration capabilities.
Chaired by the maintenance manager,
the group should include the maintenance/plant engineer, maintenance foreman and
planner, facilities manager, a member of the maintenance work force, a
representative of the purchasing department and a representative from the MRO
storeroom. Include upper management in the process to provide input regarding
the desired reporting capabilities and metrics at the management level. If the
CMMS must function in an EAM capacity, each site should be represented on the
team.
Establish a reasonable timetable for selection and implementation.
This process cannot and should not be hurried. Statistics indicate that 90
percent of CMMS implementation failures occur due to lack of a plan,
unreasonable expectations, and a lack of understanding of the implementation
requirements.
The lack of understanding of the requirements for setup and
population of the CMMS database causes more failures than any other issue. The
result of this lack of knowledge has been evident in several clients we have
worked with over the past few years. They purchased a CMMS with the best of
intentions, usually following particularly bad years of downtime or inability to
justify requested expenditures during the budgeting process. Failing to follow
any plan or process to select and implement their new CMMS, it remained unopened
on a bookshelf or installed but idle on the site network years
later.
Determining functionality
The software’s desired
functionality should be documented in four categories:
Must have.
These are hard requirements for the system and are deal breakers for any vendor
unable to demonstrate them.
Should have.
These functionalities should be part of any CMMS, but not all vendors are able
to provide them. Managers might be able to work around these issues if a vendor
cannot provide the function.
Nice to have.
If a manager can have anything in a CMMS, these would be nice.
Dreams. For
those who want a CMMS to be the “be all and end all” of CMMS packages, these
items are important.
Managers can use
these categories in developing the desired functionality of the CMMS. Managers
must approach each functional area of the CMMS in the same manner as they do in
developing specifications for the system.
For most organizations, the
primary areas of focus are software compatibility, system security, equipment
module, work-order module, preventive maintenance, inventory module, reports,
and enterprise capabilities.
The length and volume of finished CMMS
specifications will vary greatly, as will the time to complete the selection
process. Smaller, single-site clients might have a CMMS specifications document
that is only a few pages, and the selection process might take just a few weeks.
Organizations with very large, multi-site operations that are subject to
oversight by federal agencies might have a document of several hundred pages of
detailed specifications, and the selection process might take up to a
year.
Solicitation and review process
During the final stages of
developing a CMMS specification, the team should select a list of potential
vendors from which to solicit a proposal. Select vendors with varying levels of
advertised capabilities, with the expectation that not all vendors will respond
to the request for a proposal.
Managers should keep in mind that through
the specification document, each vendor knows what the team expects. Properly
presented, each proposal will stand on its own merits, providing the means to
make a logical and informed decision.
When the proposals start coming in,
begin the review process immediately. The team will need to develop a method to
ensure a fair and equal evaluation for each vendor, such as numeric valuation of
each point in the specification.
The proposal review process is usually
the point at which reality sets in for the dreamers on the selection team.
During development of the CMMS specification, team members should attempt to
document every possible function they would like to see in a new CMMS. But it is
unlikely that all proposals will satisfy all of the specifications in the
document or that any one proposal will satisfy the desires of everyone on the
team.
This discussion has covered CMMS cost only once so far and only in
general terms. The vendor’s proposal might be the first time the team actually
sees a cost associated with the purchase of a CMMS. Just as with system
capabilities, the cost of purchasing a CMMS will vary with the capabilities and
functionality of the system, plus the cost of each seat, or projected concurrent
user, in the system.
Additional costs include vendor installation of the
software, annual system maintenance agreements and offers of additional features
for the system. Managers should plan for system installation and annual
maintenance agreements when budgeting for the new CMMS.
After evaluating
all CMMS vendor responses, the team should be able to narrow the list of
potential vendors to two or three.
Live
demonstrations
Once the selection team has
narrowed the list of potential CMMS programs to a manageable number, team
members will want to see the systems in operation. The most convenient method of
accomplishing this is through on-site demonstrations.
During the
specification development phase, the team will have developed a demonstration
scenario to be sent to vendor finalists. This scenario is designed to give
vendors identical packages of information and instructions with which to
demonstrate the capabilities of their system.
The scenario package will
consist of several equipment records, inventory records and labor records.
Include several work scenarios which demand that the vendor demonstrate a
system's ability to plan work, generate work orders, apply labor and materials
to a work order, and complete and close a work order.
In making a logical
decision about the adequacy of a CMMS to support an organization, the team also
should require vendors to demonstrate the reporting capabilities of their
systems, as well as any other functionality that is important.
One note
of caution is important here. Be very careful about asking for custom features
in a CMMS. Most packages on the market work satisfactorily out of the box to
support most maintenance organization needs. Any custom features added to a
system — at additional cost, of course — must be re-implemented at each major
upgrade or revision of the software — again, at additional cost. Customization
of any CMMS will become a recurring cost that will quickly become very
distasteful.
When system demonstrations are complete, the team is ready
to make a final decision. But selection team members should be careful to take
some time in making this decision. The facilities will have to live with the
team’s decision for many years.
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