By Rhonda
Kay Caviedes and Mitchell B. Knecht.
Facility
management personnel in all industries have waited a long time for computer
technology to become applicable and affordable enough to implement in their
respective maintenance efforts. In recent years, flexible, dependable and
economical computerized maintenance management systems (CMMS) have become
available to help fight the never-ending struggle to operate and maintain
buildings of all shapes, sizes and functions.
Meeting
Maintenance Challenges
Maintenance and operation personnel are presented
with more difficult challenges today than at any previous point. The biggest
obstacle of all confronting maintenance professionals is being forced to do more
with with fewer resources. Maintenance departments must deliver superior
services, comply with regulatory requirements and provide detailed financial
accountability all within the confines of limited and/or reduced budgets. In
order to meet these challenges, educational and health care facility managers
are arming themselves with economical computerized maintenance management
systems.
The Right
Tool
All maintenance professionals will agree that to get the job done
right you must have the correct tools. The same is true when selecting a CMMS.
There are hundreds of CMMS systems available on the market. However, many have
been left behind as technology advances in leaps and bounds. Gone are the days
of mainframe and mini-computer computerized maintenance management systems.
Today, we usher in a generation of powerful, PC based CMMS solutions. These
maintenance software solutions take advantage of the extensive capabilities of
Microsoft Windows¢â and include an abundance of functions to deliver compliance,
service and productivity enhancements finely tuned to meet the needs of today's
maintenance departments.
When
evaluating CMMS's, there are eight major factors that should be considered.
Careful examination of these factors during the evaluation process will help
ensure ongoing CMMS success. This article explores each of these eight
factors.
1)
Comprehensive Maintenance Management Functionality
The main factor
to consider when selecting a CMMS is the "core" product. It should be made up of
three major elements: Work Management, Physical Assets Management and Resource
Management. The Work Management component of the CMMS optimizes day-to-day
operations, manages corrective work orders and supports a preventive maintenance
program. In addition, some CMMS's offer an added feature for detailed management
of short duration on-demand work.
The Physical
Asset Management component acts as the "filing cabinet" of the CMMS, providing
quick and easy retrieval of important information such as: planned and unplanned
work history, assets accounting information, warranty and service contracts,
nameplate data, scanned documents, libraries of CAD drawings and complete
descriptive information. After all, what good is all of the extensive
information if you cannot access it easily.
The Resource
Management component of a CMMS supports a full inventory and purchasing system.
Furthermore, it tracks in-house labor and contracted service costs. Premier CMMS
suppliers have field proven experience in data transfer of inventory,
purchasing, and time card information to external financial systems.
2)
Extensive Management Reporting Capabilities
A CMMS is only as
good as the information that can be retrieved from it. CMMS's provide extensive
management reporting capabilities that include detailed and summary reports,
graphical reports, and easy to use report writing tools that do not require
programming knowledge.
3) PM
Procedure Library
Select a CMMS system pre-loaded with
mechanical and biomedical PM procedures. This PM procedure library will minimize
the start up time necessary to establish and implement your PM program and
provide conformance to generally accepted PM inspection schedules.
4)
Support Regulatory Compliance
CMMS's focus on providing tools that
will assist in achieving compliance with an array of regulatory standards
including JCAHO, life safety and OSHA. To achieve compliance, premier
maintenance management systems support the work flow process necessary to
record, assign and account for both the work and the measures taken to correct
and/or prevent maintenance related problems. Look for quick one button access to
equipment histories and a flexible, detailed, and graphical reporting mechanism
for problem and resolution trending (quality assurance) analysis.
5)
Multiple System Interfaces
Today's CMMS should be capable of
working together effectively and transparently with multiple systems. Direct
interfaces between the CMMS and other diagnostic and monitoring systems such as
building automation, predictive maintenance, and biomedical testing equipment
can assist greatly in streamlining the maintenance process, by allowing
maintenance personnel to respond to early warning signals before they escalate
into critical repair problems. CMMS build upon these types of interfaces to
automatically create work orders and update equipment histories based upon
alarms and test results received through these interfaces. CMMS's are also
capable of interfacing with other technologies such as bar-coding for quick and
accurate data entry.
6)
Reliability Centered Maintenance Integration
Select a CMMS
system that fully integrates and takes advantage of Reliability Centered
Maintenance (RCM). RCM uses the full capabilities of the modern PC and the
Microsoft Windows¢â software development environment to provide an interactive
method for problem resolution. RCM provides maintenance professionals with: (1)
an easy-to-use library of possible problems for major capital expenditure assets
and critical patient care items, (2) problem diagnosis techniques, and (3) a
recommendation to repair the cause of the problem and avoids repeatedly wasting
money fixing its symptoms.
7)
Harness The Power Of Microsoft Windows¢â
Select a PC based CMMS solution that is
compatible with Microsoft Windows¢â. Look for a CMMS design that is founded on an
industry standard programming architecture like Microsoft Visual Basic¢â,
Microsoft Access¢â, and SQL.
Today's CMMS
objectives are fully realizable using the Microsoft Windows environment.
User-friendly, yet powerful features such as: one button access to history,
pending work orders, future PMs, electronic file folders for organizing
information, and notification of duplicate work orders, now allows the
maintenance professional to maximize results while minimizing time and
effort.
8) Proven
Expertise And On-Going Support
Rounding out the eight factors for CMMS
success is the expertise and support of the CMMS supplier. The supplier of
choice is one that has field proven longevity (10 years minimum) and offers a
complete suite of services to complement the software system. Services to expect
include: engineering consulting, data collection, data entry, training,
implementation and post implementation support.
CMMS
Success
The selection and proper implementation of the correct CMMS is an
integral part of achieving maintenance management success in the 1990's for
educational and health care facilities. Now, more than ever before, maintenance
professionals can equip themselves with the modern tools to get the work
done.
By Rhonda
Kay Caviedes and Mitchell B. Knecht. |