Once relegated to the background, maintenance now appears to be a strategic, cross-functional function for industries that needs to be optimized.
In today’s fast-moving economic climate, where the demands of productivity and competitiveness are relentless, manufacturing industries can no longer afford even the slightest downtime or malfunction on their production lines. In addition to the financial losses resulting from such failures, their brand image also risks being tarnished in the eyes of trading partners.
It is therefore essential to adopt a proactive preventive maintenance strategy, using a dedicated software solution. An appropriate CMMS is a natural choice for optimizing maintenance operations at production sites.
Let’s take a closer look at the benefits of such a tool.
A CMMS (for Computerized Maintenance Management System) is software dedicated to the planning and optimization of all maintenance activities within an industrial company.
In detail, this maintenance management tool centralizes all production equipment, intervention histories, preventive maintenance plans and spare parts inventories in a database.
The CMMS solution comes in the form of an intuitive user interface, enabling each department to enter or consult the information it needs.
Thanks to this global, up-to-date view of maintenance operations, a CMMS solution is a real decision-making tool for improving industrial productivity while rationalizing costs.
The productivity of production machines depends directly on their availability rate. A CMMS solution makes it possible to control key indicators such as MTBF (Mean Time Between Failures) and MTTR (Mean Time To Repair). By optimizing maintenance, the aim is to minimize the periods when equipment is unavailable.
In this way, the implementation of programmed preventive maintenance, rather than purely corrective maintenance, ensures better control of unplanned production stoppages.
What’s more, CMMS provides maintenance teams with all the information they need to intervene effectively in the event of a breakdown. Intervention histories, parts inventories and detailed operating procedures can be consulted in real time.
Thanks to systematic preventive maintenance and optimized interventions, equipment availability is significantly improved. Tangible productivity gains.
A CMMS solution can extend equipment life in a number of ways:
This global optimization of maintenance significantly increases the life expectancy of production equipment.
The use of CMMS software enables you to rationalize expenditure on maintenance activities, thereby significantly reducing costs.
Firstly, as we have seen, scheduled preventive maintenance limits the number of production incidents. Costly unscheduled stoppages are reduced. What’s more, planned preventive operations maximize equipment life and defer costly replacement investments.
At the same time, centralized management of spare parts inventories prevents over- and under-stocking. Orders are optimized according to actual consumption and anticipated needs. Losses due to parts obsolescence are also reduced.
What’s more, CMMS facilitates the analytical tracking of costs for each intervention, rationalizing expenditure. It becomes possible to act upstream on the most costly items by maintaining or developing certain procedures.
In this way, by reducing unscheduled stoppages, rigorously managing inventories and reinforcing control, the implementation of a CMMS generates substantial savings on the maintenance costs of production equipment.
💡 At Knowmore, we offer customized training courses for the IBM Maximo solution, the market leader in CMMS software. Thanks to our immersive simulation method, we optimize Maximo adoption within maintenance teams.
Implementing a CMMS solution also improves the quality and reliability of maintenance operations.
The integration of detailed, illustrated operating procedures in the CMMS software ensures that troubleshooting and preventive maintenance operations are carried out correctly. Technicians follow standardized, optimized procedures for each type of equipment, limiting the risk of errors or omissions.
In addition, enhanced traceability of operations carried out, as well as systematic feedback on points of difficulty or potential improvement, facilitate ongoing optimization of interventions. Maintenance ranges and methods are regularly enriched by staff feedback.
What’s more, the skills management system integrated into the CMMS solution ensures that each technician has the necessary authorizations before working on sensitive equipment. This enhances safety and preserves the quality of interventions.
A final advantage of industrial monitoring software is that it significantly reduces maintenance response times in the event of a breakdown or incident on production equipment.
This is because the software centralizes all the information needed to act quickly and efficiently in the event of a machine failure. Technicians have access to up-to-the-minute detailed histories, appropriate operating procedures and spare parts stocks, without having to laboriously search for scattered data.
What’s more, the computerized management of service requests in the CMMS tool ensures that requests from production lines are processed smoothly and rapidly. Once the breakdown has been qualified, the right team can be identified and mobilized without delay. In addition, forward planning of periodic maintenance operations enables us to anticipate staffing requirements and smooth out the workload of intervention teams. As a result, contingencies are better absorbed, thanks to improved resource allocation.
As we’ve seen, a CMMS offers a number of advantages for industry. But how is this solution designed? The software also includes modules for :
Indicators and dashboards: performance indicators are used to monitor the efficiency of the maintenance function and equipment availability.
Of course, in industry, a CMMS is a must. As we’ve seen, it enables you to plan operations on production equipment, keep track of costs, and maximize the availability of your production facilities.
In the environmental sector, a CMMS solution optimizes the maintenance of water treatment or waste management facilities, for example.
It also ensures high availability, compliance with HSE standards and enhanced traceability of operations.
In the real estate sector, CMMS software supports Facility Management players by ensuring the performance of buildings and installations, while facilitating rental and regulatory management.
Local authorities and public administrations are also deploying CMMS tools for their road network infrastructures, real estate assets and vehicle fleets.
This facilitates budget tracking of maintenance costs, enabling these structures to optimize their expenditure, in a context where public spending is a major issue.
In hospitals, CMMS is used to manage technical, biomedical and IT equipment. It responds to the sector’s new constraints, and promotes the satisfaction of care services through optimized management of interventions.
Personal safety, an essential requirement, is also enhanced.
The successful deployment of industrial monitoring software within teams requires rigorous change management based on training and day-to-day support.
It is essential to prepare employees in advance for the arrival of this new tool, which introduces new work procedures. Users must quickly see the concrete benefits they will derive from this tool, and the facilitation of their tasks thanks to a centralized, shared database.
Customized training sessions are therefore essential to ensure that users get to grips with the CMMS solution effectively: step-by-step use of the various modules, practical exercises on real cases, assessment of what has been learned…
Subsequently, the presence of “CMMS” referents and user assistants in the field guarantees local support to help teams assimilate the new functionalities as they go along. This support enables us to respond to requests for assistance or upgrades, so as to meet users’ needs as closely as possible.
Finally, a system for monitoring indicators and collecting user feedback, such as K-Value, precisely measures tool adoption and changes in working practices. Areas for improvement are then quickly identified to accelerate the digital transformation of maintenance.
💡 At Knowmore, we offer training courses dedicated to the Carl Source solution, publisher of next-generation CMMS software. Thanks to our field simulation method, we optimize the adoption of Carl Source innovations: IoT, AI, BIM…
Our digital learning platforms reinforce team agility on this tool combining 30 years of expertise in asset management and disruptive technologies.
Ultimately, the advent of CMMS software solutions marks a decisive turning point for maintenance activities within industrial and critical infrastructure organizations.
These digital tools enable the maintenance function to assume a strategic position at the heart of overall operational performance.
Over and above the obvious operational and financial gains, CMMS solutions also act as a lever for cultural transformation among field teams. In fact, they promote new collaborative practices that break down organizational silos, and enhance collective intelligence.
These software innovations applied to maintenance 4.0 are the beginnings of an ongoing transformation towards the intelligent, resilient factories and infrastructures of tomorrow.
At Knowmore, we’re experts in helping companies implement digital solutions such as CMMS software.
Thanks to our training and digital adoption platforms dedicated to connected maintenance, your technical and field teams quickly gain skills. They can easily appropriate all your CMMS functionalities to transform and optimize their 4.0 maintenance practices.
