CMMS Software: 12 questions of Maintenance history to help your CMMS search.

There are lots of CMMS software available now a days. So which one to choose. This tips might help us to make a better choise. From previous article we have seen how to have a good feature to produce work order to our maintenance personel and to control preventive maintenance activity. Next thing is how can it be use for our maintenance history and reporting.


Here are the next question to ask how to select the best CMMS;

1. Maintains maintenance history that is detailed enough to tell what happened.



2. Provides information to track the service request-maintenance work order issue-work complete-customer satisfied cycle.



3. Provides reports for budgets, staffing analysis, program evaluation, performance.



4. Is able to isolate all work done (sort, arrange, analyze, select, or list) by work order, mechanic, asset, building, floor, room, type of equipment or asset.



5. Provides the ability to easily structure ad hoc (on the spur of the moment) reports to answer questions that come up. This is sometimes called a report writer.
   


6. Has the ability to generate equipment/asset history from birth (installation, construction, or connection) with all major repairs and summaries of smaller repairs.



7. System reports are designed around Pareto principles where the system helps to identify the few important factors and helps you to manage the important few versus the trivial many.



8. Allows operations people, tenants or facility users to have access to the system to find out what happened to their work request.



9. System reports on contractor versus in-house work.



10. Provides reports charging back maintenance cost to department or cost center.



11. Has reports with mean time between failures that show how often the unit has been worked on,how many days (or machine hours) lapsed between failures, and the duration of each repair.



12. Will the system highlight repeat repairs when a technician needs some help?

Previous article:

15 questions of work oder.
8 questions of preventive maintenance.


Author : Joel LevittThis article is an extract from Joel Levitt’s book, The Handbook of Maintenance Management, and is kindly reprinted with his permission, and with the permission of his publishers, Industrial Press, Inc.. The book may be purchased through the Plant Maintenance Resource Center web site, in association with amazon.com. For more information, click here.

CMMS Software.

CMMS Software: 15 questions of work order to help your CMMS search.

There are lots of CMMS software available now a days. So which one to choose. This tips might help us to make a better choise. From previous article we have seen how to have a good feature to control preventive maintenance activity. Next thing is how can it be use to produce work order to our maintenance personel.

CMMS Work Order.

1. CMMS software can produce work order easily and friendly and features can easily be upgraded to better and improve version in future.

2. Work order classifies all work by some kind of repair reason code: Preventive Maintenance (PM), corrective maintenance, breakdown maintenance, management decision, etc.

3. Provides and easy way for a single person or designated group in maintenance to screen work orders entered by customers before authorization that work can begin.

4. Prints up-to-date lockout procedure on all work orders automatically.

5. Automatically costs work orders.

6. Provides status of all outstanding work orders.

7. Records service calls (who, what, when, where, how) which can be printed in a log format with automated time/date stamping.

8. Allows operations people, tenants or facility users to have access to the system to find out what happened to their work request.

9. Records backlog of work and displays it by craft.

10. Work orders can be displayed or printed very easily.

11. The system facilitates labor scheduling with labor standards by task, ability to sort, and re-sort the open work orders by location of work, craft and other ways.

12. Records changes to inventory (receipts, chargeouts, physical inventories).

13. Does the storeroom part of the system have part location to help the mechanic or store keeper find infrequently used parts?

14. Can the system generate a parts catalog by type of part, vendor with yearly usage to facilitate blanket contract negotiation?

15. Does the system recommend stock levels, order points, order quantities?

Previous article:

8 questions of preventive maintenance.

Author : Joel LevittThis article is an extract from Joel Levitt’s book, The Handbook of Maintenance Management, and is kindly reprinted with his permission, and with the permission of his publishers, Industrial Press, Inc.. The book may be purchased through the Plant Maintenance Resource Center web site, in association with amazon.com. For more information, click here.

CMMS Software.

CMMS Software: Preventive Maintenance software companies.

Several software companies design programs for preventive maintenance. Most of the preventive maintenance software companies produce programs for facilities and businesses. Because many programs are adaptable, they can be used for different types of facilities. Some of the best know preventive maintenance software companies are SMGlobal, Inc., Sigma Data Systems, Inc., and Smartware Group.

SMGlobal, Inc. manufactures FastMaint CMMS software. This program comes in basic, standard, and professional models, with the price ranging from $495 for basic to $2495 for the professional edition. Some of the features included in all editions are the ability to schedule maintenance work by date and to adjust the date, track inventory and supplies, and predict maintenance costs. FastMaint is easy to learn and can be used for a variety of facilities.

Sigma Data Systems, Inc. produces “I’mOnIt!” preventive maintenance software. This program costs $499 and has available support packages for $99 per year. “I’mOnIt!” can be used to track an individual worker’s productivity and expenditures, create a database of work orders, automatically schedule maintenance tasks, and record any emergency repairs made on equipment. “I’mOnIt!” is a useful program for any type of equipment maintenance and is useful for record keeping as well.

The Smartware Group produces the Smartmaintenance preventive maintenance software program. Several editions are available, ranging from a stand-alone version that costs $1,395, a network edition for $2,995 and $300 per additional user, and a handheld version for $650. With each edition, users have options for scheduling maintenance, ranging from hourly to annually, or to correspond with mileage or a meter reading. Smartmaintenance is used by such prominent companies and institutions as Du Pont and the Federal Reserve Bank.

Each of the above listed preventive maintenance software companies produces products that can be adapted to work for many different applications. When choosing a preventive maintenance program, it is important to keep the specific size and scope of your organization’s needs in mind. Each program comes with a 30-day trial to ensure a good fit prior to purchase.

Preventive Maintenance Software Info features detailed information on preventive maintenance software or CMMS software for health care and correctional institutions, computer hardware, and personal assets, as well as reviews of preventive maintenance software companies. Preventive Maintenance Software Info is the sister site of Fleet Maintenance Software Web.

Article Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Jennifer_Bailey

From: Sembangkilang.com

CMMS Software.

8 questions of preventive maintenance to help your cmms search

There are lots of CMMS software available now a days. So which one to choose. This tips might help us to make a better choise. From previous article we have seen how to have a good feature to produce work order to our maintenance personel. Second thing is how can it be use for our maintenance history and reporting.

The third will be how it can be use for our Preventive Maintenance or maintenance scheduling.
Here are the next question to ask how to select the best CMMS;

Preventive Maintenance System:

1. Allows mechanics to easily write up deficiencies found on PM inspection tours as planned work to be done. System then automatically generates a planned maintenance work order. Automatically produces PM work orders on the right day, right meter reading etc..
   
2. Is able to display work load for PM for a future period such as a year by week or month by trade.
   
3. Is able to record short repairs done by PM mechanic and actual time spent.
   
4. Does the system support multiple levels of PM on the same asset, does it reset the clock if the high level is done (if you do a yearly rebuild, does the monthly PM clock get reset?)?
   
5. PM’s are generated by location by trade to facilitate efficient use of people and minimize travel.
   
6. Allow the input of data from Predictive Maintenance subsystems.
   
7. Highlights situations where the PM activity is more expensive than the breakdown.
   
8. Are there simple reports that relate the PM hours/materials to the corrective hours/materials to the emergency hours/materials? This will show the effectiveness of the PM program.

Author : Joel Levitt
This article is an extract from Joel Levitt’s book, The Handbook of Maintenance Management, and is kindly reprinted with his permission, and with the permission of his publishers, Industrial Press, Inc.. The book may be purchased through the Plant Maintenance Resource Center web site, in association with amazon.com. For more information, click here.

CMMS Software.

CMMS Software: Healthcare Preventive Maintenance Software

Healthcare facilities such as clinics, hospitals, and biomedical laboratories can benefit greatly if up to date CMMS software is used. Healthcare CMMS software programs will help with the maintenance of the building, alerting workers when items such as automatic doors, light fixtures, and plumbing structures are due for checkups.

Another invaluable function that they provide is to help keep track of the condition of various instruments in the facilities. Healthcare organizations deal with several kinds of expensive equipment, such as X-ray machines, adjustable hospital beds, sterilized tools, one-use disposable needles, and countless others. It is important to keep track of the condition of all this equipment, and modern healthcare preventive maintenance software can do just that. Supervisors can keep computerized records of when surgical equipment needs to be sterilized, when certain instruments need to be updated, and when supplies for disposables are running low.

One more important function of healthcare CMMS software programs is to keep track of valuable medicines and chemicals. Since many types of medicine are classified as controlled substances due to their addictive nature, it is vital for the healthcare facility to be able to account for how much they have and where it is. This inventory maintenance is often done by an employee physically counting the number of pills or amount of liquid present and then recording it. This process is long, tedious, and has a high potential for error. Healthcare preventive maintenance software programs can keep track of where controlled substances are stored, how much is present, who has access to them, and when they are administered. This function is especially vital for biomedical facilities that experiment with and produce many different types of medicines and chemicals.

Healthcare preventive maintenance software can save healthcare workers much time and effort in their day-to-day jobs. Indeed, facilities can be maintained with a greater degree of accuracy and efficiency when healthcare CMMS is used.

Preventive Maintenance Software Info features detailed information on preventive maintenance software for health care and correctional institutions, computer hardware, and personal assets, as well as reviews of preventive maintenance software companies. Preventive Maintenance Software Info is the sister site of Fleet Maintenance Software Web.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jennifer_Bailey

CMMS Software.

Web Based CMMS

CMMS is short for Computerized Maintenance Management System. Web based CMMS software programs help public and private organizations manage their maintenance from any location, by logging onto the Internet. Most of them provide features such as work orders, tracking and controlling of inventory, maintenance histories, costs and schedules of maintenance by the hour.
A web based CMMS uses a web browser to access the program. A true web based CMMS system does not require any third party or download program. The program is designed to operate from a central server and the database itself, from another. The more powerful systems require specialized hardware and software to function.
A web based CMMS offers the end user many benefits. Low cost, easy to maintain client and server components, and a user-friendly web browser are the salient features of a web based CMMS. It also offers remote system access with open architecture and interfaces. A very important feature is the web browser itself. They include copy and paste features along with e-mail and help systems. Security and history settings are also available.
A wide array of industries have switched over to using web based CMMS programs. Companies have been able to find new ways to deliver applications across their networks in a more efficient and cost effective manner. Web based CMMS can streamline software delivery and offers a centralized data repository for accessing and analyzing real time data. The cost savings involved are enormous and hence justify the initial investment in the package.

CMMS provides detailed information on CMMS, CMMS Software, CMMS Systems, Web Based CMMS and more. CMMS is affiliated with Facility Management Jobs.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jennifer_Bailey

List of free CMMS software - link to free cmms.

Below is a list of free CMMS software that we can download.

http://www.pemms.co.uk/free_cmms.html

http://www.cworks.com.my/

http://www.auditmypc.com/free-cmms.asp

http://sourceforge.net/projects/free-cmms/

http://download.cnet.com/Maintenance-Assistant-Free-CMMS/3000-2067_4-10642818.html

http://www.freedownloadmanager.org/downloads/Maintenance_Assistant_Free_CMMS_47718_p/

http://www.freedownloadmanager.org/downloads/PMaint_2291_p/

http://www.downloadthat.com/windows/Business/Maintenance-Assistant-Free-CMMS.html

http://www.maintenance-software.org/

http://www.filesweb.com/pmaint/

http://www.mapcon.com/US-EN/CMMS-Software

So this is what we call TPM.

50 questions to help your CMMS search

Work Order
1. Produces an easy-to-use work order that allows future conversion to bar codes and other improvements to technology.
2. Work order classifies all work by some kind of repair reason code: PM, corrective, breakdown, management decision, etc.
3. Provides and easy way for a single person or designated group in maintenance to screen work orders entered by customers before authorization that work can begin.
4. Prints up-to-date lockout procedure on all work orders automatically.
5. Automatically costs work orders.
6. Provides status of all outstanding work orders.
7. Records service calls (who, what, when, where, how) which can be printed in a log format with automated time/date stamping.
8. Allows operations people, tenants or facility users to have access to the system to find out what happened to their work request.
9. Records backlog of work and displays it by craft.
10. Work orders can be displayed or printed very easily.
11. The system facilitates labor scheduling with labor standards by task, ability to sort, and re-sort the open work orders by location of work, craft and other ways.
12. Records changes to inventory (receipts, chargeouts, physical inventories).
13. Does the storeroom part of the system have part location to help the mechanic or store keeper find infrequently used parts?
14. Can the system generate a parts catalog by type of part, vendor with yearly usage to facilitate blanket contract negotiation?
15. Does the system recommend stock levels, order points, order quantities?


Maintenance History and Reporting
16. Maintains maintenance history that is detailed enough to tell what happened.
17. Provides information to track the service request-maintenance work order issue-work complete-customer satisfied cycle.
18. Provides reports for budgets, staffing analysis, program evaluation, performance.
19. Is able to isolate all work done (sort, arrange, analyze, select, or list) by work order, mechanic, asset, building, floor, room, type of equipment or asset.
20. Provides the ability to easily structure ad hoc (on the spur of the moment) reports to answer questions that come up. This is sometimes called a report writer.
21. Has the ability to generate equipment/asset history from birth (installation, construction, or connection) with all major repairs and summaries of smaller repairs.
22. System reports are designed around Pareto principles where the system helps to identify the few important factors and helps you to manage the important few versus the trivial many. 23. Allows operations people, tenants or facility users to have access to the system to find out what happened to their work request.
24. System reports on contractor versus in-house work.
25. Provides reports charging back maintenance cost to department or cost center.
26. Has reports with mean time between failures that show how often the unit has been worked on, how many days (or machine hours) lapsed between failures, and the duration of each repair.
27. Will the system highlight repeat repairs when a technician needs some help?


PM System
28. Allows mechanics to easily write up deficiencies found on PM inspection tours as planned work to be done. System then automatically generates a planned maintenance work order.
Automatically produces PM work orders on the right day, right meter reading etc..
29. Is able to display work load for PM for a future period such as a year by week or month by trade.
30. Is able to record short repairs done by PM mechanic and actual time spent.
31. Does the system support multiple levels of PM on the same asset, does it reset the clock if the high level is done (if you do a yearly rebuild, does the monthly PM clock get reset?)?
32. PM's are generated by location by trade to facilitate efficient use of people and minimize travel.
33. Allow the input of data from Predictive Maintenance subsystems.
34. Highlights situations where the PM activity is more expensive than the breakdown.
35. Are there simple reports that relate the PM hours/materials to the corrective hours/materials to the emergency hours/materials? This will show the effectiveness of the PM program.

General
35. Can the system handle 3-4 times more assets that you imagine having?
37. System has a logical location system to locate assets and where work is done.
38. System tracks the warranty for components and flags warranty work.
39. Is easy to use for novices and quick to use for power users.
40. System is integrates or can be integrated to purchasing, engineering, payroll/accounting.
41.Can the system easily handle a string PM such as a lube route, filter change route?
42. System runs on standard computer hardware, not some special hardware incompatible with everything else. Is the system compatible with Local Area Networks if it is a PC product? 44. System vendor has filled out vendor information sheet and has the financial strength to complete the contract (and stay in business for several years)..
45. Does the vendor have software support people, can you easily get through to a person? Is there an 800 number? Once you get through do the people know the product and something about maintenance? Is there an Internet site with technical support, user discussion groups, updates available for downloading, and other useful information?
46. Can the vendor provide economical, necessary customization? Is this capability in-house?
47. Does the vendor have a local installation organization?
48. Are they experienced in the management of installation projects of the size of your facility? Do they have start up experience with projects this size?
49. Are the vendor's technical people well cross-trained (Software, hardware and reality ware, like how a real building works)? It is important that the computer people have experience with building/facility maintenance.
50. Has the vendor been in business 5 years or more?


Author : Joel Levitt
This article is an extract from Joel Levitt's book, The Handbook of Maintenance Management, and is kindly reprinted with his permission, and with the permission of his publishers, Industrial Press, Inc.. The book may be purchased through the Plant Maintenance Resource Center web site, in association with amazon.com. For more information, click here.

Why do we need CMMS?

Ensuring assets, plant and equipment are kept in the best possible condition for the role that they play. It means being able to retrieve data without having to flick through folders and files.

OH&S
Responsibility (Duty of Care)
Quick Reference
Record keeping
Reporting
Automatic generation of Preventative Maintenance procedures
Budget assistance

1. OH&S
   Records must be kept and easily accessible when required. Keeping them electronically is a quick way of presenting data quickly and efficiently. Because if jobs that need to be done are not documented and logged they only have lip service in the eyes of the law. You must have documented proof that work was carried out on time and by a qualified person.
2. Responsibilities
   Understanding the responsibilities of the Engineering / Maintenance Manager:
   If something was to happen, a equipment failure, or an accident, who is the first person to get looked at when it happens? Why and how could of it been prevented, what steps are in place to prevent this, and the ability to keep the asset in safe working condition all at the same time as ensuring the correct qualified person is doing the Job.
   We need, as maintenance managers, to have more of a say in the system that is purchased for the company. The finance department govern the purchase in many cases and mostly on price if the argument is not put forward in a well presented submission.
   Think about some of the cases that have happened around Australia and the world for that matter. Whenever an accident happens where there is an injury or death, Work Place Health and Safety will investigate, the victim will sue and it all comes back to how good your records are.
   An example I can give happened just recently where someone was injured whilst at work. He had fallen off defective equipment and was awarded a large amount of money. The company thought they did everything ok except the Judge said, as the “Instructions were not visible on the Job” he was awarded the payout. This came after evidence was produced that the person who last tested the item was qualified in carrying out the inspection, and the equipment was tested within the required time frame.
3. Quick Reference
   You should have the ability to quickly get to any information about the asset. You should be able to have access to the jobs that have been completed and still outstanding, as well as all the details that go with those jobs.
4. Reporting
   Reporting is a very important part of using a CMMS. We want to get the information out as quickly and accurately as possible. This is achieved by ensuring the data going in is correct and by having reports that tell you what you need to see. The capability of filtering these reports is also important so not to have too much information. Sometimes the one report that can be filtered different ways produces the same information.
5. Auto Generation of Preventative Maintenance
   Once you have the PM Instructions created you want a system that will create jobs from them when they are due. The system should also have the ability to suppress the lower frequency jobs for the same asset if two procedures are due around the same time.
6. Budget Assistance
   We use the CMMS to assist in the preparation of the next budget. Tracking the jobs, the costs etc: by asset and the workers who carried out the work, we have at our finger tips the ability to put together a structure for the budget. This helps in asset purchase requirements, resource requirements. Whether this be in-house or contract labour, and the amount of inventory to stock. Keeping this to a minimum and ordering just in time will see a savings in material.

Source from http://www.thirdcitysolutions.com.au/

Computerized Maintenance Management System a.k.a CMMS

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from CMMS)

Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS) is also known as Enterprise Asset Management.

A CMMS software package maintains a computer database of information about an organization’s maintenance operations. This information is intended to help maintenance workers do their jobs more effectively (for example, determining which storerooms contain the spare parts they need) and to help management make informed decisions (for example, calculating the cost of maintenance for each piece of equipment used by the organization, possibly leading to better allocation of resources). The information may also be useful when dealing with third parties; if, for example, an organization is involved in a liability case, the data in a CMMS database can serve as evidence that proper safety maintenance has been performed.

CMMS packages may be used by any organization that must perform maintenance on equipment, assets and property. Some CMMS products focus on particular industry sectors (e.g. the maintenance of vehicle fleets or health care facilities). Other products aim to be more general.

Different CMMS packages offer a wide range of capabilities and cover a correspondingly wide range of prices. A typical package deals with some or all of the following:

• Work orders: Scheduling jobs, assigning personnel, reserving materials, recording costs, and tracking relevant information such as the cause of the problem (if any), downtime involved (if any), and recommendations for future action
• Preventive maintenance (PM): Keeping track of PM inspections and jobs, including step-by-step instructions or check-lists, lists of materials required, and other pertinent details. Typically, the CMMS schedules PM jobs automatically based on schedules and/or meter readings. Different software packages use different techniques for reporting when a job should be performed.
  Asset management: Recording data about equipment and property including specifications, warranty information, service contracts, spare parts, purchase date, expected lifetime, and anything else that might be of help to management or maintenance workers. The CMMS may also generate Asset Management

metrics such as the Facility Condition Index, or FCI.

Inventory control: Management of spare parts, tools, and other materials including the reservation of materials for particular jobs, recording where materials are stored, determining when more materials should be purchased, tracking shipment receipts, and taking inventory.

Safety: Management of permits and other documentation required for the processing of safety requirements. These safety requirements can include

lockout-tagout, confined space, foreign material exclusion (FME), electrical safety, and others.

CMMS packages can produce status reports and documents giving details or summaries of maintenance activities. The more sophisticated the package, the more analysis facilities are available.

Many CMMS packages can be either web-based, meaning they are hosted by the company selling the product on an outside server, or LAN based, meaning that the company buying the software hosts the product on their own server.

CMMS packages are closely related to Facility Management System packages (also called Facility Management Software). For the purposes of many organizations, the two are interchangeable.