Table of Contents
03 What is a CMMS system?
04 How does a CMMS system work?
05 Why use a CMMS for your team?
07 Core CMMS features that deliver those benefits
17 How to find the right CMMS for your organization
19 How to calculate a CMMS Return on Investment (ROI)
21 Why CMMS implementation fail
24 Hidden costs of maintenance
25 Why CMMS reports matter
26 How to get the most out of your CMMS software
27 Industries that need CMMS software
29 The history behind CMMS
30 The differences between a CMMS, ERP/EAM, CAFM/
and fleet management software
32 How to get started with Limble CMMS
Introduction
Maintenance management isn’t easy, especially Set up a CMMS correctly and you can reduce
when you don’t even know what a CMMS is or reactive maintenance by up to 73.2%, increase
how to use one. productivity by 28%, lower downtime by up to
32% and reduce part spend by 23%.
You have to make sure maintenance work is
done on time, equipment is running smoothly However, to truly understand how a CMMS can
and the company you are maintaining is running help you, you first need to understand how it
with minimal breakdowns. Things become even works.
harder when you realize all of that needs to be
done with a very limited budget. Over the years, we have heard a lot of
different questions about the functionality and
No wonder maintenance and facility managers implementation of CMMS software and we
turn to CMMS solutions for help. After all, decided to answer all of them in this no bulls&#!
computerized maintenance management guide to CMMS.
systems are designed to help you manage all
aspects of maintenance operations.
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Core CMMS features that deliver
those benefits
Computerized maintenance management systems all come with a very similar set of features.
The real difference is, therefore, in how those features are implemented and whether or not they
actually get used.
For this to happen the features must be intuitive and easy to use. Otherwise, your maintenance
team will never even attempt to give it a shot. The only thing worse than not having a CMMS is
paying for one you stop using after only a couple of months.
It is hard to convey what a good user experience looks like through words and pictures
Nonetheless, it is important to go through the core features any modern CMMS should offer so you
know what to expect and look for.
1. Work order management
Work order management is at the core of every CMMS. Its purpose is to streamline how people
submit work requests, how supervisors track work orders, and how technicians carry out actual
maintenance work.
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A strong work order management system
should offer:
• A dashboard with a clear overview of
scheduled, in-progress, and finished
maintenance tasks (as seen on the picture
below).
• An easy to use work request portal so
individuals outside of your maintenance
team can report issues to your team with
pictures they can markup.
• An easy to use maintenance calendar so
scheduling work is quick and easy.
• A mobile app that quickly allows your
maintenance team to complete work orders
on the go.
This combination of features is what drives the
large 28% productivity gains achieved by the
very best modern CMMS’s.
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2. Asset management
The more assets you have, the harder it is to save, organize, and use asset information.
Filing cabinets and paper records are grossly inefficient (and often inaccurate).
User-friendly CMMS solutions should be set up so that everyone can get the CMMS
data they need in just a few clicks.
A modern CMMS solves these problems by allowing users to:
• Create unlimited custom fields you can use to track only the information relevant to your asset.
• Organize your assets in a clear parent-to-child hierarchy (as seen on the picture below) that is
instantly searchable on a single page.
• Pull detailed and complete work histories on equipment and run total cost of ownership
reports.
• View real-time, granular reporting with KPIs such as MTTR, MTBF, and different asset
performance metrics.
Tracking assets to this level of detail drastically improves an asset’s life and reduces your capital
expenditures.
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3. Spare parts inventory management
Few things are more frustrating then not having the partt needed to fix the machine everyone is
depending on.
A good CMMS will help you run a spare parts inventory the right way which can result in cutting
spare parts spend by 23%.
Here are the key things a modern CMMS should do:
• Automatically track parts usage and help you make accurate inventory forecasts.
• Set up reminders for when parts go below a certain quantity.
• Let you know what spare parts are used on what assets and if those spare parts are no longer
needed.
• Quickly lookup and order parts from preferred vendors.
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4. Vendor management
Every organization has some specialized maintenance work that has to be carried out by third-party
contractors. If you do not have an option to track and manage their work, then your maintenance
records are incomplete.
Depending on your outsourcing strategy you may be spending tens to hundreds of thousands of
dollars a year on vendors. A good system can help ensure you are getting the biggest bang for
your buck.
A great CMMS should be able to:
• Track and manage your vendors contact information, past work, and invoices.
• Know which assets your vendors take care of and which vendors provide spare parts.
• Give limited access to a vendor so they can see only the work assigned specifically to them.
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5. Maintenance reports
One might presume that every CMMS offers deep and customizable reports, but unfortunately that
is not always the case.
After all of setup and data collection by your team the last thing you want to miss out on is the
real-time maintenance reports and KPIs. A good CMMS will provide insights important to you,
without the need for a data science degree to find them.
Here are the characteristics of a strong dashboard and reporting system:
• Customizable dashboard and reports that let you choose which maintenance KPIs and metrics
you want to track and compare.
• Reports that are built once and automatically regenerate so you don’t have to rebuild them.
• Reports that can be shared in different formats like Excel and PDF.
• Deep drill-down capabilities to learn exactly what problem the data is showing you.
• The ability to easily compare costs and KPIs between different facilities and teams.
Arguably this is the largest benefit of a CMMS. As the famous saying goes “What you don’t
measure you can’t improve”. Everyone’s maintenance operations are different and the only way to
know where to improve is to get a system in place and start taking those measurements.
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Head over to Limble’s Business Intelligence tool to learn more.
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6. Sensor integration
As Industry 4.0 and IoT continue to grow, it is only natural that advanced maintenance strategies
like CBM and predictive maintenance will become cheaper to implement, making them accessible
to more businesses.
This is why a modern CMMS should offer integration with condition-monitoring sensors that are at
the core of those strategies. What it means in practice is that your CMMS should be able to talk to
those sensors and automatically start work orders depending on the information it receives. You
can learn more about this process here.
That said, if you are just coming off of a paper or excel based system, you may want to learn how to
walk before you run. A good CMMS will morph to your unique needs, but also allow you to grow
into more advanced setups like a sensor integration.
This list is only the tip of the iceberg. If you’re interested in a more detailed breakdown of CMMS
features and how businesses use them, you can find more information here.
www.limblecmms.com | mail@limblecmms.com 16
