Manufacturing heavily relies on maintenance, but slogging away at manual scheduling isn’t the best use of your maintenance team’s time — attending to assets is.

A CMMS for manufacturing gives your technicians the tools they need to focus less on incidentals and more on high-quality maintenance. So how does CMMS software help?

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Article Roadmap

• What Is a CMMS?
• How Are CMMS Platforms Used in Manufacturing?
• Benefits
• Features
• Software Comparison
• Implementation
• Next Steps

What Is a CMMS?

A CMMS, aka computerized maintenance management system, is a solution for scheduling, managing and tracking maintenance activities at its core.

Typically, maintenance teams use them to create and track work orders, schedule preventive maintenance, monitor assets, adhere to regulatory requirements, analyze data and more.

CMMS vs. EAM

If you’re at all familiar with maintenance activities, you’ve probably heard the term enterprise asset management (EAM). Maintenance is a mainstay practice in EAM. But when it comes to software, EAM systems and CMMS tools are distinct.

As vendors continue to compete, the EAM vs. CMMS distinctions are dwindling. However, they’re still broad enough that if asset management is your main focus, an EAM system might be your best bet. But if your asset management needs are secondary to maintenance, CMMS is the way to go.

You can categorize their differences by scope, use and capabilities.

Categorizations	CMMS	EAM
Scope	Covers asset life cycles and data holistically.	Focuses on asset maintenance and uptime.
Use	Maintenance and operations teams are the main users of CMMS software.	C-suite, finance and accounting, and compliance teams use EAM software alongside maintenance and operations teams.
Capabilities	CMMS capabilities, traditionally, center around asset upkeep rather than additional life cycle and business functionality.	EAM capabilities extend beyond just maintaining assets to facilitate risk management, disposal, procurement and financial management.

We’ll cover the core capabilities CMMS applications include in more detail below. But, for now, let’s look at how you can use CMMS for manufacturing processes.

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How Are CMMS Platforms Used in Manufacturing?

Manufacturing is an asset-intensive industry. You rely on equipment to produce your end-products that bring in revenue. So it’s only natural that maintenance plays a critical role in your daily operations to prevent downtime and keep production moving.

CMMS software offers a means of optimizing those maintenance activities so you’re getting the most out of your assets in terms of uptime and life span.

While handling maintenance with paper- or spreadsheet-based methods is possible, you’ll face additional challenges that a CMMS solution can help mitigate.

For example, consider inventory management for spare parts. If you’re tracking on-hand stock manually, you leave yourself open to inaccurate counts, which could lead to under or overstocking — both of which are costly in different ways.

• Understocking or stock-outs can result in downtime, costing you in terms of lost production.
• Overstocking, or excess inventory, is a form of maverick spend — breaking company spending rules — in that you’re purchasing parts and equipment you don’t need at the time, whether intentionally or due to inaccurate inventory counts.

Inventory errors are just one of many challenges you’re up against when managing maintenance manually rather than with a dedicated solution. Some other challenges include, but aren’t limited to:

• Missed work orders or assignments
• Unnecessary downtime due to preventable malfunctions or failures
• Inaccurate or undocumented field maintenance records
• Strenuous regulation reporting and noncompliance risks
• Poor labor distribution

We could go on, but you get the idea. There’s a lot CMMS applications can do for your manufacturing needs, which brings us to the benefits these systems provide.

Primary Benefits

Using CMMS to manage manufacturing equipment, workflows and data can bring ample benefits to your organization.

Before we dive into the features that make up the core of these systems, take a look at what you stand to gain from using one in your manufacturing facility.

• Reduce Unplanned Downtime: Maintaining accurate digital records, scheduling preventive maintenance with automated reminders and conducting ongoing risk assessments based on data all help reduce unplanned downtime.
• Extend Asset Life Spans: Using digital tools to create a proactive maintenance strategy based on real-time data, rather than relying on run-to-failure maintenance, can keep your assets in peak condition for longer.
• Enhance Communication: Updating information in a digital environment that all maintenance employees can access helps keep teams up to date with vital information, including completed, assigned and pending work orders.
• Ensure Safety and Compliance: Creating digital audit trails and tracking e-signatures helps you prepare for potential audits, protecting you from lengthy investigations or regulatory infractions.
• Optimize Inventory Management: Storing inventory counts in a system helps you keep track of on-hand inventory. Setting up reorder points automatically lets you know when to reorder regularly used parts and equipment.
• Mobilize Technicians: Introducing mobile applications empowers your team to track maintenance activities and access asset information (like manufacturer, maintenance history and repair equipment) at the source.
• Increase Visibility: Centralizing business data helps you automate KPI monitoring and derive actionable insights from ad-hoc and customized reporting and analytics.
• Improve Equipment and Workflow Efficiency: Monitoring KPIs and maintenance trends can help you address workflow bottlenecks and balance equipment output with risks, costs and deterioration.

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Key Features

Many — if not all — of CMMS platforms’ core functions can streamline manufacturing workflows, improve processes and aid decision-making.

Work Order Management

The difference between a work request and an order boils down to the stage in the process. Once your maintenance managers approve a request, they create and schedule a work order. Work orders let your technicians know what to work on and when.

Work order management modules facilitate both requests and orders. With them, you can:

• Submit requests
• Review and approve or deny requests
• Create, schedule and assign work orders
• Track completion progress
• Close finished orders

They keep track of maintenance activities from detection to completion.

Maintenance Requests

It’s not always a maintenance tech who first identifies asset performance issues. Oftentimes, your operators, who use the equipment daily, can identify when a machine is acting up or not producing as it should.

When this happens, they can enter a maintenance request (aka service request) in the system for the specific asset. Your maintenance managers can review requests and approve or deny them.

Although maintenance requests generally fall under a broader work order management module, they’re important features in and of themselves. They save operators time reporting issues and help keep requests from slipping through the cracks.

Asset Management

While potentially less robust than EAM systems, CMMS platforms provide asset management capabilities. These functions help with:

• Asset disposal
• Asset hierarchy categorization
• Asset life cycle management
• Asset procurement
• Asset risk management
• Asset tracking

If you need robust asset management capabilities, be sure to check what vendors offer or consider an EAM solution instead.

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Inventory Management

As mentioned above, CMMS solutions offer inventory management modules to help prevent over and understocking.

They do so by providing a centralized database with real-time views of your inventory levels and low-quantity alerts. By logging orders received and stock use, you can keep accurate, up-to-date tabs on your inventory.

Preventive Maintenance Scheduling

Reactive maintenance can be costly and cause unnecessary downtime. A proactive approach, like preventive maintenance, helps you address asset problems before they become major malfunctions or failures.

And preventive maintenance scheduling in CMMS tools goes beyond creating a date-and-time-based calendar. It helps you identify optimal maintenance intervals depending on asset type, age and criticality.

Additionally, it automates alerts, so you never forget to perform routine maintenance on vital or secondary assets.

Compliance Management

As you likely know, asset-intensive industries like manufacturing have strict regulatory requirements. The NAICS manufacturing regulations set different requirements depending on your sector, but there are regulations, nonetheless.

CMMS applications have compliance management modules to help you regulate processes and adhere to rules. You can set the modules to your specific sector so it aligns with your specific needs.

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Labor or Resource Management

Managing labor costs and schedules can be as challenging but important as managing maintenance.

With a CMMS, you can set schedules in a calendar view to quickly identify glaring gaps or unnecessary overlaps. You can also enter salaries or hourly rates to track weekly and monthly costs.

Add in additional tasks for specific shifts or employees — outside routine duties and existing work orders — to ensure your team members cover everything whether you’re there or not.

Analytics and Reporting

Tracking KPIs and running reports is good for more than just demonstrating regulatory compliance. You can make data-driven, cost-effective decisions based on real-time company information.

You can select from pre-built parameters or create custom reports to compile the necessary information. You can schedule automatic generation by time interval and run ad-hoc reports to supplement the schedule.

Whether monitoring inventory levels, maintenance and labor costs, asset productivity, or work order completion, you can make decisions at every stage and level of your maintenance activities.

Mobile Apps

Native mobile apps can increase data accuracy and team communication, especially if you have field technicians working on assets in multiple locations.

They let your technicians access all the information they need to complete maintenance from their phones. As they complete assignments, they can update the system and leave notes directly at the asset location, reducing the chances of forgotten information.

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Software Comparison

Finding the right CMMS for manufacturing can be the difference between elevating your maintenance practices and sinking time and money into a nonsolution.

We’ve established a software selection process — Lean Selection methodology — that you can apply to any industry and software category.

It’s broken down into nine steps, including:

1. Establish
2. Collaborate
3. Define
4. Distribute and Validate
5. Justify
6. Prove
7. Rank
8. Negotiate
9. Sign

Check out our article for a synopsis of each stage, or request a free copy of our eBook, Lean Selection: How To Really Select Right Software, for a more detailed breakdown of how to find the best solution for your needs.

Implementation

There are a few steps to take and considerations to make when implementing a CMMS for manufacturing. Mainly, you need to get everyone on board and make sure they’re ready to roll once the system’s up and running.

Once you establish your collaboration team and justify your needs to executives, you need to keep in mind these implementation considerations as you continue your software comparison.

• Deployment: Cloud, or SaaS, systems are ready to go in minutes, but on-premise solutions take time to set up. Think weeks or months, not hours or days. How will you keep operations running during this time?
• Training: It takes time to learn to use a new system, especially to its full potential. Are your employees already familiar with CMMS software in general, or are they starting from scratch? Get a general feel for expertise levels to know how much time and effort you’ll need to put into training.
• Downtime: Chances are there’ll be some hiccups during the early stages of implementation, which could lead to downtime. How will you accommodate unforeseen downtime and minimize production losses?

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Next Steps

Whether buying your first platform or upgrading your current solution, a CMMS for manufacturing can go a long way in improving your maintenance practices.

We know that finding the right system takes time and careful consideration. So if you’re still not sure where to start, let us help!

You can check out our free comparison report to see what different solutions have to offer. It’s interactive and breaks down ratings, reviews and product pricing based on other companies’ actual selection projects.

And if you want to avoid the effort of scrutinizing multiple systems on your own, reach out about our various services. We’ll help you determine your requirements and find the perfect match.

Do you already use a CMMS for manufacturing processes? What do you find it most useful for? Let us know in the comments!