Planning your CMMS outcomes

“If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.”

Most of us have heard this famous quote about the importance of planning.  Yet, so frequently we don’t follow this precious advice.

Like all other elements of the maintenance management cycle, the need to determine your CMMS outcomes and objectives before implementation is paramount.

Equally as important, is understanding these outcomes and objectives and how they are to be measured. The value gained using a CMMS is much more transparent when proper analytics are put in place.

Brainstorm your outcomes

 To help you figure out what you want from you system, here are some examples of outcomes for driving development:

• Appropriate maintenance strategies
• Maintenance work flow practices and procedures
• Data entry requirements
• KPIs and reporting requirements
• A regime of analysis and review

 The general outcomes generally required by maintenance managers may include:

 The need to control costs

• Improve Work flow
• Reduce Breakdowns
• Reduce Downtime
• Introduce a PM Program
• Establish Stock Control
• Purchasing Control
• Improve Customer Service
• Ensure Audit Compliance
• Optimise Asset Performance

 Document your desired outcomes

Once you’ve established your outcomes, these must be documented in an overall maintenance plan and then communicated to all stakeholders.

 Some outcomes necessary to measure and analyse are:

• The type of work performed
• Downtime
• Control and report costs

Establish a process

Establishing a process to measure and analyse these outcomes will aid a number of management decisions. 

For example, the benefits gained from understanding the nature of the work performed, the associated costs and the reasons for downtime may include:

• Breakdown Analysis
• Failure analysis
• The effectiveness of the maintenance program
• Potential improvements to Customer Service
• Understanding which maintenance services should we provide and what could be outsourced
• Understanding where and how maintenance staff are utilised
• Determining what the maintenance program is costing the organisation
• Determining training requirements

Planning these tests will make measuring your outcomes a lot easier once your system is up and running.

Adjust and maintain your maintenance system

And finally, you must always have a plan to be flexible and adaptive with your system.  If your outcomes are not relevant anymore, then change them.  If your analysis is off, correct it.

Use some common sense and your CMMS and maintenance routine will stay strong and effective.

Do you have any other thoughts on the necessary features of a maintenance plan?

What did you do before you implemented your CMMS?

Let us know in the comments.