What is CMMS

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Computerized Maintenance Management System

What is CMMS?

Every company faces a challenge in its operations from time to time. There are those instances when spare parts can’t be located, seemingly sequestered in some phantom storeroom. It can be a struggle to remember when machines need maintenance. And trying to keep up with writing out work order after work order can be tedious. CMMS and or EAM makes all of this and more a thing of the past.

CMMS, short for Computerized Maintenance Management Systems enhance internal operations for companies in a variety of ways. With CMMS software, firms can improve their inventory control, work order generation, asset management, safety, regulatory compliance, and real-time reporting, among other things. This is done through automating these duties, which CMMS software in effect makes possible.

Companies that use CMMS programs can see a range of benefits. These benefits include: lower overhead; the elimination of shortages; minimizing existing inventory; and reducing the amount of time that machines aren’t in use, killing downtime in effect. Serving various industrial sectors including manufacturing, healthcare and other facilities, and any company that operates a vehicle fleet, CMMS software helps business and more run optimally.

CMMS, Computerized Maintenance Management Systems

Computers today are powerful enough to monitor cooling stations, beat grandmasters in chess, and generally reduce the world to one giant algorithm. Computers can also help business operations run smoother through the use of CMMS software. A variety of operational controls can be automated through the implementation of Computerized Maintenance Management Systems including work order generation, inventory control, and regulatory compliance. The automatic scheduling the software allows makes it so that no one ever needs to remember when a vehicle needs to be serviced or even if it’s more cost-effective to keep up preventive maintenance on the overall fleet or simply provide repairs as they come up.

CMMS Software

Currently, there are at least half a dozen major CMMS software packages on the market. The greater the size and sophistication of the package, the broader the scope of analytical resources that are provided. In general, CMMS packages come in one of two forms. There are Web-based programs, meaning they’re available through monthly or yearly subscriptions, hosted by the companies that sell them, and accessible from their Web sites. There are also Local Area Network or LAN-based CMMS software packages, with the firms that purchase them implementing them on their own servers.

CMMS Benefits

Perhaps the greatest benefit CMMS software offers is that it significantly reduces downtime, with one firm recently reporting a 95 percent reduction in it thanks to CMMS. This matters since every minute that a machine isn’t in use or an employee is idle, a company isn’t making money. The same firm that saw this dramatic improvement also reported that it had 60 percent less overtime being taken, 40 percent greater production each day, and 45 percent more profitability. In addition, CMMS can lead to lower overhead, an end to material shortages, minimization of existing inventory, greater safety and regulatory compliance, and more efficient operations.

What CMMS Replaces

Anyone who’s worked in an office may be familiar with the following headache. It involves a client list or fleet that needs to be maintained and no good method to do it. Maybe the information is contained in a few computer spreadsheets. Maybe it’s in some outdated, proprietary software. Maybe it’s kept by hand in a series of cryptic notebooks. Trapper Keeper, anyone? Whatever the case, the maintenance work can be a real time vampire and headache.
Computerized Maintenance Management Systems, or CMMS software is about eliminating the headaches. It’s about throwing out the spreadsheets and the in-house software that should have been abandoned with pagers and carbon copies. It’s about never again having to clutch at a pile of sweat-stained Post-It notes, wondering when an oil change is due on a delivery truck or if an invoice needs to be printed. Former officer managers in old age have nightmares about this kind of thing, surely; no longer will their dreams be haunted.
CMMS automates the maintenance process. It can help with the scheduling of maintenance work, it can say when repairs are needed, and it can even print out work orders ahead of time. It’s like an extra member of staff, only one that’s omniscient and doesn’t need a paycheck. Human error can be a major hindrance and liability for any company. CMMS software lessens these risks, and it also helps employees, allowing them to focus on other tasks. It’s little surprise that CMMS software sometimes leads the companies that use it to substantial increases in production and revenue.
Best of all, the software is cheap, typically available either with little or no upfront cost and a small amount in monthly fees. In time, it’s the kind of software that pays for itself, the kind of asset no business should be without.
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eMaint Enterprises, LLC created this online resource to educate the general public on the uses, applications, and benefits of CMMS, or "Computerized Maintenance Management Software."

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