September 16, 2024

What Is Maintenance Management?

The answer to the question of what is maintenance management consists of many layers. At the foundation, it means overseeing a company's maintenance tasks. Let's use an analogy for better understanding. Place those words maintenance management at the top of a hierarchical family tree and study the branches or subcategories.

Furthermore, you can break down these subcategories into further discussion points. In this article, we'll highlight some of these.

Categories

As we look at the "family members" of maintenance management, we see five basic and common categories. Let's briefly explore each.

Assets – Companies have assets, whether vehicles, buildings, or equipment. A maintenance department strives to keep each asset at a baseline level of operation or functionality. As a supervisor, you rely on previous records and asset/equipment readings. Read on for more discussion about assets including a proper preventive maintenance program to reduce costs and unplanned downtime.

Inventory – Technicians need parts and supplies. You'll organize the stockroom and issue the parts as per the related work order. Supervisors need to know the types of inventory available, quantities, costs, amounts purchased, and amounts used for the jobs.

Preventive Maintenance (PM) – To keep assets at the aforementioned baseline of operation, you need to have a solid strategy for preventive maintenance. This includes knowing the manufacturer's and regulatory guidelines. Of course, you'd understand the proper procedures for effective PM and the frequency of each PM.

Work Orders – This involves planning, assigning, and scheduling of the jobs, whether PMs or other maintenance tasks. You have to know:

• The type of repair/PM.
• Its priority.
• The associated inventory.
• Available labor.
• Deadlines.
• All associated costs.

Reports – Supervisors must look at feedback from technicians. They'll analyze the necessary reports to have a complete overview of maintenance management. This includes various key performance indicator reports (KPIs).

CMMS

One of the best "tools" supervisors and technicians can use is a computerized maintenance management system (CMMS). You have a centralized database and a menu for each of the above "family members." You create your list of assets, your record of inventory, your PMs, and generate work orders.

A CMMS also generates key performance indicator (KPI) reports and others related specifically to assets, inventory, work orders, and more. A CMMS can handle multiple facilities across many sites.

A CMMS doesn't automatically create a maintenance management "system." What it will do is help you improve an existing strategy. It organizes your department, stockroom, and purchasing procedures.

Benefits of a CMMS

Benefits of this software include:

• The centralized information as discussed above.
• Increased asset uptime.
• Reduced costs.
• Streamlined work order management.
• Digitized record-keeping for audits.
• Maintenance management software provides real-time condition monitoring, data-driven decision-making, efficiency improvements, and lifecycle benefits.

Choosing a CMMS

To invest in the system that will be most valuable to you, first, you must analyze your current maintenance operations. What goals do you want to achieve? Reduced unplanned downtime? A more structured inventory issue/return? An orderly stockroom? Reduced costs?

Talk with the CMMS provider about those goals and how the system will put you on the right path.

Also, ask about scalability. You don't want unnecessary features, but the system has to accommodate your growth by having those features when you need them.

For instance, right now, you may not need the barcoding module. Five years from now, your company decides to start using barcodes for better inventory tracking. Call your CMMS vendor to get you started.

How about licensing? Consider concurrent licenses rather than individual. This gives you access for more employees.

Of course, you'll need training. Talk to the vendor about the options of in-house, on-site, and online.

You should have U.S.-based customer support. The CMMS team needs to be dedicated to solving your problems.

Some companies need unique features and reports. When discussing a CMMS, ask about customization services.

How well can the CMMS integrate with other systems such as accounting and enterprise resource programs (ERPs)?

Conclusion

What is maintenance management? It incorporates several concepts, procedures, and practices. For success, you'll need good communication between the maintenance department team, the "production" line, management, and inventory vendors. From there, you'll need to have the best and most complete information on assets and resources.

A CMMS is a great benefit to companies because it offers the versatility to cover the needs of numerous industries. For a superior CMMS, call Mapcon Technologies at 800-922-4336. We've been helping companies achieve maintenance management success for over forty years.