January 22, 2025
12 Tips for Maintenance Success: Best Practices and CMMS Benefits
Many times when we discuss maintenance, we refer to equipment. Vehicles. Processors. Conveyors. Forklifts.
However, we cannot forget about the structures that house all this equipment. The facilities, warehouses, or whatever you call the buildings for your companies.
While "production" concerns itself with providing the product or service, maintenance handles the assets. This takes into account any industry. Hospital, education. manufacturing, aeronautics, and so many more.
In this article, we'll discuss twelve tips for maintenance success. Of course, they can refer to all maintenance activities. Here, though, let's focus on the facility as an asset. Also, we'll see how a computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) benefits operations.
Communication: The Foundation of Maintenance Practices
As every building has a foundation, this skill serves as the foundation for successful relationships.
In a small company, coworkers may not see an issue with communications. You walk down the hall to an office of the maintenance department supervisor and hold a conversation. Even if maintenance resides in a separate building, you encounter few difficulties.
The challenges come in larger companies. Internal messaging systems solve a lot, as do intercoms. However, what about maintenance concerns?
For instance, an employee notices a hanging gutter after a bad storm. How do employees submit work requests, and how would a supervisor process those requests?
If you have a quality CMMS, you'd have a supervisor send you an HTML link for a work request submission. You fill out the relevant data and the request goes into the system. It shows up on the list of requests the supervisor reviews.
CMMS on a mobile device provides another form of good communication. Wherever you are in the field, you can view records, check inventory, and create work requests.
You need good communication between employees who work inside the facility and those who may work outside.
Discover how streamlined maintenance processes can elevate production. Learn more.
Balancing Efficiency and Effectiveness for Maintenance Success
While these may sound like two tips, they work together. They have distinctive definitions, but you must combine them for success.
Efficient – Deals with time. Doing things right and completing them with the least amount of the time and effort.
Effective – Deals with quality. Doing the right things and completing them so you can move on to other activities.
How do they work together? One doesn't always mean the presence of the other. You can finish a sixty-minute job in thirty minutes, but how well did you do the job? Will you or someone else have to do further work or a complete rework?
On the other hand, taking three hours to do a sixty-minute job doesn't exhibit efficiency even though you did quality work.
You have to find the balance between the two. When we discuss maintenance on a building, especially the outer portions, you probably will have deadlines. These may be due to the time of day and/or weather. You have to find that balance in these situations.
A CMMS benefits because it offers planning and scheduling of preventive maintenance and prioritization of other repairs. You have standardization in work orders. You can attach documentation for safety measures.
Optimizing Resources for Maintenance Practices
I refer to both stock and labor. Inventory usually has its own stockroom or warehouse. To have the most efficient and effective use of that storage area, you must stay organized.
This means knowing the layout of the area and the location of the parts and supplies. You have to track quantities and note critical spares.
Remember, you should consider stock as part of the maintenance expense. Not just in the purchasing but in the storing. You use energy for housing the inventory.
For labor, you hired a top-notch team. Utilize specific skills when assigning work orders. Do a couple of your technicians have experience with roofing and siding? Place them on the ticket for inspections and repairs.
Once again, a CMMS comes through for you. A quality system offers stockroom layout assistance and quantity tracking. It will act as a database for your technicians, listing contact information and skill levels. You'll have an easier time when scheduling because you'll have a calendar listing the work orders and who you assigned them to.
Reducing Costs with Effective Maintenance Strategies
Maintenance does constitute a company expense. Part of your job as supervisor includes reducing expenses.
What types of expenses does the facility incur? How can maintenance reduce that? HVAC inspections for better efficiency. Structural inspections and repairs to reduce energy usage and waste.
As you'll see later, a CMMS helps with this by offering preventive maintenance records, priorities, and cycles.
While many companies still have a reactive mindset, they risk further expenses. Reactive means you pay attention to assets only when they break down or fail. Since this article focuses on structural assets, think of the expense you'll have if you wait. Structural failures add to safety risks.
Prepare your preventive maintenance plan. Use a CMMS to assist. You can convert PMs to work orders, prioritize them, and then schedule them.
Safety Concerns and Their Role in Maintenance Success
I've mentioned these in above points. Structural integrity means reduced safety concerns for employees and visitors.
Use the CMMS for PMs. Add documentation of safety protocols to work orders. Prepare your technicians with PPE gear. Post notices for hazardous areas.
Planning for Maintenance Practices That Work
Successful maintenance means you plan. While not all parts of Doc Palmer's book (https://shorturl.at/tby0z) will pertain to your operations, much of it will.
Take time to properly plan with your maintenance team. Set your goals. Discuss challenges and various solutions. Planning increases your chances of efficiency and effectiveness. Use the CMMS to plan your work orders for the structures on your property. Make them part of the overall program.
Adapting Maintenance Practices with Advancing Technology
You use this skill for all parts of business including maintenance. As technology changes, so do ways of conducting repairs and PMs
Of course, the CMMS has taken long strides ahead of the old-fashioned spreadsheets and handwritten work orders. Throughout the years, the software has advanced to include checklists, equipment readings tracking, depreciation tracking, and so much more.
Be sure to research new building materials for repairs and to maintain structural integrity. Note those vendors in your CMMS for the best comparisons.
Stewarding Environmental Responsibility
While this will coincide with a later tip, compliance, your company and maintenance department have a responsibility for effective waste and resource disposal. Used siding, shingles, batteries, lighting, generators, etc. You need to understand the proper disposal of these materials.
In a CMMS, you might include these steps in a work order checklist. That way, you ensure risk management and a complete job.
Extending Asset Life with CMMS Maintenance Practices
Your main goal in maintenance: to keep assets at a baseline functionality. Of course, structures may last longer than equipment. Be sure to not neglect them, though. Just because they don't "wear out" as fast as vehicles and machines, doesn't mean they won't.
Note the maintenance history for all assets in a CMMS. That way, you'll know upcoming dates for inspections and routine repairs.
Why Maintenance Impacts Reputation and Success
Ever pass an office building or plant and see the shape of the main building? What do you think of the company based on that one sight? You can't judge a book by its cover, right? Even so, a shoddy building doesn't give a good first impression. Keep your structures looking pristine with regular inspections and maintenance using the schedule in a CMMS.
Ensuring Compliance for Maintenance Success
Just as certain equipment needs to stay in compliance, you need to prepare for regulatory visitors for building compliance.
With a CMMS, you can show inspectors and regulators documentation of the work you've completed.
Reap the Benefits of CMMS for Maintenance Efficiency
Successful maintenance management takes effort, time, and dedication. Proper planning and skilled technicians with clear work orders. Organization at all levels.
You can have those with the help of a CMMS. Visit Mapcon for more information on a superior system. 800-922-4336
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