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Computerized Maintenance Management System
Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS) is also known as Enterprise Asset Management and Computerized Maintenance Management
Information System (CMMIS).
A CMMS software package maintains a computer database of information about an organization’s maintenance operations. This information is
intended to help maintenance workers do their jobs more effectively (for example, determining which storerooms contain the spare parts they
need) and to help management make informed decisions (for example, calculating the cost of
maintenance for each piece of equipment used
by the organization, possibly leading to better allocation of resources). The information may also be useful when dealing with
third parties; if, for example, an organization is involved in a liability case, the data in a CMMS database can serve as
evidence that proper safety maintenance has been performed.
CMMS packages may be used by any organization that must perform maintenance
on equipment, assets and property. Some CMMS products
focus on particular industry sectors (e.g. the maintenance of vehicle fleets
or health care facilities). Other products aim to be more general.
Different CMMS packages offer a wide range of capabilities and cover a correspondingly wide range of prices. A typical package deals
with some or all of the following:
- Work orders: Scheduling jobs, assigning personnel, reserving materials, recording costs, and tracking relevant information such as
the cause of the problem (if any), downtime involved (if any), and recommendations for future action
- Preventive Maintenance
(PM): Keeping track of PM inspections and jobs, including step-by-step instructions or check-lists, lists of
materials required, and other pertinent details. Typically, the CMMS schedules PM jobs automatically based on schedules and/or meter
readings. Different software packages use different techniques for reporting when a job should be performed.
- Asset management: Recording data about equipment and property including specifications, warranty information, service contracts, spare parts,
purchase date, expected lifetime, and anything else that might be of help to management or
maintenance workers. The CMMS may also
generate Asset Management metrics such as the Facility Condition Index, or FCI.
- Inventory control: Management of spare parts, tools, and other materials including the reservation of materials for particular jobs,
recording where materials are stored, determining when more materials should be purchased, tracking shipment receipts, and taking inventory.
- Safety: Management of permits and other documentation required for the processing of safety requirements. These safety requirements
can include lockout-tagout, confined space, foreign material exclusion (FME), electrical safety, and others.
CMMS packages can produce status reports and documents giving details or summaries of
maintenance activities. The more sophisticated
the package, the more analysis facilities are available.
Many CMMS packages can be either web-based, meaning they are hosted by the company selling the product on an outside server, or LAN based,
meaning that the company buying the software hosts the product on their own server.
CMMS packages are closely related to Facility Management System packages (also called Facility Management Software).
For the purposes of many organizations, the two are interchangeable.
Condition-based maintenance (CBM):
A trend in the world of CMMS is the increasing sophistication of condition-based
maintenance (CBM) features and functions vendors offer
and maintenance professionals actually use. CBM, a form of proactive, preventive or predictive maintenance, can be defined simply
as maintenance initiated on the basis of an asset’s condition. Physical properties or trends are monitored on a periodic or continuous
basis for attributes such as vibration,sound,temperature, particulates in the oil, wear and so on. CBM is an alternative
to failure-based maintenance initiated when assets break down, and use-based maintenance triggered by time or meter readings.
Widely utilized CMMS include: Angus Archibus BigCenter (Business Integration Group) Datastream (INFOR) Planon Maximo (IBM) Tririga.
Breakdowns in industrial manufacturing systems can have significant impact on the profitability of a business. Expensive production
equipment is idled, labor is no longer optimized, and the ratio of fixed costs to product output is negatively affected. Rapid repair
of down equipment is critical to business success; the process of addressing equipment breakdowns after occurrence is known as
Corrective Maintenance and exists in some form in all manufacturing companies. However, when equipment breakdowns occur the cost
can go well beyond the period of repair. Often process lines require significant run-time after startup to begin producing quality
product, and the manufactured goods in process at breakdown as well as the goods manufactured for a period after breakdown may
either be unusable or of less value. Because of the impact both during and beyond the immediate downtime, businesses have sought to
prevent equipment breakdown by a process known as Preventative Maintenance. With preventative maintenance equipment is routinely
inspected and serviced in an effort to prevent breakdowns from occurring. Such inspections are based on either calendar periods or
equipment process time, and generally include recorded data that can be compared over time to determine if negative shifts indicate
an imminent equipment problem.
References
- Berger, D., P.Eng. (2006) "Six steps to condition-based maintenance" Plant Services -
An exciting trend in the world of CMMS is the increasing sophistication of condition-based maintenance (CBM) features and functions vendors offer and maintenance professionals actually use.
- Wikipedia.org
