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A Guide to Choosing the Right CMMS for Your Facility Type

October 22, 2021
3 min
Preventative

A computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) is a software application that assists maintenance teams in keeping track of the assets and equipment they work with. It helps teams track and schedule maintenance activities and work orders, and maintain a historical record of work completed.

If you are thinking about implementing a CMMS, you will need to work out which one is best for you. Whether you are beginning from scratch or switching from one CMMS to another, the steps below will help you choose the right CMSS for your facility.

1. Consider Your Business Size

Knowing where you fit in the industry is vital in determining the software you require. If you are a small business searching for simple work order software, you probably do not need something with tens of thousands of functionalities.

On the other hand, if your business is growing, you would not want to invest in software that you will outgrow in a year. So make sure the CMMS you choose is right for the size of your business and your future plans in terms of scalability.

maintenance technician in a facility

2. Determine the Most Important Maintenance Features for Your Business

Now is the time to sit down with your team and determine what features you require now, what features you expect to be necessary for the future, and what features would be good to have but are not required at this time.

Some of the features you may want to consider include work order tracking, preventative maintenance, parts and inventory maintenance, and maintenance scheduling. Of course, you may require more features in a powerful CMMS to meet the needs of your facility.

CMMS solutions for industrial, healthcare, commercial, and educational facilities will have to offer different functionalities. Create a list after meeting with your maintenance staff so that when you meet with a vendor, you can choose a CMMS software solution that matches your budget and meets all of your present and future requirements.

3. Consider Preventative Maintenance Management

When shopping for maintenance software, ensure it allows Preventive Maintenance (PM) in the manner in which you perform these tasks. Do you favour PMs that are based on a calendar? Meter-based? Is it reliant on hours of running time for the assets? Are you able to conduct inspections? Can you record the data and metrics, pass or fail them, and produce work orders for corrective maintenance based on failed inspections?

 

You'll want to double-check that you can set up all of your facilities, rooms, and offices, as well as all of your machinery, whether it's facility or production-related.

4. Focus on the Technology

Technology is advancing at a breakneck pace, and you'll want to make sure you have software that's versatile and adaptable enough to keep up. To this end, some of the features to look for include cloud-based, mobile integration, and API functionality.

The advantages of cloud-based (SaaS) applications are difficult to overestimate. It removes the complication of on-premises software implementation, leaving you with a system that is instantly accessible over the web, less costly upfront, automatically updated, and accessible at any time from any location.

maintenance team performing preventive tasks

An app is the best approach to get the most out of mobile devices. In the context of maintenance, mobile apps allow technicians to request and update work orders on the go and provide productivity tools such as QR code readers that can instantly scan assets and provide access to their complete maintenance history.

An application programming interface (API) allows your CMMS to communicate with other technology, which extends its capabilities. You can use an API to capture readings from machinery and send them to your CMMS, where they can be used to trigger activities like emails, alerts, and service requests. You can also use it to synchronize data in real-time from your CMMS to an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system.

5. Factor the System’s True Cost and ROI

The most difficult aspect of choosing a CMMS is determining its true cost. With the right CMMS system, not only will you save money in the long run, but you will also be able to work out your ROI right away. Make sure the CMMS you choose allows you to do that.

Maintenance Care CMMS is The Ideal Solution for Your Needs

If you consider the above steps to be important in choosing the right CMMS for your facility, then Maintenance Care CMMS is equipped to meet all your CMMS needs.

With our CMMS, not only can you schedule and track everything in your facility, but you can also go paperless, get specific features for maintenance in different settings such as manufacturing, senior care, hospitality, etc., and calculate ROI from the maintenance care system even before you implement it in your facility. You also get to benefit from the following features:

  • Live maintenance work orders
  • Easy work order request form
  • Instant team notifications
  • Complete asset management list
  • Asset repair and cost tracking
  • Capital planning
  • Preventative maintenance
  • Scheduling for compliance
  • Custom fillable forms
  • Automatic task assignment
  • Parts and inventory tracking
  • CMMS mobile app
  • CMMS dashboards and charts
  • Detailed reporting
  • Cross-platform capabilities
  • 1000+ integrations
  • Cloud storage for CMMs
  • API ready
  • Amazon Alexa Voice control
  • Sensor Integration
  • 3D virtual reality spaces

And more! Book a Demo today for a run of the Maintenance Care CMMS before deciding whether you want to implement it in your facility or not.

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