As a facility manager, you understand that the devil is in the details. With complex facilities, assets and teams under your care, it’s important to have the right tools to streamline operations and ensure every moving part is functioning smoothly. Maintenance management software can take a lot of the guesswork out of your job by offering robust auditing tools that track key metrics in real-time.
But where do you start?
There are five key metrics you should track using digital auditing features, so you can harness the power of custom audit capabilities to improve your facility’s performance. Ready to start optimizing your maintenance operations? Let’s go.
1. Asset Condition
Asset performance and longevity are critical to keeping equipment and your entire operation running in good working order. Overlooking small issues can lead to larger breakdowns, costly repairs or even full (expensive) replacements. Corrective maintenance can address these issues when they arise. Using auditing features in your maintenance software, you can create custom equipment checklists to regularly inspect assets and assess their condition.
By tracking data points like temperature, vibration levels or wear and tear through customizable fields—such as checkboxes, text fields or dropdown menus—you can monitor and trend asset conditions over time. Maintenance Care’s real database fields with history tracking enable you to pinpoint exactly when an asset started to decline, making it easier to schedule preventive maintenance before small issues escalate.
Pro Tip: Attach Inspection Questionnaires to scheduled tasks to create repetitive routines that automatically remind your team to inspect critical equipment. You’ll keep everything running smoothly and ensure no asset falls through the cracks.
2. Maintenance Operations Costs
Budgets are always a concern for those in management, and keeping a close eye on maintenance-related expenses can help you avoid unnecessary overspending. With maintenance audits, you can design audits that track detailed maintenance costs, such as:
- Labor hours
- Materials used
- Vendor expenses
Using specific fields, facility managers can break down the exact cost of maintenance tasks. This data can be easily reported on and helps create a clear picture of where your resources are going. Maintenance software plays a crucial role in tracking and analyzing these maintenance costs, aiding in identifying problematic parts and suppliers. In turn, you can identify patterns and make informed decisions on where to cut costs or allocate funds more effectively.
Example: Need to know how much you’ve spent on HVAC repairs this quarter? With real-time data collection and historical tracking, you’ll have access to accurate cost breakdowns and be able to print out a PDF of audit results with just a few clicks.
3. Compliance Checks
Ensuring that your facility stays compliant with safety regulations is a top priority, whether you’re working in healthcare, manufacturing, education or any other industry. Conducting maintenance audits is crucial to ensure compliance and improve maintenance programs. Non-compliance can lead to hefty fines, failed inspections, or even legal issues. The good news is that Maintenance Care’s auditing feature helps you stay ahead of the curve by streamlining your compliance checks.
You can set up room safety inspections, procedure audits, and more, all customized to fit your industry standards. For example, fields like checklists or checkboxes make it easy to confirm that fire extinguishers are present, emergency exits are clear, or proper PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) is available.
Even better, you can create rules for actions based on poor audit results. If a compliance audit fails, the system can automatically trigger a follow-up task to ensure corrective action is taken swiftly. Instant notifications keep your team informed about any non-compliant areas so they can be addressed immediately, ensuring that your facility maintains its high safety and operational standards.
4. Work Order Completion Rates
Tracking work order completion rates is essential for understanding your team’s efficiency and identifying potential bottlenecks in your workflow. Maintenance Care allows you to attach inspection checklists directly to work orders, ensuring tasks are completed correctly and on time.
By using maintenance audits to monitor completion times and task outcomes, you’ll have visibility into how quickly and efficiently work orders are being resolved. Fields like dates and durations give you the power to measure how long certain tasks take to complete, while checkboxes can confirm whether tasks were finished to specification.
These data points are invaluable when it comes to improving response times and understanding why certain jobs might be delayed. You can trend this information over time and adjust staffing or processes as needed to maintain smooth operations.
5. Inspection Failure Follow-Up
Inspections are only effective if there’s a follow-up process in place for failures. Let’s face it—problems arise, and the true test is how quickly and effectively they are resolved. Separate unplanned maintenance should be measured alongside preventive maintenance tasks within your maintenance audits for a clear picture of what went wrong, how it was handled and how your team can create preventive maintenance programs to avoid major issues in the future.
With Maintenance Care’s auditing feature, you can automate calls to action when inspections don’t meet your standards.
Imagine conducting a safety audit and discovering that a critical piece of equipment has failed. Instead of manually creating a work order, maintenance audit features allows you to automatically generate a subsequent task to resolve the issue. You can even set rules for escalating responses based on severity. For example, a failed audit on fire safety equipment might immediately trigger an urgent work order for replacement or repair.
By automating these follow-ups, you reduce downtime, maintain higher safety standards, and ensure that all issues are addressed in a timely manner. Plus, having a system in place that tracks these failures and responses helps you better communicate expectations with your team.
Why Use Computerized Maintenance Management Systems For Your Maintenance Audit
Computerized Maintenance Management Systems (CMMS) are powerful tools that help organizations manage their maintenance operations more efficiently. A CMMS can streamline maintenance processes, reduce downtime and improve overall equipment reliability. By using a single, simple but powerful system, all maintenance personnel can easily track and manage work orders, preventive maintenance schedules and inventory levels.
In addition to maintenance audits, a CMMS includes feature designed to help improve maintenance scheduling and planning. You can automate preventive maintenance tasks, ensuring that critical assets receive timely inspections and servicing. This proactive approach helps prevent unexpected breakdowns and extends the lifespan of your equipment.
A CMMS also enhances inventory management and control. By tracking spare parts and materials, you can avoid stockouts and ensure that necessary items are always available when needed. This reduces downtime and keeps maintenance operations running smoothly.
Additionally, a CMMS provides valuable insights into maintenance operations. You can generate reports on equipment performance, maintenance costs, and personnel productivity, enabling data-driven decision-making. These insights help you identify trends, optimize maintenance strategies, and allocate resources more effectively.
Choose a CMMS With Built-In Maintenance Audits
When selecting a CMMS, consider factors such as:
- Ease of use
- Customization options
- Integration with existing systems
- Scalability
- Customer support
- Fixed pricing
Maintenance Care’s CMMS is much is more than just a checklist tool—it’s a complete solution for facility managers who want to improve operational efficiency, track detailed data, and maintain high standards.
By implementing a CMMS, organizations can optimize their maintenance processes, ensure compliance, and maintain high standards of asset management. This leads to increased efficiency, reduced downtime, and a more reliable operation overall.
Here’s a quick recap of why this Maintenance Care's auditing features are invaluable:
- Custom Audits for Any Use: Design your own checklists and inspection routines for equipment, room safety, or compliance.
- Real Database Fields: Use powerful data collection methods like dropdowns, amounts, and checkboxes for comprehensive reporting.
- Automated Follow-Ups: Set rules for actions based on poor audit results, ensuring immediate responses.
- Mobile-Ready: Complete inspections from your mobile device and take pictures for added detail.
With these tools at your disposal, you can stay ahead of maintenance needs, ensure compliance, and optimize your facility's performance. So, start tracking these five key metrics today and watch your maintenance operations soar to new heights!
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