In many organizations, maintenance departments struggle to secure the resources they need to keep facilities and equipment operational. Business leaders may view maintenance as a cost driver, only investing in it when absolutely necessary, rather than as a strategic business asset capable of providing significant value. This perception leads to underinvestment in maintenance teams, equipment, and processes, resulting in an unfortunate cycle of reactive maintenance work and costly breakdowns.
The key to shifting this perception lies in harnessing data to showcase the benefits of a proactive, data-driven maintenance strategy. By leveraging data, maintenance teams can effectively demonstrate their value and position themselves as indispensable contributors to organizational success.
Harnessing the Power of Data
Maintenance teams often lack accessible, accurate data. Without the proper tools to gather insights into asset health, process efficacy, team productivity, and the department’s broader impact, organizations can find themselves trapped in reactive maintenance patterns. This approach, where investments are made only when something fails, is far costlier than proactive and preventive maintenance strategies and creates a cycle of underinvestment and underperformance.
Maintenance teams should focus on collecting and analyzing data that resonates with decision-makers and aligns with overall business objectives. Instead of focusing solely on maintenance-specific metrics, maintenance teams must translate the data into broader business impacts – potential cost savings from reduced downtime, improved product quality and customer satisfaction, enhanced safety and regulatory compliance, increased equipment lifespan and reduced capital expenditures, and energy efficiency and sustainability improvements. By connecting maintenance activities and needs to key performance indicators that matter to executives, the department can more effectively demonstrate its overall strategic value.
Making the Case for a CMMS
To truly transform maintenance from a cost center to a value driver, maintenance organizations first need the right tools and skills. Implementing a Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS) is an important early step. A CMMS can provide real-time insights into asset health and maintenance activities, optimize resource allocation, improve overall compliance, and enhance decision-making capabilities across the entire organization. When making the case for a CMMS, it is important to emphasize the new level of visibility it will provide into maintenance operations and how these insights will support overall strategy.
Once approval for implementing a CMMS is secured, it’s crucial that maintenance teams deliver on their promises. Maintenance leaders must do research into user-friendly solutions that will support the team throughout implementation and promote end-user adoption. Low user adoption is one of the top reasons CMMS implementations fail and maintenance teams who are used to being regarded as low-value can’t afford a false start. Teams may consider starting with a preliminary implementation with a small number of critical assets to help smooth the transition. It is essential that the initial implementation and adoption goes smoothly to quickly demonstrate improvements in key metrics and ROI to executives.
With a CMMS successfully in place, maintenance teams will be better positioned to advocate for further initiatives such as new equipment or additional staffing. Teams can use asset histories to make data-driven arguments for equipment replacement or repair and leverage performance data to justify additional hires by showing workload trends, maintenance backlogs, and overtime costs.
Continuous Communication is Key to Shifting Maintenance Perspectives
As business leaders begin to implement these changes, it is vital that maintenance teams continue communicating their successes, rather than waiting for business executives to ask about the department’s performance. By regularly sharing success stories and positive outcomes resulting from proactive maintenance initiatives, maintenance teams are able to showcase their value and how these strategies contribute to overall business growth and success. For example, maintenance teams can provide case studies of prevented failures and the associated cost savings, before-and-after comparisons of equipment reliability and its effect on performance, or general trend analyses showing improvements in key metrics over time. It may even be beneficial to implement a regular Maintenance Impact Report to keep executives constantly informed of the department’s contributions to overall business goals so business leaders understand the impact their investments are making.
In order to truly shift business leaders’ perspective on maintenance, teams must emphasize the need for data-driven insights. By leveraging data and consistently demonstrating their impact on organizational success, maintenance teams can transform their image from cost center to indispensable value driver that contributes to long-term business growth and customer satisfaction.
Bryan Christiansen
Bryan Christiansen is a self-taught, full-stack developer turned marketer turned entrepreneur. Bryan is the founder and CEO of Limble CMMS, the leader in CMMS software which empowers the unsung heroes that support the world. Limble has grown to having thousands of users in just a few short years.
The degree to which RCM analysis can contribute to profitability is directly variable with the quality and accuracy of the CMMS data on which the analysis is based. Because the technique is rigorous, its over-use will defeat the purpose and lead to cost overruns instead of savings. The way to optimize the RCM return is to apply the analysis strictly to the equipment and systems that will pay off from it, and to know this we must rely on the CMMS. This paper provides guidance for ensuring that the equipment data and history residing in a CMMS are complete and accurate; so that RCM analysis will be a success and positively impact a company’s bottom line, not hurt it.
The degree to which RCM analysis can contribute to profitability is directly variable with the quality and accuracy of the CMMS data on which the analysis is based. Because the technique is rigorous, its over-use will defeat the purpose and lead to cost overruns instead of savings. The way to optimize the RCM return is to apply the analysis strictly to the equipment and systems that will pay off from it, and to know this we must rely on the CMMS. This paper provides guidance for ensuring that the equipment data and history residing in a CMMS are complete and accurate; so that RCM analysis will be a success and positively impact a company’s bottom line, not hurt it.
Digital measurement technology certainly has taken the test industry forward, mostly with giant strides. The exact opposite may be true, however, when it is applied to testing for aging-related failure modes such as intermittency or no fault found (NFF). Digital abstraction devices, perfect for parametric testing, rarely synchronize to real-time, randomly occurring, anomalous, or intermittent age-related failure events. This shortcoming is especially acute when large numbers of circuit nodes require testing.
Digital measurement technology certainly has taken the test industry forward, mostly with giant strides. The exact opposite may be true, however, when it is applied to testing for aging-related failure modes such as intermittency or no fault found (NFF). Digital abstraction devices, perfect for parametric testing, rarely synchronize to real-time, randomly occurring, anomalous, or intermittent age-related failure events. This shortcoming is especially acute when large numbers of circuit nodes require testing.
The effectiveness of maintenance can make the difference between success and insolvency, between limping by financially and organizational excellence. Many companies and organizations consider their computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) and processes as catalysts for achieving a competitive advantage. Yet, good intentions are only part of the recipe for success.
The effectiveness of maintenance can make the difference between success and insolvency, between limping by financially and organizational excellence. Many companies and organizations consider their computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) and processes as catalysts for achieving a competitive advantage. Yet, good intentions are only part of the recipe for success.
Driving user adoption of the CMMS is by no means an insurmountable problem, but still remains an issue that cannot be overlooked. Without technicians’ buy-in, the full benefits of the system will not be achieved. Before getting into the ways that to encourage maintenance technicians to adopt CMMS software, let’s begin with a brief overview of the issues that lead to their reluctance in the first place.
Driving user adoption of the CMMS is by no means an insurmountable problem, but still remains an issue that cannot be overlooked. Without technicians’ buy-in, the full benefits of the system will not be achieved. Before getting into the ways that to encourage maintenance technicians to adopt CMMS software, let’s begin with a brief overview of the issues that lead to their reluctance in the first place.
Oh, the exciting world of software validation! Hours and hours of white-knuckled test development, execution, and… as if those are not enough… resolution and documentation of the results! Then of course are the continued change management efforts needed to keep the system in a validated state over its lifecycle. It takes truly special people to function in this arena.
Oh, the exciting world of software validation! Hours and hours of white-knuckled test development, execution, and… as if those are not enough… resolution and documentation of the results! Then of course are the continued change management efforts needed to keep the system in a validated state over its lifecycle. It takes truly special people to function in this arena.
Maintenance management is an around-the-clock challenge. Equipment failure can (and does) happen at inconvenient times–times when maintenance managers may be off-site and must rely on communication from technicians to convey problems and act efficiently. Mobile computerized maintenance management systems (CMMS) and applications provide live, synchronized status reports and other key features that can dramatically improve reaction time and efficiency.
Maintenance management is an around-the-clock challenge. Equipment failure can (and does) happen at inconvenient times–times when maintenance managers may be off-site and must rely on communication from technicians to convey problems and act efficiently. Mobile computerized maintenance management systems (CMMS) and applications provide live, synchronized status reports and other key features that can dramatically improve reaction time and efficiency.
If you search the Internet for information on asset management, the Internet and Industrial Internet of Things, digitalization, business trends and business reengineering, you’ll find a considerable increase in the number of articles with headlines heralding or promising significant and “disruption” or “disruptive” change. It’s wiser to focus on how to extract value from what you have and spend time creating the vision of where you want to go on the digital journey.
If you search the Internet for information on asset management, the Internet and Industrial Internet of Things, digitalization, business trends and business reengineering, you’ll find a considerable increase in the number of articles with headlines heralding or promising significant and “disruption” or “disruptive” change. It’s wiser to focus on how to extract value from what you have and spend time creating the vision of where you want to go on the digital journey.
