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| An Effective CMMS Strategy |
| by Lucinda Stevenson |
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| Often Organizations underestimate the importance of their Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS) database. The growth of your CMMS never stops. It will always evolve as your use and understanding of the software matures. |
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| How does a CMMS evolve? For the CMMS system to provide an effective management tool, it must be continuously updated. The CMMS is only as good as the data entered. As changes occur, it is imperative that the software be kept up to date. A database that is not current leads to a perception that the information is not value-added, and therefore is a make work project. |
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| A robust accurate database facilitates Root Cause failure Analysis through life cycle costing, mean time between failures, and time to repair reporting. These reports are best used in both a regular visible reporting frequency and ad hoc. Have you identified your top ten critical pieces of equipment? Do you measure what the downtime for each was in the last week, month, quarter and year? Are you aware of the five top reasons for the downtime? How much has the downtime cost for each of the machines to be out of commission for each scheduled hour of production? |
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| The key for an effective CMMS strategy is to recognize a CMMS for what is, and use the CMMS as a support for the Maintenance Strategy. A CMMS is not a genie out of the bottle solution. A CMMS is an effective tool for data collection, organization, and reporting. The four basic components of a CMMS are |
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Labour |
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Equipment |
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Inventory |
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Work Order |
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Labour
The objective of a labour component is to allow the system to track the labour cost and hours recorded against the maintenance of equipment. Tracking the labour wrench time allows management to determine optimal human resources required to maintain the capital assets of the Organization. It further provides the labour history component of effective life cycle management of the asset. |
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| The national average for wrench time is less than 30% for maintenance technicians. Labour productivity is sacrificed when technicians are waiting for instructions, searching for parts, looking for supervisors, making multiple trips between the worksite and storeroom, looking for the appropriate tools and waiting for approval to continue improperly scoped work. Poor planning and scheduling is the largest contributor to low wrench time. While 100% maintenance productivity is an unrealistic objective a far more realistic goal for any maintenance organization of 60% wrench time is achievable. |
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| Often companies will encounter resistance from maintenance personnel to a CMMS especially within a union environment, for fear of big brother watching over them. It is critical that the Organization focus on the objective of equipment performance and de-emphasize an individual's performance. Do not use the CMMS to point fingers. |
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Equipment
Equipment outage means lost opportunity, lost revenue, and lost customers. The high value of capital equipment and high cost of downtime demand a complete and current knowledge of a piece of equipments performance and history. To obtain the maximum value from maintenance personnel, scheduling effectiveness and equipment utilization must be improved. |
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| The objective of the equipment component is to identify and categorize equipment in as many ways as possible so that reporting of maintenance activities on equipment becomes easier. The equipment component is used to track the maintenance effort against the equipment's life cycle and identify when it is time for replacement. It accomplishes this objective by keeping a work history of what has been done on the equipment. It also tracks the performance of the equipment. |
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