For businesses that have just bought CMMS software or for those looking for how to best implement the CMMS software, you will find the right answer here. In this article, we are going to look at the best practices that can be implemented by your organization to benefit most from your CMMS system.

Best CMMS practices for selecting software

Selecting the correct CMMS that is in line with your goals is prime. Ensure that you emphasize these tips so that you can choose the correct system efficiently.

Get support from top executives

If the top executive does not support you, your maintenance team will not support you too. When top management gives a nod to the CMMS maintenance software as fundamental to the organization’s goals and objectives your team will be more dedicated to using it fully.

You need to create a plan to introduce to the top management. Evaluate your processes, check out drawbacks, and determine the goals of your team. You should also have an estimated cost, a clearly defined time frame, and the benefits the software is going to offer you. Eventually, the management wants to know if the software will save time and money.

Choose a team to head the CMMS project.

You should choose a team or an individual to head the project. There are various things involved such as selection, implementation, and improving a maintenance management system. A tool that completely understands the objectives of the project is through demonstrations, free trials, and comprehensive research. Clearly understanding the requirements of the research is important for success.

The individuals you choose for this team should be strong in the areas below:

• Multi-tasking
• Conducting research
• Project management
• Training others how to choose software
• Creating comprehensive plans for achieving goals.
• Creating objectives and goals

The main objective of this team will be for software implementation and make sure that all the employees are conversant with it. If you have several team members giving them various roles will enable them to operate in a specific area. These duties are responsibilities can include administrator, project manager, and training specialist among others. Delegate roles based on skillset and experience.

Choose a supportive vendor

There are various options for CMMS and you should ensure that you select the one that suits your organization’s goal. Apart from having the functionalities and features, you are required of supporting its processes and you need to put several items into consideration.

• The kind of support that you offer and whether it will be on an ongoing basis.
• Will there be a dedicated account manager?
• How training will seem for you and your new workers
• Is the software easy to use? Will the whole team use the system successfully?
• Is the CMMs software mobile friendly?

Selecting the vendor that can understand your goals and can partner with your organization will enable you to have a smoother transition. Ensure that the vendor supports along through the success of your maintenance management.  

CMMS best practices during implementation

Implementing a CMMS is harder than facility maintenance managers think. To be properly prepared for success, various CMMS best practices are recommended for application.

Put training procedures for your team

Your team needs to know how to open, manage and close requests therefore having training requests in place is very prime. Most CMMS vendors have training protocols in place making it an advantageous starting place. You should take advantage of the training services and decide if further education is required. By selecting an easy-to-use CMMS, you do not require additional coaching.

You can also have a training plan at hand for making new hires into your team. Some CMMS vendors normally have ongoing training which means that they will offer free training to your new team members.

Customize the software to fit your needs

The CMMS software should be easy to use for your employees otherwise it would fail. By making system customization you can reduce the risk of failure. As long as you have a highly configurable CMMS you should be in a position of having an easier user experience.

Organize with your CMMS vendor to set up different types of users in your system. A technician should have a different permission setting than another employee that is not ordering for maintenance requests. Making role-based user interfaces makes sure that everybody can be able to access everything they require.

Import accurate and organized data

The CMMS vendor will request information that you would import into your system. You can be able to organize and clean this data before you import it. Unclear and incorrect data is going to make your software make incorrect calculations and predictions. Ensure that you take your time to clean the data and correct anything inaccurate.

Most vendors will offer a template for you to import the existing data. Upon reading data from your current software, you can get rid of corrupted data. Starting with no data is far much better than starting with inaccurate data. Ensure that you provide the template provided by the vendor. This will make the implementation time much quicker.

Label equipment with QR code for easy management

You will figure out that maintenance management will be smoother if you label your assets with a QR code. The code can be scanned and retrieve every instruction set, work order, warranty, and detail of that asset. When each piece of equipment is in your CMMS most of the systems will generate a CMMS code automatically.

Clear end-user roles

One of the critical steps in the implementation process is to make sure that the users can understand how to enter maintenance requests. If the requests are not submitted you cannot be able to know about the issues. Train the end users on how to exactly submit a request.

In summary, the CMMS software is one of the solutions to making high maintenance processes but needs time, continuous monitoring, and energy to achieve it. By performing these Limble CMMS best practices, you are ahead of achieving maintenance management success.