Using CMMS To Implement Your Company's Preventative Maintenance Plan

Managing the maintenance of even a single commercial facility can often be challenging while managing multiple facilities is always overwhelming. Dealing with problem reports and routine work alone typically requires several full-time staff members simply to coordinate and direct the efforts of maintenance teams. One way to stay ahead of the never-ending battle against your own equipment and facilities is to commit to a robust preventative maintenance schedule. It can sometimes be challenging to bring team members on board with these plans, however, especially since they often require extra bureaucratic overhead and more effective time management. Preventative maintenance CMMS software can help to ease this burden and bring your maintenance teams into the preventative maintenance fold.

What is CMMS Software?

If you aren't already using a CMMS software package for building maintenance, then it's probably time to bring your company into the 21^st century. CMMS stands for computerized maintenance management system. These software packages vary in capabilities, but they are all focused on allowing you to track, schedule, and manage your facility maintenance tasks. CMMS software can be used for everything from fleet management to routine building maintenance to industrial equipment maintenance tasks.

What is Preventative Maintenance?

While there's no single definition that covers all preventative maintenance programs, this term is generally used to describe any maintenance that is performed before a piece of equipment fails. Preventative maintenance programs often attempt to replace components as they wear out, allowing your company to replace them on a regular and predictable schedule rather than waiting for failure. This approach offers several advantages, especially for mission-critical equipment. In particular, you will avoid unscheduled downtime and you may be able to protect more expensive parts by preventing cascade failures.

How CMMS Software Can Enhance Your Preventative Maintenance Program

If you haven't yet implemented a preventative maintenance program for your facility, then getting one started with a high-quality CMMS package may be an excellent way to kill two birds with one stone. The two arguments most often made against preventative maintenance programs are that they require extra work and impose significant scheduling and planning overheads. By making use of a CMMS package to design and implement your preventative maintenance schedule, you can significantly ease the burden on your planning staff and provide your maintenance crews with clear, detailed routes and schedules.

Even better, a good CMMS program can help you to remove some of the uncertainty of your maintenance routine. Many high-quality packages offer the ability to track your maintenance needs over time, allowing you to more easily under the return-on-investment that your maintenance program is providing. This long-term tracking can also make it easier to predict future maintenance needs and purchase parts in advance rather than being blind-sided when replacements are required. Altogether, a preventative maintenance plan combined with a CMMS package can streamline your facility maintenance program while also saving you time and money on future maintenance.

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