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Should you develop your CMMS?

Should you develop your CMMS?

Tuesday 24 march 2020

Are you planning to develop your own CMMS for your company? This article will enlighten you on the different stages of development as well as the advantages and disadvantages of such a project.

> What are the different types of CMMS?

Developing your CMMS: The main stages

It is a complex process that involves at least 5 steps:

  • The establishment of the specifications: define the needs of your company, the objectives, the allocated budget (planning, development, deployment, improvement costs), a macro-planning, etc. This information will help you define the characteristics of your CMMS (Tree structure, authorization levels, mobile or non-mobile version, etc.).
  • The development itself: This technical part is based on the CDC (Specifications) and on the planning carried out previously.
  • Unit tests: These tests allow to correct possible bugs discovered by the development team.
  • The recipe: it is the users who test the application, possibly reporting missing features. This stage is also a phase of progressive CMMS deployment.
  • Continuous improvement and maintenance: This lean management process is necessary to ensure that the software can effectively meet the current and future needs of the company.

Project cost: a major risk

Costs should not be measured only in financial terms. The company must take into account not only the time invested but also the immobilization of part of the team assigned to the project.

Moreover, the main pitfall would be to think that costs are limited to salaries and developer fees only. The whole process has to be taken into account.

Think twice before rushing to develop your own CMMS. To achieve these objectives, such a project requires the ability to bring together strong skills that are rarely found within the company itself, and it generally takes more than 10 years for the development costs to be amortized.

The advantages of a proprietary CMMS. To make no secret of it, there are not many of them:

  • In theory, the solution will adapt to the company's specific needs.
  • It will be sized for the size of the company and will be aligned with its structure.
  • If the technical development team works in-house, it can be managed directly without an intermediary.

...and the inconveniences. The list seems prohibitive:

  • The development costs of an in-house CMMS will always be higher than those shared by several customers for a CMMS from a publisher in the maintenance software solutions sector, with the result that the monthly depreciation shares will be higher than the price of a subscription to a CMMS offered in SaaS.
  • It is a complex process that requires the implementation of a team of specialized experts and a dedicated structure.
  • It also consumes a lot of resources on the client's project management side.
  • A company that embarks on such a project must face new problems that it would not have to solve using software from a specialized supplier: choice and maintenance of servers, continuous data security, etc.
  • If the company carries out a restructuring before the costs of its CMMS are fully amortized, the development of the CMMS will represent a real financial loss, whereas it is possible at any time (or at least on the anniversary dates of the contract) to stop subscribing to a standard CMMS.

By the way, at Yuman our ambition is to offer an unparalleled user experience. Check it out right away: try CMMS for free. Within 2 minutes, the time it takes to create your account, you'll discover what's newest in this category of software.

You can also benefit from a demonstration led by one of our consultants: book a videoconference

Good discovery and see you soon on Yuman.

 
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