What is the best CMMS?
Saturday 25 april 2020
You are convinced of the need for a new CMMS in your company. You have read several articles in our blog and you have a first idea of the processes that you will be able to digitize thanks to the implementation of the tool. You are beginning to discover different solutions and you have an idea of the budget to allocate to the project. All you have to do now is find the best CMMS that will support the growth of your business for at least the next 10 years.
Choosing a CMMS is obviously an essential step in a project to digitize your maintenance operations. There are two approaches in the choice process: the historical method and the modern method based on testing. The method you will choose will strongly depend on the culture of the company, its size and your knowledge of business application solutions.
Historical CMMS selection method
Project Kick-off Meeting
Management has made the project a priority. Under its aegis, a meeting was held for the first time: objectives were set and roles and responsibilities were distributed. There are those who want to go for it, those who are starting to say that it won't do any good and that it will cost too much ... To avoid a meeting of co-owners, management will have to use all its natural authority or, failing that, that conferred by the shareholders of the company. 😏 A first round of discussions allows to collect the expectations and needs of the different maintenance actors within the company, allowing to have a framework to go further.
Specifications or terms of reference
In general, a person in charge, to whom a small team may have been attached, was designated at the project kick-off meeting to lead the project and write the specifications. The famous CDC, for which we offer you a downloadable standard CMMS specifications template to help you save precious time. Please note that the writing of this document is always mandatory in the context of a public call for tenders. The task of the CDC CMMS editor is to interview future users and, on this occasion, we strongly advise him not to forget the technicians. He collects the business needs of each one, deduces the expected functionalities and prioritizes them. The specifications must also include a provisional deployment schedule.
CMMS call for tenders
After selecting a list of CMMS editors, the specifications are sent to them. The ball is now in their court. They have a deadline to respond. For them, this usually means checking off a more or less long and detailed list of features to say whether or not their solution offers the listed service. They must also specify if they accept the schedule, detail it if necessary and make their price offer.
Editor presentation meeting
Each person's answers are evaluated and scored using predefined criteria or suggestive assessments or personal relationships. The editors of the solutions that have passed this stage are invited - finally 😛 - to come and present their offer in front of the customer team. The best offer in terms of quality/price is then selected by the customer.
The flaws of this method
There are many of them, the main ones being:
- The method is static and doesn't favor the client/editor dialogue
- It's long
- It is costly for both the customer and the publishers
- It is advantageously replaced by the modern method
And although it is still widespread, it is now a thing of the past, at a time when CMMS solutions were not as mature as they are today and could not be easily tested. This method is strongly discouraged.
Modern CMMS method of choice
It was not so long ago that to try a software solution you had to have a server or set one up to install the software, set up the databases, open the accesses, create the test data and so on. It took so long that we still preferred to hold internal meetings, write specifications, call the editors together. In other words, we still used a method that took months, if not years!
Today, creating your own instance for several users, loading a set of data only takes a few minutes and already you are ready to start your trial from your PC and mobile. This is obviously a much better method that allows you to definitively give up those of the past.
You will immediately understand the tool's ability to meet your needs. Above all, you immediately get down to business and, if the CMMS solution is well built, it will also open up perspectives that you would not necessarily have considered during a theoretical study. You can put the tool directly into the hands of future users to collect their opinions, remarks and observations.
This is incredibly more efficient than rewriting yet another set of specifications.
CMMS selection criteria
We have developed a grid of 13 criteria that you can apply directly to select only the modern CMMSs that best meet your needs:
1. Cloud & SaaS
2. User experience and uptodate design
3. Natively mobile
4. Genuine CMMS and not just intervention management
5. Recent technology for performance and agility
6. Unlimited data volume and number of users
7. Online help and explanation videos
8. Easily configurable
9. Available 24/24 7 days a week at 100%.
10. Quick start: Setup, data transfer, training
11. Reactive editing team
12. Open API available
13. Possibilities for specific adaptations and developments
Read also the article detailing the CMMS selection criteria.
Only one NO and it's a red card. A negative answer will indeed immediately reveal a design flaw or a bad approach... You will immediately see much more clearly. 😎
CMMS software comparison
If we make a quick tour of the market of what you are going to encounter as CMMS solutions, the best strategy for your company is to launch the comparison yourself and we explain the method here:
Step 1: Apply the criteria grid above and select 3 or 4 CMMS editors. There's no point in selecting more at the risk of wasting everyone's time. In any case, once the solutions have been sifted through, there won't be many people left.
Step 2: Ask for an online demonstration through a videoconference, requiring that it be performed by a consultant rather than a sales person. The consultant will be more attentive to your needs, more capable of finding concrete solutions to meet your needs than a salesperson who will think above all about selling you the solution. You will save time. It is of course advantageous for several people from your team to attend this demonstration. Allow about 2 hours with the editor, followed by 30 minutes of debriefing between you. Request a CMMS demo
Step 3: Begin the free CMMS trial that came out on top in Step 2 and that you feel best meets your expectations. If there is a tie, you can start 2 trials. The demonstration will then have served as a short training session and will allow you to quickly start your test. You can try the software alone, but we advise you to do it with several people: 3 users is ideal even if there is no limitation in the number of trial licenses. Each one must play a different role: manager, mobile field technician for example. Thanks to this method, not only will you be able to collaborate using the tool by simulating CMMS use much more closely to reality, but you will also be able to share your impressions, analyse the quality of the CMMS with others, and discuss your impressions of the system.
Step 4: Reiterate if necessary: you are not convinced at the end of the trial. Please share your comments with the editor and give him/her your feedback. If the gap is small and he is able to close it, continue with him, otherwise try another solution.
This method of selecting a CMMS has many advantages:
- It can be implemented very quickly: in a maximum of 3 to 6 weeks
- It considerably reduces the risk of making the wrong choice
- It will make you immediately gain in maturity and analysis of your real needs
- The publisher is obliged to play fair, so you're safe from commercial speeches that try to manipulate you
- It will accelerate the start of the real project by all the knowledge already acquired during this phase of choice. And if you've tried it with several users, it's even better
- You discover the relationship with the publisher and validate its reactivity
Read also the article: How to compare CMMS?
*However, if your objective, during the process of selecting the best CMMS for your company, is to be invited several times to a restaurant, an F1 Grand Prix or Roland Garros, then don't apply our method. 😂 And one last tip, for Roland, be careful not to go on TV while your boss is watching ...
By the way, 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.
📰 You will also be interested in reading :
- What's a CMMS for?
- What are the different types of CMMS?
- What is the price of a CMMS?
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