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Investing in CMMS in times of crisis

Investing in CMMS in times of crisis

Wednesday 25 march 2020

Even more so in times of crisis, it is essential to be concerned about the future of your company. To reinforce your awareness of the priority of structuring your maintenance department properly, we give you six reasons to invest in a CMMS now.

The economic recession resulting from the sanitary crisis

It has certainly not escaped your notice that the Coronavirus pandemic will have a considerable impact on economic activity worldwide. Even before that, a recent study by the United Nations Trade and Development Organization had resulted in an alarming report stating that there is a high probability of a global recession in 2020 with a decline in industrial production, investment and per capita consumption.

In such a scenario, a CMMS is a valuable tool that can demonstrate the degree of impact of maintenance activities on a company's balance sheet and promote teleworking.

A CMMS ensuring the digitalization of maintenance operations will indeed be a considerable asset guaranteeing optimal productivity and promoting business continuity through remote working. Thus, the tool's ability to limit face-to-face interactions through the exchange and sharing of information allows the company to continue its activity. The maintenance team continues to work, knows exactly the missions it has to fulfil without the technicians needing to be in direct contact with their manager, dispatcher and customer contacts.

Productivity during the recession

When poor sales results do not bring the expected benefits, companies turn to minimizing operating costs. For maximum profitability, management must have an excellent knowledge of global maintenance activities. Maintenance data must be easily traceable and available at the click of a button. This requires, for example, the automated generation of recurring maintenance orders with detailed, predefined maintenance schedules and optimized preventive maintenance plans.

In addition to the productivity challenges during the recession, the company must also meet its commitments, preserve its skills and expertise, ensure the safety of its employees and maintain its reputation. With a CMMS in place, preventive maintenance schedules are automated, and the dispatching of accelerated curative interventions limits the need for personnel present within the company. The specific precautionary instructions, which can easily be completed and reinforced according to the new health events to be taken into account, are automatically reminded to each person involved in each intervention, making it possible to make them permanently aware of the usual and exceptional precautionary actions.

Even in times of crisis, a CMMS will also help you to stay in contact with your customers, who will be able to follow very easily, through e-mails or SMS automatically transmitted by the platform (in push mode) or via the access portal (in pull mode), the interventions that your technical teams continue to carry out on their behalf.

Post-recession growth

There is an urgent need for the company to rethink its traditional approach to maintenance management. It will indeed be essential for it to position itself well in relation to its competitors in order to bounce back as soon as the economy recovers. To regain an optimal level of production and competitiveness, a modern and adequate CMMS is essential.

Leading consulting and research firms say that the companies that best fight the recession and the strike are those that use out-of-the-box digital solutions as an alternative to conventional practices. For this strategy to be successful, maintenance must be an integral part of it. Investing in preventive maintenance ensures that the production cycle is ready, with no hidden delays or potential breakdowns, and reduces the impact on the business of a possible incident. Planning and therefore software-assisted maintenance becomes an essential component in enabling the company to recover quickly from the recession.

Better information management

Not knowing where a piece of equipment is. What technical devices are present at a site far from the headquarters? Knowing the equipment stock of a recently acquired building.

Large companies with a considerable amount of equipment to maintain are very often confronted with this type of problem, which can have consequences in terms of business continuity and in regulatory terms.

Imagine a place where you could select any of your technical assets and know all the information, such as technical specifications, warranty expiration date, commissioning date, notices, photos, history, etc., that you need. No more wasting time sifting through paper files in cabinets, an operation that is already tedious in normal times and becomes impossible when offices are no longer accessible. No need to go through your Excel files or even those of your colleagues.

Imagine that this information is accessible not only from your computer but also from your smartphone. This is exactly what today's maintenance and asset management software offer.

Imagine the possibility of collecting all this information directly from the field. To enrich the assets of your installed base without the need for additional data entry. To create photo libraries. To access all this information via a simple QRcode. To have the plans of the installations. Etc.

Increasing productivity

Having a CMMS will not only help you with preventive maintenance, but will also allow technicians to have all the instructions to carry out a specific curative mission: what is the nature of the problem? What is its priority? Where is it being serviced? When is it to be carried out? What spare parts are needed and are they in stock?

Some CMMS also display information such as service history, warranties, etc. required for maintenance operations. Some packages also include additional functionality to manage reports and key performance indicators. Cloud-based CMMS solutions also allow you to connect to the application from any fixed workstation, wherever you are, for faster and easier sharing and thus maximum flexibility and availability.

Facilitate teamwork and foster collaboration

Teamwork is the best way to enable everyone to gain in efficiency, expertise and to be able to overcome any difficulties that may arise. When individuals work as a team, they can work together and pool their knowledge and experience to find the best solution. CMMS is essential to promote, facilitate and foster these behaviours leading to true cohesion within the technical team by providing a remote, centralised collaboration space, accessible not only from the company's headquarters but also from the field.

For example, a novice technician looking for a solution can use CMMS to see how team members have solved similar problems in the past. They can also remotely request help and support from a more experienced technician via video to get suggestions on how to accomplish their task.

It also helps staff in organizations that work on a rotational basis to stay connected and informed by sharing information, such as the status of operations, photos, notices of relevant equipment, personal remarks, etc. It also ensures greater transparency by providing the team with a better visibility of the activities and contribution of each member of the company.

Limit downtime

The occurrence of an equipment failure can have severe consequences on the company's activity or reputation. Limiting the number of incidents, the speed of response and the ability to resolve the problem when it does occur are the determining criteria for measuring the performance of a maintenance team and ensuring its sustainability.

To enable your department or your company to reach a new level in the management of its maintenance, to reach a higher level of services, to be able to differentiate itself more widely from its competitors, it is essential to equip it with a web and mobile CMMS.

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.

 

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