You’ve done your research and know the benefits of Computerized Maintenance Management Software. You’ve even found the right one for your maintenance department: a software package that delivers the perfect balance between advanced features and ease-of-use. Your team could soon find itself always one step ahead of the game. And one step ahead is where maintenance departments want to be.
When our Hippo CMMS Software Specialists surveyed maintenance supervisors, 86% said they hoped CMMS would help them be more proactive, less reactive.
But right now you have a problem. Upper-management needs to approve the money for the software subscription and implementation, but they’re not as confident as you are of the benefits of CMMS.
Here are the key reasons supporting your campaign that you should focus on when convincing them of all the many benefits CMMS has to offer.
Being the expert that you are, these reasons are all too familiar and obvious to you but this is not the case with managers who are not in the thick of things like yourself. We’ve presented them here in ways upper-management can easily relate to and understand.
You’re Only as Fast as the Slowest Part
Paper-based work orders have to be handed from one person to the next before any work can even get started. If an employee is all the way on the other side of the facility, they’re going to waste a lot of time getting back to the office before heading out to where they’re needed.
It’s true that some departments try organizing and distributing all the work orders at the start of the day. In a perfect world, these employees would only need to come to the office once in the morning. But this is the real world, where everything works smoothly right up until it doesn’t. As soon as an unexpected work order comes in, the system breaks down and employees are back to wasting time picking up and dropping off paperwork.
That wasted time quickly adds up.
In 2015, Inspectioneering Journal reported on a study that found departments that failed to efficiently organize their work orders spent just 35% of their time on maintenance work. That’s a little less than three hours of real work a day!
Once a work order is entered into CMMS, however, everyone can access it from everywhere. Employees now have everything they need to efficiently move from one task to the next. They can focus on keeping things running smoothly, which is why they were hired in the first place.
The Best Way to Deal with Problems is to Not Have Them at All
Running a maintenance department is just like juggling but you’ve got a bowling ball, a crystal ball, and an elephant. You’re trying to keep an eye on a lot of moving parts, with everything threatening to come crashing down.
New work orders come in every day. But that’s just the beginning, because in the background there’s the scheduled maintenance, with some parts replaced according to time and others according to use. It’s just like with a car. You change snow tires according to the season, but you change the oil according to the mileage. And don’t forget the need to track inventory, because before you do anything else, you have to make sure you have tires and oil on hand.
With CMMS systems, once you set up the maintenance schedules, the software sends you reminders about what needs to get done and by when. Breakdowns, repairs and lulls in production can be avoided and more importantly, expensive unplanned repairs don’t need to happen.
Let’s go back to the car example. Knowing that it’s time to replace the oil saves you having to replace the whole engine because it ran out of oil.
Better Communication Means Better Work
An employee from the maintenance department is on his way home and notices the sound of a drip coming from a vent in the parking garage. Within minutes he’s contacted the department with a complete description of the possible leak,its location, and why he thinks it should be investigated.
What if it had been someone from a different department? What if it had not been an employee but a tenant? They might have contacted you, but would they have known what sort of information to include in their email or voice mail?
Would they have even known how to contact you at all? Without a formal system for reporting problems, it’s unlikely you’re getting the information you need to do tour job well.
CMMS is an amazing solution and problem solver by creating a streamlined online reporting system.
Users can have the ability to customize reports with field names and categories that are relevant to the specific operation ensuring you get the information that’s important and meaningful to you. And once a work order request is entered into the system and approved, it is automatically fired off to the right technician, department or vendor ready to gather and deliver powerful analytics on response time, labor cost, materials used, time to complete, overall cost, frequency of occurrence, as a work order or maintenance task.
You’re now all set to overcome this one last hurdle and start enjoying the benefits of computerized maintenance management software.
Pick up the phone, send an email or use Slack and connect with the decision maker, and set up a meeting.
If you feel like you need help making the case, let us help!
