CMMS: investment or disaster? avoid the pitfalls

It has been reported that a high percentage of Computerised Maintenance Management Systems (CMMS) implementations has not been successful in the past (Labib, 2008). Even when CMMS applications are implemented, it is noticed that low usage of software options is achieved. This may be attributed to the low organisation level of many maintenance departments. The investment in modern software for maintenance management is an expensive project especially when one considers the money invested in acquiring, implementing and maintenance license costs. If we also consider the time and effort that needs to be invested in training, setting up the structure of the system and data collection, then the investment grows to be at least double or even triple the initial cost. So, one might then think that the return of this investment is very well followed and the use of the new system is heavily supported by Management. However, in real life it is noticed that often those systems do not produce the support wanted or needed to the users resulting in poor trust from the maintenance organisations in their own tool. The use of standards to secure proper understanding and data quality is very often not in place. Using standards and proper structures gives a platform for a more effective use but there is also a need to get the commitment from the people involved to get the right return on the investment. We argue that this situation can be improved by the use of audits and benchmarking. One example on how this can be done is the Automated Tool of Maintenance Auditing, Benchmarking for Continuous Improvement (AMABI). AMABI consists of three modules, namely; auditing, benchmarking and recommendations. The first module is an auditing module which evaluates directly the CMMS data in order to assess the current organisation level and performance of the maintenance department. The second module is benchmarking. Within the benchmarking module, auditing results from different companies are automatically compared using different groupings (e.g. company sector and/or size). The third module is related to recommendations. In the third module points of further exploitation regarding the organisation of the maintenance department are identified and proposals for improvement, in a prioritised manner, are provided. The proposed tool is assisting the companies to be in a continuous improvement process environment. The main innovation of the tool is the automatic audit and benchmarking which makes it very cost effective, so it can be broadly used. Moreover, it ensures that results are not biased, as human judgment is minimised. Actual results of the tool in 50 Greek and Cypriot companies (e.g. auditing criteria, 2009 benchmarking results and indicative proposals of improvement) will be presented. Finally, benefits by companies using the tool will be reported.