The System Resources
The System Resources are the people, their time and financial investment allocated to design, develop, install, and operate the system. Each phase of the system implementation cycle will consume these resources. Therefore, these resources must be judiciously planned and allocated for each task to assure implementation success.
People the human element that energized the system, are undoubtedly the most important. Ironically, the imporantance of people to the system equation is often the most overlooked and taken for granted. Before the technology will be accepted into the organization, as a tool to enhance the work practices, the people who use the technology must become it owners. For user ownership to occur, the end-user must be involved in all stages of the system implementation.
Time – there is never enough of it when it comes to the implementation of a CMMS. It is the resource that is often underestimated during system implementation planning. People are assigned to the project; however, in many cases their time is not. This often leads to incomplete CMMS projects.
Money is usually the first consideration when planning begins. As with any major facility project, the finical costs must be estimated and allocated to each task. The cost of computer equipment and software is often a lesser expensive. The cost for intangible services must be factored into the budget as well. These include personnel cost for planning, education and training, software development/selection, database development, and other implementation efforts.
Information Technology
Information technology includes computers hardware, software applications, and peripheral equipment. The SAMM model incorporates the technology as the tool of maintenance management automation. Tools that become effective instruments for managing information only when applied to the task by trained and motivated people. The benefits of automation are achieved during the process of using the computer tools to more efficiently complete maintenance work processes.
The Database
The database is the vital source of information for operating any maintenance management department. The SAMM model includes the database as a separate but related system element for these reasons:
1. The database often requires the greatest commitment of resources to develop and maintain. The efforts necessary to collect, collate, and enter data into the computer is often underestimated for the initial installation and ongoing use of the system. Therefore, it is a primary cause for many incomplete CMMS implementations.
2. Data management is a perpetual activity performed by people committed to maintaining database integrity, and trained to organize the data as a source of meaningful information.
The Work Methodologies
The work methodologies include the process and procedures that control work performance and coordinate the flow of information throughout the maintenance center. This element is often not considered during the implementation of computerized systems. As a result of this egregious oversight, the efficiencies to the organization are never realized. To gain the benefits that automation provides, the existing work management practices (manual or computer-assisted) must be identified, analyzed, and re-engineered to accommodate the capabilities of the maintenance management software. Work scheduling methods, job order dispatching practices, field data collection routines, and information processing routines should all be analyze and if necessary, redefined and modified to gain optimum operational efficiency.
All five elements, and the function they server, are vital to initial start up and successful ongoing use of a CMMS. If any one element is left out of the model or becomes dysfunctional, system performance suffers and the benefits to the organization are reduced. The SAMM model makes up one half of the systematic approach by providing the template for the complete system. When used in concert with the CMMS Implementation Life Cycle, an organization has a comprehensive approach for implementing a beneficial CMMS.
The CMMS IMPLENTATION LIFE CYCLE
The computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS) Implementation Life Cycle is the related activities required to design, develop, install and improve a complete computerized maintenance system. The CMMS Implementation life cycle is organized into three sequential phases: Need Analysis, System Design, and System Installation.
The CMMS Implementation Life Cycle has these characteristics:
1. It is a fully integrated process for implementing new information management technologies into the maintenance operation of business and organizations;
2. It is a sequence of action steps presented in a natural and logical order;
3. It is a process which recycles existing maintenance management practices into new more efficient way of conducting business;
4. The central focus of the life cycle is the SAMM model – the end product to be achieved from carrying out the implementation process.
Phase 1 – The Need Analysis
The major goal of the need analysis phase is to establish the requirement of the organization for a computerized maintenance management system information system. The secondary purpose is to determine the feasibility of computerizing a paper based maintenance operation, or enhancing an existing automated system. The need analysis should pay respect to each element of the SAMM model. Ideally, the model should be used to assess the existing work management system in relation to the effort necessary to develop each element of the complete computerized maintenance management system.
Step 1 – Assembling a Project Team and Advisory Committee
Assembling a project team and advisory committee, is an important step towards building awareness in the organization, and gaining political support for the CMMS implementation project. The team should be composed of allied members of the maintenance staff and related department reprehensive. The group must include maintenance manager, end users, technicians, information system professional, accountants, and senior administrators who are committed to improving department operation via automation. A dedicated project team and committed advisory committee will be a source of fresh ideas about the scope of the proposed system.
Step 2 – Conducting an operation and management audit
Conducting an operation and management audit will assist to provide the justification for implementing new information technologies and management procedures. The main purpose of the audit is to identify operations within the maintenance function where efficiency can be increased through computerization. Processes that are commonly targeted for this assessment are in the areas of work order management, periodic maintenance scheduling – preventive maintenance, materials management, and other paper-based or clerical –intensive manual management practices.
Step 3 – performing a cost vs. benefits study
Performing a cost vs. benefits study serves four purposes:
1. Provides the analysis of the feasibility of the entire project.
2. Assist to identify and evaluate all cost issues, thus eliminating future surprises.
3. Assist the committee to evaluate the expected return on the investment
4. Assist the committee to confront the real benefits of the automation project
Step 4 – The CMMS implementation project plan
The CMMS implementation project plan provides the blueprint for the entire implementation project. The plan should be comprehensive and afforded the same emphasis as any other major facility capital project. The planning process should seek to achieve a consensus, among advisory committee members, of the goals for the implementation and establish expectations about the system’s performance. A thorough project plan is a critical step toward the timely and successful completion of each system design, development, and installation task. The project plan also provides an additional check to insure that all resource requirements (people, time and cost) have been identified and schedule into the project.
Phase 1 – Needs Assessment deliverables should include:
1. Project Mission Statement: including a summary of the CMMS goals, a set of measurable performance objectives, and list of Project Team and Advisory Committee Members.
2. Management Plan: documenting a thorough description of the functions targeted for computerization; cost/benefit study and a draft of the CMMS.
Phase 11 – The System Design
The system design phase consist of four overlapping actions steps, which build onto the results of the need analysis. The primary purpose of this phase is to analyze the work management process and information management needs of the maintenance department, and produce a detail system document, which can be used to develop and/or select the CMMS software and hardware technology. This phase of the project will focus on answering any lingering question about: “why we are computerizing?” the action steps in the system design phase are as follows:
Step 5 – Education and Marketing
Education and marketing should begin as early as possible once the decision has been reached to computerized. Education and marketing should actually be conducted as two distinct tasks with the common objective to: empower the users to become the true owner of the system. Advisory committee members should be available to provide information about why they are changing the technology. Thus preparing the user for skill enhancement training, on how to use the new computer technology. The marketing effort should address the user’s attitudes toward and acceptance of the new computerized maintenance system. The amount of marketing required to “sell” the system to the maintenance staff will be largely determined by the size of the organization and prior experience with automated systems.
Step 6 – Designing Work Processes and Information Requirements
Designing work processes and information requirements is one of the most important, but often overlooked, implementation action tasks. The objective of this action step is to evaluate the existing work management system(s) in relations to the goals and performance objectives of the proposed CMMS. Efforts to design the system should be focused on the three elements of the SAMM model related to the management practices and computer technology: the work methodology (scheduling methods, paper processing practices, and performance reports); the information technology (computer hardware, software, and peripherals); and the database (text and graphical data sources).
Steps 7- Developing the CMMS Specification
Developing the CMMS specification involves documenting the entire requirement for developing a complete computerized maintenance management system. The document should be prepared in the format suitable for the type of development effort, i.e., in-house software development (system specification); or off- the –shelf purchase of commercial CMMS software. It should cover the following system requirement:
? Computer hardware: Mini/Micro technology; file server, terminals, CPU, peripherals.
? Operating systems platform and software: LAN/WAN networks, software interfaces.
? Maintenance management software: programmed functions & features, reports, & interfaces
? Databases: detail of data elements, file structure, data formats for reporting
? Work methodologies: re-engineering of information flow processes, procedures, controls
? Resource requirements: hardware and software budgets, project time constraints, personnel
? Installation Support: consulting, training, software maintenance, hardware maintenance.
Step 8 – Developing or Selecting the Information Technology
Developing or selecting the information technology are two diverse means to achieving the same end – procuring the maintenance management software application. It behooves business and organizations to evaluate commercially available software applications before deciding on an in-house custom software development effort. Developing maintenance management software is no small task. Custom software development should be the last resort for those organizations that have such diverse needs that no commercial available software will fulfill their requirement.
The selection of a maintenance management software program should be conducted according to standardized evaluation criteria. The system specification or formal RFP document should be prepared with this end in mind. Ample time should be allocated to evaluate as many candidate application and support services best meet the needs of the organization.
The action steps of the design phase should produce the following deliverables:
1. Concise definition of the nature of the maintenance work tasks.
2. Detailed statement of the full range of data required for these tasks.
3. Procurement (development or selection) of the computer technology to serve these tasks and provide the data in a format to facilitate decision support
Phase 111 – System Installation
The installation of the system elements is the last but not least phase of the CMMS implementation life cycle. The goal of the installation process is to position and activate new information management tools and methodologies into the work place. Four, all encompassing and overlapping, action steps provide activities to assemble together the five elements of the SAMM model as a complete and full functioning CMMS.
Step 9 – technology installation
The technology installation should be coordinated and micro managed to the implementation schedule. This requisite planning activity should be a collaborative effort involving the entire maintenance department. The purpose is to elicit commitment throughout the department to accomplish all implementation tasks according to a predetermined schedule.
The importance of planning the system installation can not be overemphasized .the schedule should lay out the activities and allocation of resources to accomplish the following:
1. Transition planning
2. Employing a system manager
3. Technical installation of hardware and software
4. Finalize hardware configuration
5. Establish (rearranging) and staffing the work control center
6. Initializing the computerized work management program.
Step 10 – Education and Training Program
The education and training program should provide the answers to why, and how to use the computerized maintenance management system. The educational process that began during the second phase should continue to support the issue: why are we computerizing. The training program should be directed towards enhancing users’ skill. The main objective of training is to teach how to proficiently use the computer equipment and software technology. Comprehensive training will also provide input into the setting up the database schemes and assist the transition to new management procedures.
Step 11 – Developing the Database(s)
Developing the database(s) is one of the action steps that never appear to have a distinct beginning or final ending. The reality is that the database is a dynamic medium that continually changes, usually growing with the increasing proficiency of system users. In terms of overall effort required to complete the CMMS installation, the database is generally the most resource intensive task. For this reason, consideration must be afforded to insuring that all requisite data is collected and entered into the CMMS database.
Step 12 – Initializing the Work Management Program
Initializing the work management program is a comprehensive task, which completes the transition from preexisting (paper-based or semi-automated) systems to a fully computerized mode of operation. It will not happen overnight and should be conducted in phases. In other words, install one function at a time, e.g. the work order process, and get it operating to plan, before implementing the others.
Work order planning and performance tracking, preventive maintenance scheduling, and maintenance-repair operation (MRO) inventory control are among the many functions often targeted for computerization. The benefits to the organization for computerizing these work control functions will be maximized through the integration of the business processes with the information technology. Process re-engineering applied to these various work management functions will accelerate the return on the investment of the CMMS.
The benefits to be gained through computerization will not be achieved through the retooling of technology only. Throughout the CMMS implementation process, maintenance managers must continually rethink business practices and aim to break loose from outdated and inefficient work management routines. Thereby using the power inherent in the computer tools to enable more efficient means, of planning, scheduling, and directing maintenance efforts.
The CMMS is a big investment and warrants ongoing monitoring. Facilities can get the most out of their CMMSs by using them as fully as possible, measuring the benefits they add to facility operations and using that information to continue increasing overall efficiency and savings. We will now look at some of the benefits that can result from implementing and maximizing a CMMS.