A computerized maintenance management system, or CMMS, is a suite of software tools designed to record and store information about a company’s maintenance activities. Since CMMS software is still relatively new compared to the long history of maintenance, not all organizations have adopted it yet. Many maintenance teams rely on an assortment of software that might be antiquated or insufficient or even simple spreadsheets. However, the benefits of CMMS software were quickly realized in a customer application in the food and beverage industry.
Monogram Foods
Memphis, Tennessee-based company Monogram Foods, manufacturer of an extensive line of snack foods, wanted to consolidate and optimize maintenance operations across its nine plants.
They needed CMMS software that could:
- Integrate with business intelligence (BI) software for visualizing multiple data sources at once
- Streamline maintenance and manage spare parts inventory
- Help support the health of over 3,500 assets
- Reinforce the company’s 15-year exemplary food safety record
- Allow executives to access a fully transparent view of maintenance activities
The organization began an extensive search for comprehensive CMMS solutions and ended up selecting eMaint, well-known for its cloud-based CMMS software and countless successful multi-site rollouts.
The customer also selected eMaint CMMS software for its variety of advanced tools that were ready for integration with the CMMS, such as vibration sensors for condition monitoring and health of the plant’s machinery. Ultimately, eMaint’s reputation for exemplary customer service and ability to fully support the organization’s unique goals helped clinch the choice.
Monogram Foods’ CMMS system administrator was hired in 2017 and tasked with overseeing CMMS adoption and user training. She prioritized her training and became a CMMS expert user by attending eMaint’s online and in-person learning opportunities.
Then, she passed her training knowledge on to employees. It was essential that the plant maintenance team understood how to effectively utilize the system to fulfill the organization’s objectives and improve their maintenance key performance indicators (KPIs.)
4 Benefits of CMMS Software
The following are 4 benefits of CMMS software realized in the customer’s implementation.
1. CMMS Software Streamlines Maintenance and Ensures Data Integrity
The customer’s continuous improvement hinged on personnel inputting data accurately and consistently. They needed software that could:
- Track safety and other audits;
- Monitor continuous improvement metrics;
- Enable informed equipment repair and replacement decisions;
- Create individual plant maintenance activity reports for leadership.
CMMS implementation was not without its challenges. Some plants embraced the change, while others resisted — resulting in incomplete data. The customer overcame this issue through eMaint’s highly configurable systems.
For instance, the customer set certain work request fields as mandatory, so a work order could not be completed without all the necessary data. Additionally, the company worked with the CMMS provider to build a custom work order category to ensure their specific needs were being met.
Monogram Foods and eMaint designed a report that tracked work hours that were planned maintenance, unplanned, and unaccounted for. The CMMS dashboard can display how much time was spent depending on the type of work order.
In just a few months, the maintenance team learned where to focus their improvement efforts and were able to optimize other areas of the system thanks to the benefits of CMMS
2. CMMS Software Helps Streamline Preventative Maintenance
After adopting the CMMS, Monogram Foods began to focus on improving its preventive maintenance practices and work order standardization. A core team met regularly to examine the plant’s preventive maintenance measures and determine where more detail was needed.
The team found that some plants were not incorporating the time it took to gather replacement parts into a PM work order. Identifying and correcting inaccurate timeframe estimates allowed for tighter scheduling, and detailed PM criteria helped boost asset availability and reliability.
3. CMMS Inventory Management Features Quicken ROI
One of the most powerful features included in the best CMMS software is inventory management tools, but it is frequently overlooked. While it does take time and effort to take control of your plant’s inventory, the payoff is substantial.
One of Monogram’s first struggles when trying to capitalize on the system’s benefits was getting the plants to enter critical data necessary for comprehensive inventory management. Once plants started validating parts, estimates and counts began to improve.
4. Condition Monitoring Sensors and Business Intelligence Accelerates your Reliability Journey
On top of the CMMS system, Monogram also added wireless vibration sensors to some of its critical equipment to track asset health continuously. The company is also using a power business intelligence (BI) tool and integrating it with its CMMS. The result is an all-up dashboard for visualizing many data sources on one screen enabling comprehensive KPI reporting and the ability to see and close gaps more effectively.
Conclusion
Ultimately, Monogram Foods accomplished several objectives by consolidating maintenance of its nine plants, including standardizing PMs and work orders, controlling purchase orders, and managing inventory and parts expenditures.