25 Ways a CMMS Can Transform Maintenance Management For Your Business

A recent study showed that an average manufacturer confronts 800 hours of unplanned downtime every year. That's over 15 hours every week!

Now, this isn't cheap. Unplanned downtime comes with some obvious costs like lost productivity, production stoppages or reduced outputs, band-aid costs for temporary fixes, emergency parts shipping costs, and labor costs.

These add up real quick to negatively impact your bottom line.

A new report suggests that unplanned downtime now costs Fortune Global 500 companies 11% of their yearly turnover – almost $1.5tn.

Downtime, on average, impacts up to 20% of an organization's productive capacity. What's worse, most organizations may be underestimating their total downtime by 200-300%!

That's a colossal waste of precious resources, time, and money.

This is why the use of Computerized Maintenance Management Systems (CMMS) has become a staple for managing maintenance operations for 50% of commercial facilities in the US.

In this article, we explore 25 benefits of CMMS that can make life simple for your team, improve operational efficiency, improve asset life, improve health and safety, and save money for your business.

Related Read: Top 10 Best CMMS Software

Top 25 benefits a CMMS offers

Implementing a CMMS offers undeniable benefits that far exceed the initial investment.

Streamlined operations, improved efficiency, reduced downtime, enhanced collaboration, data-driven decision-making, and future growth opportunities make it a smart and rewarding choice.

Beyond cost savings, a CMMS improves operational efficiency, ensures regulatory compliance, enhances safety, and sets the stage for future growth and success.

Here are 25 benefits of CMMS that make it a tool of strategic importance for O&M excellence:

Operational efficiency and maintenance optimization:

1. Streamlined workflows
2. Efficient inventory management
3. Increased equipment reliability
4. Improved asset management
5. Enhanced maintenance planning
6. Enhanced benchmarking and performance comparison
7. Efficient space utilization

Centralized management and collaboration:

8. Centralized asset management
9. Standardized maintenance procedures
10. Streamlined communication
11. Centralized reporting and analytics
12. Improved accountability

Cost reduction and savings:

13. Cost savings
14. Superior control over maintenance budgets
15. Efficient resource allocation

Compliance and safety:

16. Regulatory compliance
17. Improved safety

Future-proofing and adaptability:

18. Adaptability to technological advances
19. Data-driven decision making
20. Enhanced flexibility
21. Scalability for organizational growth
22. Enhanced knowledge retention
23. Streamlined training and onboarding
24. Improved documentation for warranty claims
25. Facilitation of advanced maintenance techniques

1. Streamlined workflows

Manual and disjointed maintenance processes often lead to inefficiencies, delays, and miscommunication. Paperwork and reliance on spreadsheets create bottlenecks and hinder productivity, which is why enterprises today barely rely on manual processes.

CMMS simplifies maintenance processes by automating tasks, eliminating paperwork, and providing a clear workflow structure. It provides a centralized platform where all stakeholders can access and update information in real time.

It allows for seamless task assignment, efficient job scheduling, and smooth communication between teams, leading to optimized workflows, faster response times, and overall operational efficiency.

2. Efficient inventory management

Inadequate inventory management can result in stockouts, delays in repairs, and unnecessary expenses. Without real-time visibility into inventory levels and usage patterns, organizations may struggle to maintain optimal stock levels and avoid costly disruptions.

CMMS provides a comprehensive inventory management system, enabling organizations to efficiently track and manage spare parts and supplies. It enables accurate inventory tracking, timely replenishment, and optimized stock levels.

As a result, maintenance teams have the necessary resources readily available, reducing downtime and improving cost-effectiveness.

3. Increased equipment reliability

Relying solely on reactive maintenance is the perfect recipe for frequent and unplanned equipment downtime, costly operational disruptions, and significant repair expenses.  

CMMS enables preventive maintenance by scheduling and tracking routine servicing, inspections, and equipment checks. Proactively addressing potential issues and adhering to maintenance schedules helps prevent costly breakdowns, extends the lifespan and reliability of equipment.

4. Improved asset management

Managing assets efficiently across multiple sites can be challenging, especially without a centralized system. Organizations often struggle with maintaining accurate asset information, tracking maintenance history, and making informed decisions regarding repairs, replacements, and upgrades.  

CMMS provides a comprehensive, centralized asset repository for asset information, maintenance history, warranties, and documents to facilitate effective, data-driven asset management for improved asset utilization and lifecycle management.  

5. Efficient maintenance planning

Ad hoc maintenance planning can lead to inefficiencies, poor resource allocation, missed maintenance activities, and increased downtime.

CMMS enables proactive scheduling of preventive maintenance, streamlines work assignment, and helps organizations stay on top of maintenance activities with real-time data. This results in improved productivity, reduced downtime, and enhanced maintenance effectiveness.

6. Enhanced benchmarking and performance comparison

CMMS enables you to benchmark your maintenance performance against industry standards and best practices. By comparing maintenance KPIs with industry averages, you gain valuable insights into areas of improvement and potential cost savings.

CMMS empowers you to set realistic goals, measure progress, and continuously enhance your maintenance operations.

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7. Efficient space utilization

CMMS doesn't just handle equipment maintenance; it can also help optimize space utilization. By recording equipment locations, floor plans, and space occupancy data, CMMS allows you to visualize and analyze space utilization.

This insight helps identify underutilized areas, improve workflow layouts, and maximize your facility's efficient use.

8. Centralized asset management

Managing assets across multiple sites without a centralized system often leads to data fragmentation, inconsistent practices, and difficulties in tracking asset performance and maintenance history.  

With CMMS, organizations can streamline asset management practices, ensure consistent asset tracking, and gain insights into asset performance. It becomes the single source of truth for asset information, maintenance records, and performance data.

The centralized asset management system promotes data integrity, eliminates data silos, and enables informed decision-making for maintenance and investment strategies.

9. Standardized maintenance procedures

A lack of standardized maintenance procedures can result in inconsistent work practices, variations in quality, and difficulties in sharing best practices across teams and locations.

With CMMS, you can establish and enforce standardized maintenance procedures across all your sites. This ensures that maintenance tasks are performed consistently, regardless of the location, reducing errors and improving overall maintenance quality.

10. Streamlined communication

Inefficient communication channels among maintenance teams, site managers, and other stakeholders can lead to delays, miscommunication, and inadequate collaboration.

CMMS facilitates seamless communication between site managers, maintenance teams, and other stakeholders. You can share information, updates, and work orders in real-time, ensuring everyone is on the same page.

Real-time notifications and messaging streamline communication channels, enabling quick decision-making, efficient coordination, and effective problem resolution.

11. Centralized reporting and analytics

Lack of centralized reporting and analytics capabilities makes evaluating maintenance performance, identifying trends, and making data-driven decisions difficult.

Gathering data from multiple sites can be daunting, but CMMS makes it a breeze. It provides centralized reporting and analytics, allowing you to generate comprehensive reports on maintenance activities, asset performance, and costs across all your sites. This enables data-driven decision-making and helps identify trends or areas for improvement.

12. Improved accountability

Inadequate visibility and accountability can lead to unmonitored maintenance tasks, missed deadlines, and subpar performance.

CMMS enhances accountability by providing clear visibility into maintenance activities and their status. It ensures that tasks are assigned, tracked, and completed on time. By promoting accountability, CMMS fosters a culture of responsibility, improves task management, and maintains performance standards.

13. Better vendor performance evaluation

CMMS allows you to track and evaluate the performance of your maintenance service providers. CMMS provides data-driven insights into vendor performance by recording response times, completion rates, and customer satisfaction ratings.

This information helps you make informed decisions when selecting or renewing contracts with maintenance vendors, ensuring you work with the best in the industry.

See how Investa streamlined operations, and augmented tenant and contractor experience with Facilio’s Connected CMMS

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14. Cost savings  

Not having proper maintenance management processes in place is a slippery slope that leads to massive financial drains through reactive repairs, emergency maintenance, and excessive equipment downtime.  

CMMS analyzes maintenance data and identifies cost-saving opportunities, such as optimizing preventive maintenance schedules or reducing equipment downtime, so you can minimize expenses and maximize the return on investment for each site.

14. Superior control over maintenance budgets

Lack of visibility into long-term maintenance costs and equipment performance can hinder effective budgeting and financial planning. Unforeseen maintenance expenses make it incredibly difficult to plan budgets and resource allocation.

CMMS provides data-driven insights and predictive analytics to forecast future maintenance costs, identify potential cost-saving opportunities, and plan maintenance budgets more accurately.

The ability to anticipate maintenance needs and allocate resources accordingly helps avoid costly surprises, optimize budget allocation, and improve financial stability.

15. Efficient resource allocation

The struggle to meet maintenance demands only grow graver as your business scales, resulting in resource shortages and skyrocketing costs.

CMMS provides real-time visibility into resource availability, workload, and skill sets. It enables organizations to allocate work orders effectively, match personnel with appropriate tasks, and ensure optimal resource utilization.

This optimizes labor productivity, reduces overtime costs, and eliminates unnecessary hiring or equipment purchases.

16. Regulatory compliance

Noncompliance invites penalties, reputational damage, and safety risks that pose serious threats to business continuity and profitability. To err is human, and nobody can always have an eye out for non-compliance, especially if your business operates in multiple locations.

In industries with strict regulatory requirements, CMMS becomes your compliance ally. It allows you to document and track compliance-related activities, such as safety inspections, equipment certifications, and regulatory audits.

CMMS ensures that you meet regulatory standards, simplify the compliance process, and minimize the risk of penalties or legal issues.

17. Improved safety

Disasters can strike unexpectedly, causing data loss and disrupting operations. Inadequate safety measures and ineffective maintenance practices can compromise the safety of personnel, assets, and the surrounding environment.

CMMS supports safety initiatives by providing tools for safety inspections, equipment maintenance, and incident reporting. It enables organizations to implement preventive maintenance strategies to identify and address safety risks.

Further, your maintenance data is securely stored off-site with a cloud-based CMMS. This means that even if your physical infrastructure is damaged, your maintenance records remain intact. CMMS helps you recover faster, minimize downtime, and resume normal operations with minimal disruption.

18. Adaptability to technological advances

CMMS facilitates the implementation of advanced maintenance techniques by providing the necessary tools and functionalities. It integrates with sensors, data collection devices, and analytics platforms to enable real-time monitoring, data analysis, and proactive maintenance strategies.

• Predictive maintenance utilizes real-time data and machine learning algorithms to forecast equipment failures, enabling timely maintenance interventions and reducing unplanned downtime.
• Prescriptive maintenance takes predictive insights further by recommending the most effective maintenance actions based on the analyzed data.
• Condition-based maintenance focuses on monitoring equipment operating conditions and performing maintenance tasks when specific thresholds are met.

These advanced techniques improve asset reliability, increase equipment lifespan, optimize maintenance costs, and enhance overall operational efficiency.

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19. Data-driven decision making

A lack of access to reliable and real-time data means you have to rely on guesswork and shoot in the dark with suboptimal decision-making.

CMMS is a treasure trove of data. It captures and analyzes a wealth of information about your assets, maintenance activities, and performance metrics. You can make informed decisions based on real-time insights by harnessing this data.

A data-driven approach allows you to adapt and optimize your maintenance strategies for future challenges and changing business requirements.

20. Enhanced flexibility

Agility is key to accommodating changing business needs, varying workloads, and evolving priorities.

CMMS provides the flexibility needed to adapt to changing maintenance priorities, industry regulations, and customer demands. The ability to modify schedules, adjust priorities, and reallocate resources in real time enables agility and responsiveness to changing circumstances.

With customizable workflows, flexible reporting capabilities, and adaptable maintenance processes, CMMS empowers you to navigate future uncertainties easily.

21. Scalability for organizational growth

As organizations expand or undergo structural changes, managing maintenance across multiple sites and increased complexities becomes challenging.

CMMS provides scalability to accommodate the increasing complexity and volume of assets and maintenance activities. Whether you expand to new locations or add more equipment, CMMS can scale alongside your business, ensuring that your maintenance processes remain efficient and effective.

22. Enhanced knowledge retention

CMMS serves as a knowledge hub for your organization. It stores valuable information about assets, maintenance procedures, and historical data.

When experienced technicians retire or leave the company, the knowledge they carry is not lost. CMMS ensures that critical knowledge is documented and accessible, allowing new team members to get up to speed and maintain consistent maintenance practices quickly.

23. Streamlined training and onboarding

CMMS can significantly ease the training and onboarding process for new technicians. By providing access to equipment manuals, procedures, and work histories, CMMS enables new hires to familiarize themselves with maintenance practices and standards quickly.

This reduces the learning curve, boosts productivity, and ensures consistent performance across your maintenance team.

24. Improved documentation for warranty claims

Keeping track of warranty information can be a daunting task. CMMS allows you to easily store and retrieve warranty details, including purchase dates, warranty periods, and associated documentation.

This makes it a breeze to submit warranty claims for repairs or replacements, ensuring you maximize the benefits of your equipment warranties.

25. Better energy efficiency

In a volatile energy market, it is important to protect your business against surges, which otherwise result in skyrocketing energy bills.

Inefficient or faulty pieces of equipment consume a lot more energy than they ideally should.

CMMS helps keep your equipment running in optimal operating conditions and triggers automatic alarms for any deviations from set points, allowing you to correct faults quickly before the damages snowball into massive losses and energy bills for your business.

Buying a CMMS that pays for itself

Understanding which CMMS is best for your business involves a deeper understanding of the system's capabilities and alignment with your needs.

Look for a CMMS that offers advanced features like predictive maintenance, condition-based monitoring, and integration with emerging technologies.

Consider the system's ability to provide actionable insights and analytics for data-driven decision-making.

A user-friendly interface with customizable dashboards and robust reporting capabilities is essential for in-depth analysis and control.

Additionally, seek a CMMS vendor with a track record of delivering excellent customer support, ongoing training opportunities, and continuous system updates to ensure that the CMMS remains effective and aligned with evolving industry trends.

Check out the best practices for evaluating and implementing the right CMMS shared by Investa Property Group, one of Australia's largest commercial real estate companies, which manages over 550,000 square meters.

Or, book a demo with our product experts and see how Facilio can help supercharge your O&M initiatives today!