The outsourcing of maintenance is a practice that is becoming more and more widespread, as it has many advantages. But for it to be truly profitable for companies, it is essential that the activity of subcontractors be perfectly monitored and managed. A community CMMS software can help you considerably in this field.
Outsourcing and subcontracting of maintenance
The outsourcing of maintenance consists in subcontracting all or part of the maintenance activities of its machines or equipment to an external party.
The advantages of outsourcing maintenance
If companies are more and more inclined to outsource their maintenance, it is because they see many advantages.
Having qualified personnel
Over time, maintaining fully operational in-house technical services becomes more complex, and recruiting qualified personnel becomes increasingly difficult. Ensuring that the level of qualification of the personnel remains adapted to the needs of the company and in conformity with the technological and normative evolutions can thus prove to be too complicated for certain companies.
In this case, using a subcontracting company specialized in the maintenance of the equipment to be maintained can be a very good solution.
Reducing costs
The creation and management of an internal technical service represents significant and recurring costs, particularly in terms of training. Outsourcing the maintenance and upkeep of facilities allows for a reduction in costs due to the optimization and synergy of the tasks to be performed. It also allows costs to be adapted to the level of activity, and thus to reduce them during difficult periods or, conversely, to benefit from a one-off reinforcement in the event of a peak in activity.
Delegate part of the maintenance
Depending on the constraints of a company, it may be useful to subcontract a specific part of its maintenance. This can be the maintenance of specific equipment that requires particular skills that are not available in-house, or certain types of maintenance. Some companies outsource their preventive maintenance, for example.
Maintain equipment compliance
To ensure that buildings, machines and equipment comply with changing standards, it may be in the interest of companies to call upon the services of external specialists.
The disadvantages of outsourcing maintenance
The main disadvantage of outsourcing maintenance lies in the difficulties of organization and supervision that it involves. It can also lead to a lack of control over intervention methods (deadlines, instructions, data security).
To overcome these drawbacks, it is necessary to set up a real collaboration that allows to keep the control of the information and the activities carried out by the subcontractors. This transparency can be greatly facilitated by the use of a community CMMS software.
How Mobility Work CMMS helps to better manage maintenance outsourcing
Beyond its numerous functionalities, a CMMS allows to standardize the processes and to centralize the information thanks to a single solution.
Follow the interventions of the subcontractors
Thanks to the “Service Provider” profile (free of charge), ordering companies can integrate their maintenance subcontractors into their CMMS network. These subcontractors can then enter their intervention reports in the tool used by the entire company, which thus has a complete follow-up of all their activities.
Provide the necessary information and instructions for interventions
On the contrary, the CMMS Mobility Work allows the company to transmit very simply the requests for intervention and the necessary information to its subcontractors. It is enough for that to assign the desired technicians to the tasks expected from them, and to associate the corresponding documents and checklists.
In addition, an internal chat feature is available to all staff to easily communicate when needed.
Guarantee the security and traceability of information
By using Mobility Work to manage their relations with their subcontractors, companies ensure that the information exchanged is secure and perfectly traceable. Each intervention report, for example, is signed by the technician who performed it. In the event of a dispute or the need to analyze the history of a machine’s interventions, all the necessary information can easily be found.
Moreover, the application is easily configurable, so that external contributors only have access to the information strictly necessary for their activities.
Analyze maintenance costs
Thanks to the integration of all the maintenance activities, both internalized and externalized, and to the use of labels to differentiate them, the Mobility Work CMMS allows to analyze the maintenance costs according to different criteria. The companies can thus more easily decide to internalize or to outsource the various activities, according to the criteria which interest them, in particular their financial cost.
