Mobile CMMS is the latest generation of industrial maintenance methods. Choosing a 4.0 mobile CMMS software allows you to go beyond the limits of all the methods that have existed until now and revolutionize the management of machine maintenance within a company.
The limitations of maintenance without mobile CMMS
Industrial maintenance can be managed without specific software and in various ways, but it always ends up being an obstacle to the company’s activity and profitability.
Industrial maintenance 0-level
Some companies still manage the maintenance of their equipment on a “piecemeal” basis. Parts are replaced when a machine is found to be defective, but no monitoring of this activity is carried out, no stock of spare parts is organized, no tasks are scheduled.
This method – or rather this lack of method – has two major disadvantages. On the one hand, it leads to significant productivity losses, since the machines remain at a standstill until the missing part arrives. On the other hand, no monitoring of maintenance operations is possible, and it is not at all streamlined. It is therefore impossible to anticipate or plan interventions or to have an overview of machine wear and maintenance needs.
The “paper” maintenance
The monitoring of machine maintenance operations on paper documents is the first step towards organized industrial maintenance management. Writing down each intervention allows a minimum of follow-up and traceability.
However, access to and readability of the “intervention sheets” – which only exist in a single copy stored in a single place – is limited. This does not facilitate good traceability of interventions or the smooth transmission of information among the teams. Finding the description of a given task is then almost impossible.
Excel or Access monitoring
The spread of information technology and the emergence of Excel software have made it possible to introduce a first form of computer-based maintenance management in some companies. They use spreadsheets to record all maintenance operations performed.
While this method considerably improves the monitoring of interventions and, above all, the consultation of actions carried out, it remains limited in terms of access to information and operational planning.
The use of Access software represents, on this last point, some progress. It allows preventive and regulatory maintenance operations to be planned on a calendar basis. On the other hand, its limited capacity makes it unusable once the database in which interventions are recorded reaches a given size.
In addition, whether you choose Excel or Access, the sharing of information is very obsolete because of the limited features, which cannot be viewed and used on a network.
Pros and cons of conventional CMMS software
Adopting a piece of software specifically dedicated to maintenance management makes it much simpler and more efficient, but it also has major disadvantages.
What are CMMS software?
Computerized maintenance management software are computer programs specifically designed to manage and rationalize equipment maintenance within a company. Most of these programs have the following functions:
-
Equipment management (inventory, localization…);
-
Maintenance management (corrective, preventive, intervention requests…);
-
Installations’ safety management before maintenance operations;
-
Stock levels management;
-
Spare parts or services purchasing and purchasing cycle management;
-
Planning and maintenance teams management;
-
Cost management (workforce, purchasing, renting…);
-
Key performance indicators.
Benefits of industrial maintenance management software
As we can see, software specifically designed for industrial maintenance makes it much easier for a company to manage its equipment maintenance thanks to advanced features. Concretely, the main benefits expected from this maintenance management method are as follows:
-
Better productivity: centralized and organized interventions monitoring and planning reduce machine downtime;
-
Better cost control: planning operations allows for more efficient maintenance and therefore longer equipment life, as well as anticipation and forecasting of future expenses;
-
Better traceability: by facilitating the recording and consultation of interventions, CMMS software offers more transparency on their progress and better coordination of the actions of the various stakeholders.
Disadvantages of 1.0 CMMS software
In practice, these “old-fashioned” software are too often difficult and expensive to implement and use. They are cumbersome to set up, months of team training are required, the interface is neither user-friendly nor ergonomic. In an age of smartphones and ultra-intuitive mobile applications, the contrast is striking.
With maintenance teams and machine operators, these defects result in a lack of motivation and involvement in the implementation and use of these tools, which are supposed to make their tasks easier but which, in practice, can complicate them.
There are many examples of companies that have wanted to implement software dedicated to industrial maintenance but have faced major difficulties. The adoption of such a solution raises both technical and practical problems, since teams are unable to appropriate this potentially very useful but in reality very unergonomic tool.
About new mobile CMMS software
By applying the principles of everyday applications to maintenance management, these new solutions completely revolutionize our approach to CMMS solutions.
What are mobile CMMS software?
Mobile CMMS software are applications that can be used on a smartphone or tablet. It can, therefore, be used from anywhere. It is essentially this “mobile” usability that distinguishes it from traditional software, whose maintenance management functions it also takes over.
However, an application like Mobility Work, which can be described as a “4.0” tool, gathers many additional features, inspired by the latest advances in new technologies and the new uses that are made of them in everyday life.
For example, this application uses the logic of Big Data to provide its users with an analysis tool based on data collected from thousands of anonymous and professional users who work with the same machines.
Mobility Work CMMS is provided with an analytic tool to help you analyze all your maintenance data and adapt your strategy
In addition, it is a real social network-based solution that allows maintenance technicians and machine operators to exchange information and share issues. This is true both within an internal community within the company or industrial group and with users from other entities.
Finally, it is as user-friendly as all the other applications we use on a daily basis, even for someone who isn’t used to them.
Benefits of such a 4.0 app
An app such as Mobility Work, therefore, exceeds all the limits of other industrial maintenance management methods.
To begin with, the deployment and adoption of the application are much simpler than those of old generation CMMS software. All that is required is to equip the machines with NFC chips or QR codes and install the application on mobile media. No training is required as the use of the application is intuitive.
Mobility Work CMMS allows operators and technicians to be autonomous: task creation, maintenance plans, notifications for every new activity…
Indeed, any new tool can quickly be seen as a burden if it is difficult to access and if its use does not quickly demonstrate the benefits it provides to its main users.
In addition, recording maintenance interventions is very easy, since each operator can do so from his smartphone as soon as the intervention is completed, including by voice input. The user can also consult the maintenance history of each machine at any time and from anywhere.
In addition, the planning and anticipation of operations are much more efficient thanks to the extensive database made available to users. For example, the Mobility Work maintenance management platform records a history of more than 5 million hours of maintenance performed. Predictive maintenance is thus entering a new era.
Finally, community operation, by allowing the sharing of maintenance experiences and problems, facilitates and accelerates the resolution of difficulties that operators may encounter while maintaining their machines.
