Today’s fast-paced business environment requests from companies valuable asset management strategies delivering competitive advantage. The implementation of an effective CMMS program is at the core of the successful functioning of a business. Maintenance maturity is essential and facilitates performance measurement and benchmarking.
Industrial maintenance: definition and history
The 6 Levels of Maintenance Maturity
Every company organizes its maintenance department in a different way based on the facility’s size and activity and following different functional and cultural guidelines. Even though these are decisions taken by the management, maintenance technicians are the first that have to leave if something goes wrong in their department. And this is a problem because very often the reasons are not hidden in their expertise and professionalism but in the fact that the company is not properly equipped. The deployment of a modern, next-gen maintenance management solution significantly improves, facilitates and streamlines daily maintenance routines. The following 6 levels of maintenance maturity will help you evaluate the state of your daily maintenance management.
Mobility Work’s calendar feature allows you to schedule all your preventive and predictive maintenance tasks.
1. Maintenance Level 0
Event though in 2018 advancements as industry 4.0, IoT and sensor data have been accepted, recognized and appreciated by many organizations, there is still a large amount of companies neglecting their maintenance management. The biggest problem here is the complete lack of maintenance traceability whether on paper, Excel file or an asset management software. This level of maintenance maturity is characterized by the fact that nobody really knows what is going on in the company and that there is absolutely no available information on a breakdown or any other maintenance intervention. In this case, no preventive routines have been carried out and no regulations have been followed. The spare parts are not organized and there is no established system to control the stock. If no control system is present, this is usually an archaic and not really efficient one leading to unnecessary expenses. The 0-level maintenance totally disturbs the team spirit and the entire internal communication. And unfortunately even in 2018 there are still companies that follow this maintenance model.
2. The “Paper Maintenance” of the 1980s
The main component of the maintenance of the 1980s is the paper. There is a little more consistency compared to the 0-level maintenance, but still no asset management software or Excel file available. All maintenance operations records are performed on paper. Every single intervention is recorded in the so-called intervention book and represents a very short summary of the action. This data has nothing to do with the information that is available in today’s maintenance management software and includes the date and time of the intervention, the concerned equipment, the person that has carried out the action, the needed time and the description. In Mobility Work, the first maintenance management platform, you can also attach pictures, videos and any other possible documents.
The “paper maintenance” is usually stored in a large cabinet at your maintenance department and finding or highlighting an intervention turns into an impossible mission.
3. The Excel CMMS
The “Excel-based” asset management software was created in the beginning of the ‘90s and even though made in a very simple way, the spreadsheets make it possible to carry out a follow-up on maintenance operations which automatically triggers close reports saved in spreadsheets. Depending on the knowledge of the person who has created the spreadsheet, there are different levels of quality, ranging from a simple table to programming.
The “Excel-based” maintenance management solution is often the first step that an organization undertakes towards tracking maintenance operations. Unfortunately, the Excel file is often limited in terms of planning operations.
4. The Access CMMS
The “Access-based” asset management softwarecan be equally good created by an IT specialist or by a trainee. It represents a slightly better version of the “Excel-based” counterpart, because it integrates databases, and above all it allows to plan preventive and regulatory maintenance operations on a calendar basis.
The problem often is the size of the database, which will grow and at one point will slow down the system enormously until it becomes unusable. The “Access-based” maintenance management solution is better than an Excel file but it is very difficult to maintain.
5. The Industry 1.0 CMMS
The industry 1.0 CMMS is the most common case in the business concerning the use of CMMS systems of older generation. This solution often allows the management of tasks, maintenance operations, spare parts and requests for interventions.
The problems of the industry 1.0 CMMS are that they are often heavy to parameter, difficult to use, don’t feature a user-friendly interface and are not able to perform any valuable analysis based on the stored data. This is also the reason why this type of CMMS is seen as a burden by the employees and thus very difficult to implement.
6. The Industry 4.0 CMMS
The ultimate tool for a most efficient maintenance management is the industry 4.0 asset management software offering a user-friendly and highly intuitive design and all necessary features to facilitate your interventions. The main objective of such a solution is to bring added value to the company’s maintenance program. Obviously, this type of asset management software can be easily adopted and comes with an application that looks a lot like the ones from our everyday lives. Solutions as Mobility Work use data from sensors connected to machines to trigger tasks automatically and allow you to exchange information within the maintenance community.
All news related to ongoing interventions are available from Mobility Work mobile application’s newsfeed, available on iOS and Android.
Mobility Work is a simple and easy to use SaaS powerful maintenance tool. Smart and next-gen, the solution is versatile and evolves within the organization by covering all ongoing maintenance needs and allowing you to go even further. Mobility Work offers you an entire community platform connecting you to maintenance professionals, service providers and machine and consumable manufacturers.
