CMMS software: How to manage the maintenance of an electrical installation?
The term “equipment” in a CMMS context usually refers to machines, with their sub-assemblies and spare parts. However, it also includes other types of industrial assets, including buildings, electrical networks with electrical installation, compressed air, water, etc. that also require to be maintained, and are subject to intervention requests and industrial maintenance operations.
The objective of this tutorial is to familiarize yourself with electrical networks management, and to provide you with some advice in order to help you improve their maintenance management in your next-gen computerized maintenance management system software.
Electrical equipment are equipment
First, it is important to consider electrical installation as a real piece of equipment for the most important ones (high voltage transformers for example), or as a sub-assembly (electrical panels mounted on a machine for example). To improve their management, there are several steps to follow:
- Naming your equipment
In order to organize your equipment and to improve their management quickly and efficiently, it is necessary to name them correctly in the computerized maintenance management system. For example, a piece of equipment such as a transformer can be named as follows:
Transformer + TGBT 800kvA/525V – Louis Gibrat Workshop – N°1311
This name corresponds to the following breakdown: Type of element – Current / Voltage – Geographical Location – Identification number. This naming system allows all users to find the transformer thanks to the search bar available in Mobility Work CMMS, by entering different keywords.
An electrical panel mounted on a piece of equipment in the computerized maintenance management system software can be named as follows:
ELECTRICAL PANEL MIXER CONTROL 36/20 CORE MAKING GP – N°G6 – N°361
This name corresponds to the following breakdown: Type of element – Electrical type (Power or Control) – Piece of equipment on which it is mounted – Geographic workshop – Geographic reference of the element – Equipment number.
That way, all users can quickly identify the panel and its localization. For example, if a user enters the keywords “panel core making GP” in the search of his CMMS software, he will be able to quickly access all the panels available in this sector of the company.
- Completing the equipment page
The description field of the equipment page contains all the information related to the electrical installation (serial number – type of contract – manufacturer – supplier – etc.) as in the example below:
2015 – New Schneider Electric battery – QUOTE D14-0624115-A-CM Spie – Manufacturer: Alpes Technologies – Model: ALPIMATIC 300KVAR 400V 50Hz TRI Type H – Reference: MH30040 – Serial number: 2015011904 (Sup January 2017)
The purpose of the description field is to provide as much information as possible to your maintenance technician, which will be quickly accessible thanks to the search bar of your CMMS software.
You can also add a cost center, which will also allow you to divide financially your electrical installation, and centralize your maintenance costs in the analytical tool of your next-gen CMMS Mobility Work.
- Add tags
Mobility Work’s maintenance app also allows you to add tags to your equipment. Add a “contract” tag on your transformers under maintenance contracts, or a “regulatory” tag on your electrical panels, and quickly generate a list of equipment grouped by tag, or draw up a maintenance plan for a group of equipment.
When a maintenance operation is performed on an electrical piece of equipment that includes a tag, this same tag is automatically added to the work order. You then obtain a more detailed analysis of your intervention times and maintenance costs.
The CMMS Mobility Work software also makes it possible to create links between equipment. Thus a panel can be associated with several machines, a transformer with several workshops, etc.
Visually identify them with a code
Add a photo to your electrical equipment on the web or mobile app to easily find it in your computerized maintenance management system software search, and bring your network newsfeed to life. This will allow any maintenance technician to quickly identify the electrical equipment on which he must intervene.
The implementation of a coding system in the equipment name also facilitates the work of the technicians, for example:
- One letter per geographical area of your plant
- One incremental number per item.
So, if we take the example of our equipment:
ELECTRICAL PANEL MIXER CONTROL 36/20 CORE MAKING GP – N°G6 – N°361
The “G6” code allows you to easily identify the panel. All you have to do next is prepare a “G6” label that you can stick on your piece of electrical installation. Thus, when a maintenance technician or a service provider intervenes on this equipment, he just has to enter “G6” in the Mobility Work CMMS app search to access the entire history, documentation, etc. of the piece of equipment.
Identify your equipment with NFC chips or QR codes
One of the main advantages of Mobility Work mobile CMMS is that it allows you to integrate QR codes or NFC chips to easily identify your machines on your phone. In one scan, the maintenance technician can open the history of his machine, access a maintenance range or simply trigger a maintenance intervention.
Integrate your electrical schemes and documentation
Finally, add your documents to your equipment page, so that your technicians will be able to access all electrical schemes from their phone or tablet. Stop wasting time searching for a document, and get rid of all your Word or Excel documents which are inaccessible from a mobile interface.
Proper maintenance management of your electrical installations should allow you to quickly see benefits on your maintenance service, including:
- Improved traceability on sensitive machines
- A better understanding of the electrical network for maintenance technicians
- Quick access to documents, and easy integration of multimedia files on an electrical failure (photo, videos, etc.)
- Improved regulatory follow-up of your electrical equipment in your computerized maintenance management system software.
Mobility Work is a next-gen maintenance management platform, whose vocation is to place the CMMS at the heart of the company. The application allows you to manage all types of equipment, and to obtain fast and efficient results thanks to the power of the community and industry 4.0 tools.
You are interested in maintenance management and would like to learn more about this subject in order to increase your productivity and save costs? Let’s plan a free online training with our team!