OT - Asset Management / Maintenance Tracking Software

Maxkling

Member
Join Date
Mar 2011
Location
Atlanta
Posts
511
Just looking to see what some of you guys are using and any recommendations for any CMMS / EAM software, specifically in an industrial / facility application.
 
We have IBM's maximo in our plant, and it's linked to the local part inventory. It is a chore to maintain though, so it becomes a system which introduces a LOT of red tape.

For example, only a few people in the maintenance team have immediate access to a PC. They may have to go to the maximo link and find spares by searching the part number, but since the system works on keywords, it becomes an extreme data entry based system where one misplaced '-' can cause issues.

It also does work order tracking, but making work orders for emergency tasks is unsustainable to an extent, as people just don't want to do data entry.
Another big aspect is to have the hierarchy of the plant. It is usually defined in a non-controls layout, which causes inventory to be all over the place again.

With all that said, there is a way to automate the work order generation and get them flying smoothly. It also offers a place for business teams to bring in their skills with inventory management.

Don't know of other systems, but Maximo is what we use, in a bad fashion at my location at least.
 
Great input thanks. We have a work group that uses Maximo, sounds very similar. Management loves it, users tend to dislike it.
 
We use EAM here.
It does inventory and parts management as well as PM and work order tracking. Its kind of an amazing beast, it really does a lot and pretty much keeps the plants running. Its not my cup of tea though. So boring, so monotonous, I do only what I have to with it. We have somebody who company wide just works on EAM, man I pity that guy!
 
What ever it is, people will not generally like it.

The main problem is added overhead of reporting what you actually did. Second one is that you need to actually keep track of spares and the missing spare is your own fault, not the other guys...

I have used SAP and few others. All suck in one way or another and all are better than others in one way or another. Biggest challenges are getting the benefits to be shown also to the guy on the plant floor and realizing the gains on upper level.

What ever you choose, go see real references how they use it and have an dedicated person to upkeep and support the systems input, it cannot be done in addition to own work.
 
What ever you choose, go see real references how they use it and have an dedicated person to upkeep and support the systems input, it cannot be done in addition to own work.

What he said!!! I worked one place years ago, they used EAM but it was a disastrous mess! I was so happy when I left that company to get away from this kind of software, only to start at another company that happened to use the same...... :cry:
 
I used to work at a uni with nasa contracts and capital equipment, and these crewcut guys from onr would come around every year or so and look to see that random items were still there. Once a compiler i.e. software got onto the list, and when I made a joke about opening the disk and looking at the magnetic particles he didn't laugh. Well, I thought it was funny.


Eventually our department do-all guy put everything in a spreadsheet, instead of the different professor's fiefdom folks keeping track by memory. But that is hardly EAM or CMMS; that is just keeping the funding source off our back.


I still remember the form that initiated getting off your inventory: DD 1419; cf. here; IIRC that said you no longer needed it, and if no other grantee wanted it, it could eventually be disposed of.


This kind of thing is always a mess, I guess.
 
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I have primarily used MEX in food and bev. As far as a CMMS goes it's not bad... the really **** part is if you are both adding a new IT system (MEX, maximo, etc) AND adding the processes that go along side it at the same time.

Any new software will generally be disliked by the maintenance people as most likely they will pick up the brunt of the work involved. However if they have to dramatically change the way they actually process thing as well it can lead to change management issues. I would say start small and build outwards. If you dont have a log, plan, schedule, execute, record workflow working well now, then get that working, then add the IT stuff.
 
At the last company we used something called workmate, never really got involved in it as that was down to our co-ordinator, however, it's only as good as the information put into it.
Originally, I had a simple Access DB with all the calibrations on it, they decided to integrate this into their system, I spent some considerable hours porting the information to a spread sheet so that the calibrations would be done within the existing time frames & in groups that made the logistics easy. The result was when it was populated workmate they had spread it all over the place.
 

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