Maintenance professionals are presented with more difficult challenges today than ever before. Maintenance departments must deliver superior service, comply with regulatory requirements and standards, and provide detailed financial accountably all within the confines of limited budgets. In order to meet these challenges, maintenance professionals are arming themselves with economical Computerized Maintenance Management Systems (CMMS). Definition: CMMS are management information systems that utilize the technologies of computers, telecommunications, etc., to execute the maintenance management processes, and provide management with information for the decision making process. The Maintenance Management Process consists of work identification, planning, scheduling, analysis, history recording, and work execution. Like any other computerized information system, it is made up of the following: hardware, software, databases, peripherals equipment, and a trained staff.CMMS are not for every organization. Current research shows that as much as fifty percent of all CMMS start-ups have failed to pay back a meaningful return on the initial investment after two years of operation. It is mostly because companies jump in with both feet instead of gradually transferring over into a CMMS. A CMMS itself will not cure all the problems of a company. In a rush to automate every job function that affects organizational efficiency and bottom line profits, many managers are overlooking important limitations inherent in all information technology implementations. This highlights the point that an organization needs to know how to find the right CMMS and how to implement and maintain the system. Many maintenance professionals, in their haste to keep up with contemporary information management technologies, unwittingly, neglected to evaluate these important questions before automating: Do we have an information management problem, or a business manag...
