Mobility tool for my CMMS?

Currently, with the unstoppable advance of technologies and their expansion and impact on organizations, the request for mobility tools is increasingly common as a requirement for the implementation of a solution in any area of the organization.

For the digitization of any process in the organization, there is a wide spectrum of solutions on the market. Those responsible for the implementation of any digitization project seek for the selected solution to be flexible in its deployment (On premise, hybrid or Cloud), adaptable to their specific needs, integrable with the rest of the organization’s solutions and systems, easy to use, and the premise of having a mobility tool is increasingly frequent. This premise is imperative when it comes to selecting a solution for the maintenance management of an organization.

I the Importance of Having a Mobility Tool

The digitization of the industry is not only related to the processes of an organization and the implementation of new technologies that allow the production of more goods. There is a fundamental aspect when we talk about digital transformation that is often overlooked. This is the transformation of jobs in mobile environments, allowing workers to be productive anywhere and at any time, leaving behind fixed jobs and offices.

Mobility tools allow personnel to be more productive by optimizing worker time. At the same time, these are key for information management, being able to visualize, analyze and make decisions at any time by having the required information on a mobile device, whether it is a Smartphone or a Tablet.

In the case that we will discuss in this post, a mobility tool for maintenance management, will allow the empowerment of our field technicians by granting them access to all the information necessary to carry out any maintenance action in the field.

Historically, field technicians went to the facilities to perform a maintenance action with a work order (WO) on paper, which contained the basic information to execute the task. In said WO, they knew which asset(s) to perform maintenance on and had a list of tasks or activities that listed and defined each of the steps to perform the relevant maintenance. As additional information, depending on the organization, the technician had the electrical diagrams and/or the manuals on paper next to the asset in question. In most cases, partial information, since sheets were missing or in poor condition, or in some cases the diagrams and/or manuals had disappeared. This was all the information available to a technician when performing their job.

Currently we could affirm that this problem is already a thing of the past, since, with a mobility tool we will grant the field technician all the information necessary to correctly perform the pertinent maintenance action, being able to digitally visualize electrical diagrams, plans, P&ID, manuals, videos, etc…

This is just one example of the importance of having a mobility tool that complements our maintenance management system (CMMS).

Below, we will list the functionalities that tools of this type usually have in maintenance management.

I Functionalities

When selecting a CMMS system, it is very important that it has a mobility tool, which will empower our field personnel (making them more efficient and productive) and will reduce administrative costs considerably by digitizing field work.

Another very important aspect to take into account when evaluating a mobility tool is that it can work both Online and Offline. The tool must be able to allow field personnel to continue working with it even without 3G/4G/5G coverage or Wifi network.

The mobility tool must have, at a minimum, the following functionalities:

1. Management and execution of work orders (WO)
2. Generation of work requests
3. Visualization of all the information related to the WO (diagrams, manuals, videos…)
4. Management of materials planned vs used
5. Registration and control of labor and execution times
6. Detailed visualization of the “checklists” of activities associated with a task

As additional functionalities that certain mobility tools provide us, we can find:

1. Geolocation of assets
2. Geolocation of WO
3. Generation of WO in the field
4. Introduction of RCM data (Reliability Centred Maintenance)
5. Collection and digitization of field statistics of non-instrumented equipment
6. Visualization of list of spare parts and request of spare parts to the warehouse
7. Attach images or videos for later viewing by the maintenance manager

Apart from the functionalities described above, there may be others depending on each software developer, but this post has listed the most frequent ones.

I Conclusions

1. Having a mobility tool for our CMMS/EAM system is key if we want to empower field personnel with valuable and contextualized information to perform their daily work. This tool will allow us to leave the paper aside and digitize the work done in the field, significantly reducing administrative costs and processing times of the different internal processes (request for spare parts, generation of work requests, request for material to purchase, etc.). With the use of this technology we will increase the efficiency of field personnel and facilitate the training of new technical personnel in the company.
2. In the market there is a wide range of CMMS/EAM solutions, among them there are differences in the functionalities they provide to our organization, but all have the 3 main modules for a correct maintenance management (Maintenance, Inventory and Purchases).
3. However, not all CMMS/EAM solutions have a mobility tool, so it is an aspect to assess when choosing which system we will implement in our organization. Some companies have developed their mobility tool solution and can be integrated into some popular CMMS/EAMs on the market, but they are usually more expensive projects than the implementation of a CMMS/EAM system that already has its own mobility tool. In addition to the difficulty in managing the execution of an integration of two solutions from different providers.
4. Finally, we can say that when selecting which CMMS/EAM system we are going to implement in our organization it is very important to assess what future needs we will have and if said solution has functionalities that cover them. As well as if we want, or will want in the future, to have a mobility tool taking into account the benefits that it brings us.

In the following post we will show you what are the benefits of having a mobility tool for a CMMS system,

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