Why Use a Cloud-Based EAM/CMMS?

Before explaining why the market is increasingly shifting towards cloud software implementation, I would like to introduce EAM and CMMS systems, as well as briefly explain their differences.

A CMMS (Computerized Maintenance Management System), as its name indicates, is software to facilitate the management of an organization’s asset maintenance, mainly physical assets, although they may not be. The philosophy of these systems is to put the “assets” or equipment at the center of maintenance, around which everything that affects it will be linked (technical documents, work orders, maintenance plans, spare parts, costs, etc.).

This type of tool allows the maintenance department to perform proper management of its assets and everything that “surrounds” them such as: maintenance tasks and activities, costs, spare parts inventory, internal human resources, subcontractors, etc. It can be said that these solutions are responsible for optimizing the maintenance processes of industrial organizations.

Although there are people who speak of the two systems interchangeably, EAM (Enterprise Asset Management) systems and CMMS have some differences.

The most important difference is the focus and scope of both systems.

While CMMS systems focus primarily on asset maintenance, EAM systems have a broader business focus, covering different needs and functions of the business.

Therefore, EAM systems may have modules and functionalities that go beyond mere maintenance, such as project management, building management, rent and lease management, budget management, fleet management, or functionalities such as the digitization of work permits or Lock Out – Tag Out (LO/TO) procedures, among many others.

Today, there are still many organizations that do not have a CMMS system or an EAM system, or do not extract the maximum performance from them.

These systems are 100% necessary if we want to ensure the highest availability of our equipment and production lines, while reducing costs related to maintenance. All this, always ensuring the increase of their reliability, as well as reducing breakdowns and unscheduled stoppages. Without forgetting the increase in labor efficiency that the implementation of a CMMS or EAM system entails.

These systems, like many other software, are increasingly commonly not purchased outright or installed on the company’s own servers.

Currently, the increasingly predominant trend is to contract them as a service, or also called SaaS (Software as a Service), and for these to be in the cloud contracted by the software manufacturer and under its responsibility. In SaaS, a monthly or annual subscription is paid for the use of the software.

Advantages of a SaaS

These are some of the advantages of a SaaS:

1. Have the software as an OPEX investment

The initial investment in proprietary or perpetual licensing is made through CAPEX and is always much higher than the initial investment of a SaaS. In addition, from a tax point of view, the tax benefits of an OPEX investment are more attractive than in CAPEX.

2. It is not necessary to invest in servers for its installation

When investing in SaaS, the solution is in the cloud, but these expenses are included in the licensing price, unlike a proprietary or perpetual license.

3. No additional third-party software licenses are required

Operating system, database, or other licenses must be acquired by the end user in the case of a proprietary license, while these are included in the price of the SaaS license.

4. Maintenance and technical support included

When licensing software with a proprietary or perpetual license, a percentage of the cost of the license (20% approx.) must be paid annually if we want to have the manufacturer’s maintenance and technical support. With a SaaS, maintenance and technical support are included.

5. Automatic updates of new versions included

When you have a proprietary or perpetual license, the responsibility for updating to new versions is at the risk and expense of the end user. In addition, you only have access to them if you have not stopped contracting the software maintenance.

In SaaS solutions, these updates are included in the licensing price and are generally performed automatically by the software manufacturer itself. The end user can decide whether or not to have automatic updates.

6. High availability

If we have a proprietary license and install the CMMS system on our organization’s servers, these will require maintenance and may suffer unscheduled stoppages, so their availability is affected.

When implementing a system with SaaS licensing, its availability will always be very high, since they usually work on high availability cloud platforms.

7. Cybersecurity

One of the aspects that end users are most afraid of is the cybersecurity of systems implemented in the cloud. In a large majority of organizations, large and small, there are many vulnerabilities in the cybersecurity of their networks. This means that, even if we have the data only within our infrastructure, it is vulnerable.

The main cloud hosting companies (Microsoft Azure, Amazon, Google, IBM…) have invested huge amounts in cybersecurity, which allows us to affirm that today the data is more secure on their platforms than on our organization’s servers.

These are the main advantages of implementing a CMMS/EAM system as SaaS, but not the only ones.

Ultimo: CMMS/EAM in the Cloud

Our Ultimo software is a CMMS/EAM in the cloud, which satisfies all the points mentioned previously. Ultimo runs on Microsoft Azure, which ensures 99.7% availability.

In the case of cybersecurity, it has multiple mechanisms to reinforce it. Some of them are data encryption (TDE), penetration testing, implementation of “private endpoints”, DDOS protection, etc…

We can conclude that it is a strategic decision at the company level which licensing model to contract, but the benefits of a SaaS are very interesting for the implementation of a CMMS or EAM system.