What a CMMS should deliver: goals and a baseline

Many CMMS projects start with a software demo. The ones that succeed start with a different question: what must change in our maintenance, and how will we know that it changed?

This lesson answers that question before any software enters the picture. You will turn vague intentions into three measurable goals, then record where you stand today, so that six months after go-live you can show what the project delivered.

Why a project without numbers drifts

Without a written target, the project quietly becomes “install the software”, and success becomes a go-live date. Six months later, nobody can say whether maintenance is better. The budget review turns into a debate of opinions, and the system is judged on its screens rather than on its results.

Goals also decide the order of the work. A team that wants fewer breakdowns on its critical machines will start with those machines and their preventive plans. A team buried under requests will start with the request flow and the backlog. The software is the same; the order of work, and therefore the result, is not.

Turn intentions into measurable goals

A useful goal names a measure, a starting point, a target and a deadline. The SMART checklist (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-bound) is a good test. Here is how it rewrites four common intentions:

Three goals are enough. With more than five, none of them gets real attention. Choose goals the maintenance team can influence: a production target that depends on sales or raw materials makes a poor maintenance goal.

The five figures to record before you start

A goal is measurable only if you know where you start. Over the last three to six months, even roughly, record these five figures:

1. 1

   Backlog

   The number of open requests and work orders, and the workload they represent in hours or in weeks of team capacity.

2. 2

   Preventive share

   Preventive hours divided by total maintenance hours. If hours are not recorded, count jobs instead and note that you did.

3. 3

   Repeat failures

   The ten assets that broke down most often, and how many times each one did.

4. 4

   Repair time

   The average time from a breakdown to the restart of a critical machine, as a first estimate of MTTR.

5. 5

   Maintenance cost

   Labor, spare parts and contractors over the same period. If that is not available, start from last year's total.

At this stage, imperfect data is normal: paper logs, a spreadsheet, people's memory. Write down how you obtained each figure, so that you can measure the same way after go-live. A rough baseline beats none at all.

When to expect results

Visibility comes first. Within weeks of go-live, open work and the backlog become visible and can be prioritized. Effects on breakdowns take longer, usually several months, because preventive plans need time to run through a full cycle before failures start to drop.

To put a figure on the expected return on investment, compare the cost of downtime, overtime and emergency purchases against the cost of the project. The guide below explains the calculation step by step.