The CMMS may include a separate module to track labor resources. This module typically includes records for all maintenance personnel, including their craft or trade categories, such as mechanic, electrician or plumber. Additionally, this module may include labor rates in order to capture and track true labor costs against any asset or piece of equipment.

Some CMMS will allow maintenance managers to also track skill levels and qualifications for each resources to help in planning and scheduling of work. Grouping labor categories into common associations can help a manager assign work to a particular shop rather than an individual.

With the emphasis placed on safety throughout government and industry, a capability for safety plans/planning may be included in a CMMS. The following capabilities should be provided:

• Manual or automatic safety plan numbering;

• Building safety plans for special work;

• Tracking hazards for multiple equipment and locations;

• Associating multiple precautions to a hazard;

• Tracking hazardous materials for multiple equipment and locations;

• Once hazards and precautions are entered they should be available for reference and data entry;

• Tracking ratings for health, flammability, reactively, contact, and Material Safety Data Sheets for hazardous materials;

• Defining lock-out/tag-out procedures;

• Define tag identifications for specific equipment and locations;

• Defining safety plans for multiple equipment or locations;

• Viewing and linking documents;

• Associating safety plans to job plans, to preventative maintenance masters and to work orders;

• Printing safety plans automatically on work orders;

• Allowing tag-out procedures to be associated to hazards or directly to locations, equipment, and safety plans or work orders.

An inventory control module may be included to allow an operator to track inventory movement such as items being moved in or out of inventory, or from one location to another. Stocked, non-stocked, and special order items could be tracked.

The module should also allow the tracking of item vendors, location of items, item cost information, and the substitute or alternate items that can be used if necessary. Some CMMS recommend and provide the ability to track tools and provide basic tool-room management features as part of the inventory module. This feature will allow work planners the ability to see what tools are in stock and assign tools to various work categories to reduce research effort on the part of mechanics and technicians working in the field.

A work request module should be an integral part of a CMMS. The module could provide the capability for a requestor to input a request, such as a trouble call, or it could be entered by the maintenance organization’s work control.

The data entry screen should be  designed for minimal data entry.

The work order number could be assigned manually or automatically. A requester could enter minimal data and work control could enter additional information as required. Data should be entered once, and pop-up tables in the system should eliminate the need to memorize codes.

A CMMS must include work order tracking because it is the heart of a work order system.

The data should be entered once, and pop-up tables should eliminate the need to memorize codes. The tracking system should provide instant access to all of the information needed for detailed planning and scheduling, including work plan operations, labor, materials, tools, costs, equipment, blueprints, related documents and failure analysis.

Of course, this is dependent on how many modules are installed and how much information has been entered in the system. The manager must evaluate data requirements and the practicality of adding modules.

A work manager module may be a part of the CMMS.

The module could provide the capability that would let a planner specify which labor to apply to specific work orders and when. The module would permit planning and dispatching.

• Planning—In planning, labor assignments would be planned for future shifts. Each person’s calendar availability would be considered when the assignments are made. The assignments would be created sequentially over the shift, filling each person’s daily schedule with priority work for the craft. It could even split larger jobs over multiple shifts—automatically.

• Dispatching—In dispatching, labor assignments would be carried out as soon as possible. This system could begin tracking labor time from the instant the assignment is made. The system operator could interrupt work already in progress in order to reassign labor resources to more crucial work.

The CMMS could provide a rapid and easy means for opening, reporting on, and closing work orders, and reporting work on small jobs after-the-fact. Labor, materials, failure codes, completion date, and downtime could all be reported.

The following capabilities may be provided in a CMMS to manage a Preventive Maintenance (PM) program:

• Support multiple criteria for generating PM work orders. If a PM master has both time-based and meter-based frequency information, the program should use whichever becomes due first, and then update the other;

• Generate time-based PM work orders based upon last generation or last completion date. Next due date and job plans should be displayed;

• Permit and track PM extensions with adjustments to next due date;

• Trigger meter-based PM by two separate meters;

• Print sequence job plans when wanted;

• Create a PM against an item so new parts have PM automatically generated on purchase;

• Specify the number of days ahead to generate work orders from PM masters that may not yet have met their frequency criteria;

• Consolidate weekly, monthly, and quarterly job plans on a single master; Assign sequence numbers to job plans to tell the system which job plan to use when a PM work order is generated from a PM master;

• Permit overriding frequency criteria in order to generate PM work orders whenever plant conditions require;

• Route PM with multiple equipment or locations;

• Generate work orders in batch or individually for only the equipment wanted;

• Should have the capability to be used with the system scheduler to forecast resources and budgets.

A CMMS can be utilized in the management of a range of facilities from a single facility to a complex/campus. They can also be used to manage the maintenance program for a grouping of equipment such as a fleet of vehicles. The systems are very versatile since most are in modular form for the various maintenance functions and can be customized to fit the particular application. ❑