After months of researching enterprise asset management (EAM) software and making the business case to your leadership team, you’ve finally made a purchase. Well done!
Now, how do you make the most of your investment?
In a survey by Reliable Plant magazine, 94% of plant maintenance managers confessed to not using their CMMS software platform to its maximum capability. Given that EAM solutions have a broader set of features, there’s an even greater potential for missed opportunities.
To make sure you’re using your EAM system to its full capacity, follow these five recommendations.
5 ways to make the most of your EAM software
1. Train your maintenance team
The success of your training program is fundamental to the success of your EAM software implementation.
The best way to approach training is to engage your maintenance team before you make a purchase. Involving them in the decision early makes it easier to get their buy-in so they’ll be more eager to learn.
It also allows you to consider how EAM software will change your maintenance processes before the shift happens.
Make sure you address these issues during the training process. Consider common questions, such as:
- What physical assets do we need to track?
- What details do we need for each item?
- Who will be responsible for assigning maintenance tasks?
- Who should technicians contact if they need more information?
- How should they record completed tasks?
- How will the software make their jobs easier?
Enterprise asset management is as much about adopting a holistic approach to problems as reducing the number of equipment repairs.
Additionally, EAM software offers different features and benefits for different business functions. That’s why it’s helpful to customize your training for each type of user.
While your senior leadership team will want to see shortcuts for viewing maintenance KPIs, technicians will want to know tips and tricks for processing work orders faster.
Training should be an ongoing process, rather than a one-time task. At different stages of onboarding your EAM software, your users will need different levels of support. You need to be prepared to coach them appropriately.
Your software vendor should be able to provide additional training resources, including video tutorials, tip sheets and webinars.
2. Integrate EAM with other software solutions
Most enterprises have multiple software systems with different functionalities. To make the most of your EAM software, it needs to integrate with other solutions your company is already using.
Many EAM solutions have in-built connectors and plugins that can facilitate these integrations. ManagerPlus offers an API that can seamlessly integrate with other enterprise applications. This ensures all systems are using consistent, real-time asset data for accurate decision making.
For example, finance professionals may have a budgeting system that needs information such as asset utilization rates, repair and breakdown intervals, maintenance costs and time spent on maintenance activities to plan for the year ahead.
Integrating the budgeting system with your enterprise asset management system allows you to easily share data.
There are many other use cases for EAM integration. For instance, you can open up internal asset data to external supply chain partners while maintaining data integrity outside the boundaries of your organization.
3. Adopt a metric-driven mindset
The power of EAM software lies in its rich asset data. Even if you’ve been using your system for a while, you may not be fully tapping into this treasure trove of information.
Adopting a metric-driven mindset means deciding as an organization which key performance indicators are most important and what data you need to measure progress.
For instance, if you want to adopt a more proactive approach to maintenance, you should keep track of the percentage of preventive maintenance activities versus reactive repairs.
Metrics can put a glaring spotlight on inefficiencies and wasted resources, so it’s important to discuss them with your team. Let them know you’re interested in addressing these issues as a company, rather than assigning blame.
It also helps if these metrics are tied to your company’s incentive structure. For instance, you might consider special recognition or a bonus for technicians who are able to achieve a certain level of efficiency.
Finally, make sure everyone at your organization has easy access to the metrics that matter.
While raw numbers can be difficult to absorb, the human brain can process images in milliseconds. Creating EAM software dashboards will help your team visualize data and easily understand trends.
4. Reassess your goals at regular intervals
Because EAM software has such a wide scope, it’s critical to define your goals and reevaluate them as needed.
For example, your initial target may be to bring down your mean time between failures (MTBF) by 25%. Once you’ve achieved that, you’ll want to consider other goals, such as improving the efficiency of your maintenance teams or optimizing asset performance and lifecycle management.
As your business objectives change, so will your reporting needs.
5. Make your vendor your partner
The best EAM software providers are more than just vendors. They act as partners whose success is directly tied to yours. They should check in regularly to discuss how your software is supporting your business goals. As your needs change, you may need to upgrade your software to include more users, additional modules or remote capabilities.
For instance, if you have technicians who frequently work in remote areas, it’s tremendously helpful if they can access important asset data and maintenance tasks while offline. If you’re constantly ordering new parts, you might need better inventory management.
You might also need help creating custom reports or workflows.
Checking in with your EAM software provider will ensure you’re using the latest technology available to you in the most efficient way.
Making the most of ManagerPlus
ManagerPlus offers powerful, lightning-fast enterprise asset management software to help organizations improve their equipment uptime. But our work doesn’t end after implementation—it’s just beginning!
Our team works closely with yours to provide ongoing training and support.
We have a learning center where customers can find helpful articles, toolkits and demos. We share the latest industry trends and technologies on our blog. And we recently introduced a new asset management podcast featuring experts on a variety of topics.
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