Greater recognition of the maintenance department has opened up new ways for its data to be integrated into mill-wide information systems

An integrated system for mill maintenance

Although many companies use a total productive maintenance (TPM) philosophy, it is surprising to see how little integration there is with production or human resource management software.

But many organizations are looking at buying fully integrated solutions, if possible from one vendor. These integrated software packages are called enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems and usually tackle the mainstream parts of the business, such as finance, production and logistics.

Very few of the early ERP packages had their own CMMS module and the ones that did were often designed to suit the needs of the finance department. This meant that the maintenance department either had to attempt to use software that did not really suit its needs or use an independent solution that interfaced, usually in a fairly basic manner, with the selected ERP system. Typically, maintenance departments selected their own "desert island" data systems, which frequently failed due to lack of resources to implement them.

Recently, some leading ERP suppliers have started o bring out "best-of-breed" CMMS modules, that could compete with the leading stand-alone packages in a functional sense, but are totally integrated with the other modules of ERP systems.

Computers in maintenance are now able to integrate with the rest of the mill

Maintenance today

There are three basic types of CMMS on the market today - the independent stand-alone package, the independent package designed for interfacing with other systems and the CMMS module of an ERP system.

Stand-alone packages tend to either run on their own computer hardware or possibly in isolation on the main computer. The latter option has the advantage that it is
easier to integrate and can be accessed
through any terminal connected to the main computer.

Independent packages designed for interfacing with other systems are similar to stand-alone packages, but are designed to interface with other systems via special application program interfaces (APIs, see box). Typically these packages will run on the same computer hardware as the system they are interfacing with, but this may not always be the case.

When the CMMS package is part of an ERP system, integration is normally extensive and flexible. This set up will also have the advantage that the user interface on the screens will be the same for the CMMS as it is for the other applications, simplifying user training.

Technical talk

The growth of the CMMS market, the availability of new technologies and heavy investment by ERP suppliers (which are starting to treat maintenance management as a key part of their business) are giving rise to a host of new functions in the latest CMMS packages.

One of these new functions is improved preventive maintenance. If one takes the view that the major reason for using a CMMS is to reduce production downtime, any functionality that improves the effectiveness of preventive and predictive maintenance must be beneficial.

Many CMMS packages are also starting to include functions to assist with reliability centered maintenance (RCM) and this will probably give rise to a complete revision of the preventive and predictive maintenance routines. Some organizations that have achieved very successful CMMS implementations claim that much of the success was due to RCM or a similar technique being used during the implementation to create completely new preventive and predictive maintenance routines. Many organizations are also looking at on-line condition monitoring and CMMS suppliers are responding to this.

One of the biggest causes of failure in CMMS implementation projects is that little thought is given to the manner in which the software will be used or to the work required to operate it successfully. This results in a total lack of "ownership" of the system, and can lead to its demise as it falls into disuse.

Leading suppliers are now introducing software tools for use during the project-planning phase. These tools model the business processes in the maintenance and related departments so the role of each user is clear. When the business processes are identified clearly, it is much easier to identify key performance indicators for the maintenance department on which its success and that of the CMMS implementation can be measured.

New technologies have also provided the opportunity to develop alternative types of user interface including:

• voice activation;
• portable PCs;
• touch-sensitive screens;
• use of email;
• use of the internet;
• activation of pagers;
• activation of mobile phones.

Good ERP systems frequently have messaging as part of their overall system structure and should be in a good position to introduce this type of functionality into their CMMS products.

The internet is another technology now being used in some of today's systems. There is a lot of market hype about the internet and some users feel that they must use it or be left behind. Modern CMMS products can provide links to the internet for functions that include obtaining information from suppliers, ordering spare parts, sending messages outside the organization and accessing some CMMS functions remotely.

Care should be taken to ensure that each use of the internet is cost-justified and that it is not just used as a time-consuming toy.

ERP integration

There are many benefits to an organization if a CMMS is integrated into a company's overall management information system. This means the CMMS should be integrated with other application functions, particularly the ERP system. The opportunities for integration for a CMMS lie in eight main categories (Figure 1):

Logistics - This includes integration with the corporate inventory and procurement systems. If this form of integration was to be implemented, maintenance stock control and purchasing would be carried out by the corporate systems and would avoid the overheads of using separate software for the maintenance department. Use of the corporate system not only allows easy integration of stores and purchasing costs with the financial system, but also allows the same people to carry out stores and purchasing functions for all departments in the company. The integration with the CMMS must ensure that all stores and purchasing costs are allocated to work orders in the CMMS, thus also allocating them to the life-cycle costs of the equipment;

Financial management - a good CMMS should not only provide the correct functions required by maintenance users, but it should also act as the data collection device for transferring maintenance costs to the financial systems. In this manner the costs of maintenance can be allocated to production cost centers, helping to establish the true cost of production and profit contribution for each part of the process. These costs should include labor, materials and externally purchased services. In addition the equipment records should be linked with the fixed asset register to establish an accurate register of the company's assets. The list of equipment being maintained by the maintenance department usually reflects the actual situation and by linking it to the financial asset register will probably allow the finance department to improve the accuracy of its own records;

Production planning - most textbooks on maintenance planning urge readers to plan maintenance and production work together, to utilize production "windows" and to maximize the availability of equipment to the production process. It is very surprising therefore how few CMMS packages have functions to do this effectively. The reason is likely to be that many CMMS packages are designed as stand-alone products for which it is very difficult to design APIs that interface successfully with production planning systems from another supplier. It is in this area that CMMS modules from ERP suppliers will have a significant advantage. Some ERP suppliers have maintenance work orders and production order records using the same format, therefore allowing the same program to be used for displaying and planning both types of work simultaneously on the same screen;

Condition monitoring - there are a number of systems on the market that will analyze data from condition monitoring sensors, such as vibration analyzers. These systems will usually signal an alarm condition when one is detected. Ideally, for close integration with these systems, the CMMS should export to the condition monitoring system details of the operations required to take the condition monitoring readings. They should then receive back data on any alarm conditions detected and create maintenance requests automatically to investigate the alarm conditions and take appropriate corrective action. Some CMMS packages already have this type of integration and it should soon become standard in most CMMS software;

DCS and SCADA - it is surprising how many distributed control systems (DCS) and supervisory control and data acquisition (Scada) systems have not been designed to include sensors required for maintenance, such as meters, temperature alarms and vibration analyzers. This is probably because maintenance departments are not normally consulted when systems are designed. Many organizations are however setting up total productive maintenance (TPM) environments where maintenance, production and design departments work together. This should result in DCS and Scada systems providing more information required by maintenance. This, in turn, will drive the need to integrate these systems with CMMS software so that, for example, meters will automatically trigger preventive maintenance and the alarms will create maintenance requests for corrective action. A few systems already have this type of integration, but it is likely to become a standard feature of major CMMS products soon;

Human resources - Some critical main- tenance tasks are highly specialized and require special skills in order to carry them out correctly - for example certain welding tasks require a "coded" welder. When a person is assigned to these tasks it is essential to check that they have the correct training. This check is simplified if the CMMS is integrated to human resources software to allow verification of training records. Other areas of integration with human resources systems include checking vacation records when planning
work. If this integration does not exist, then it will be necessary to keep duplicate records in the CMMS with the strong likelihood that the data will not be kept up to date;

Executive information systems - Most leading CMMS packages provide excellent tools for recording and storing detailed transactions of maintenance work. Many of these systems, however, lack good reporting facilities. There is, therefore, a need to integrate with specialized executive information systems (EIS) or decision support systems. These can provide reports and inquiries that are tailor-made to the needs of each organization or even to each user in that organization. Where key performance indicators (KPIs) are established for managing the maintenance process, this information needs to be presented to management in an easily digestible form, such as simple tables or charts. Many EISs will permit the information to be published on the organization's local network so that it is accessible by suitably authorized people using a web browser. In the area of KPIs, ERP systems have a distinct advantage because the data presented can include information gathered from other systems, such as the quantity of product made and production costs from the production control system. This would allow maintenance KPIs to include production information, for example the cost of maintenance per ton of product;

Time and attendance - Many organizations ask employees to enter information on the number of hours worked via a keyboard. But there is growing demand to record this information through the time clocks used by an organization's time and attendance system. ERP systems usually have a standard time and attendance module, so integration with the CMMS module would be easy to provide. A stand-alone CMMS will either need to provide its own system for this, which is likely to be different to time and attendance software used by the organization, or it will need to interface with the software used by the organization for time and attendance.

False friends

It is possible for stand-alone systems that have been designed in an "object oriented" manner to achieve some of the above integration through APIs. On the other hand, the CMMS module of an ERP system should be designed to achieve this integration automatically.

One should beware, however, that some ERP suppliers use third-party CMMS products that may not be properly integrated with the rest of the ERP system. It would be a false economy to make the maintenance department use the CMMS from the selected ERP supplier if it does not provide the required functionality.

Applications join together with APIs

Major enterprise resource planning (ERP) suppliers are recognizing that they may not be able to satisfy every application requirement of their customers and some customers may wish to buy a CMMS from another supplier.

Many ERP suppliers are already providing application program interfaces (APIs), which are generic interfaces that will permit, for example, a CMMS from another supplier to interface with the stock control, purchasing and financial modules of an ERP system.

It is important that the CMMS is also designed with its own APIs to facilitate this technique and this should be checked thoroughly by an IT professional prior to purchase if this type of interfacing is required.

Do not just rely on the word of a CMMS salesman that interfacing is "no problem". Use of APIs is still not as flexible and comprehensive as the integration available with a CMMS that is part of an ERP system and some interfacing such as that with production planning may be difficult to achieve using APIs.