Labor and Parts Forecasting in a CMMS Strategy

Computerized Maintenance Management Systems (CMMS) strategies help enterprises analyze, track and report on labor, equipment, tools, and materials requirements according to maintenance and asset management plans. They further help calculate and keep a check on the machinery and resource requirements to maintain the best possible levels of workforce productivity. Since the introduction of CMMS solutions almost two decades ago, the focus has been primarily on work order management and tracking the history of costs for maintaining assets. It was only later that CMMS solutions included the budgeting aspect as well. Thus personnel in charge of maintenance could easily track their anticipated budget expenses with such a CMMS solution. In most enterprises, the operating budget, especially in the maintenance department, includes labor costs, material costs and other maintenance related costs, such as equipment rentals and 3rd party vendors and contractors. An effective CMMS strategy can handle these costs - both forecasted and historical reporting - with great efficiency.

A pertinent and relevant CMMS strategy helps in correctly gauging the values of assets and ensures that they have been accounted for. The strategy also ensures that in large maintenance projects where repairs and replacements are part and parcel of an assets retention and preservation process, all logistics and workflow associated with these process elements are factored. Any maintenance management tool should be able to budget for projects and also help control costs. It should always take into account the enterprises KPI structure and based on that, ensure that routine data collection and asset inspection identifies problem issues and facilitates modification of processes to resolve the issues. The tracking and reporting of conditions and attributes of equipment and facilities and how their location in the asset hierarchy affects operations, is a key goal of any CMMS software deployed in an enterprise.

A core part of this goal is visibility and resultant forecasts of resources required and the ability to notify and alert personnel and key suppliers or partners to ensure that they are aware of workforce plans, labor schedules and materials requirements.

The perfect enterprise asset management software should be able to account for vendor/contractor lead times, be it SLAs or even historic realities. Additionally, it should take into consideration resources that can be technical as well as those that can be impacted due to seasonal issues, like vacations or holidays. The software should empower enterprises with enhanced visibility into forecasted process management and inspections to understand if there is any requirement for technical resources, skills sets, tools or instruments, etc. The inclusion of functionality and processes that forecasts or address advance work demands, blanket POs and delivery time SLAs for critical components should be incorporated within the CMMS strategy. This means repair and condition or situation triggered work orders will also be included. An ideal CMMS strategy would necessarily take into account any impending certification expirations or training requirements.

Armed with such a perfect CMMS strategy solution, enterprises are sure to enhance their maintenance management to ensure maximized system and therefore Asset ROI.