What is a computerized maintenance management system (CMMS)?

What is a computerized maintenance management system (CMMS)?

A computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) is software that stores maintenance information and facilitates maintenance operations. With a CMMS system, maintenance teams can more effectively plan, track, measure their physical assets, ensuring their equipment, facilities, and vehicles are maintained efficiently and reliably. CMMS is also referred to as . 

What does CMMS software do?

Maintenance teams generally use CMMS solutions to centralize their asset data, plan maintenance activities, and streamline work order management. Since CMMS systems have a wide range of functionality, many maintenance teams leverage the technology as the core of their maintenance strategy. If they have specialized requirements or equipment, they may choose enterprise asset management (EAM), enterprise resource planning (ERP), or facilities management (FM) software instead.

Here are some key CMMS features that are the most important for fleets:

• Streamline Work order management: Digitally organizing and storing work orders is far more efficient than paper-based methods. A CMMS centralizes all work orders in a searchable database, enabling teams to track progress in real-time from any desktop or mobile device.

• Preventive maintenance: CMMS platforms enable fleets to automate preventive maintenance tasks and preventive maintenance scheduling, reducing the risk of equipment failure. Streamlining predictive maintenance processes makes it possible for fleets to improve asset health, reduce unplanned breakdowns, and extend the asset lifecycle.

• Asset monitoring: CMMS tracks important asset information like purchase dates, warranty information, asset maintenance history, and lifespan. This data helps fleets make informed decisions about their physical assets, .

• Labor management: A CMMS helps streamline workforce management by automating technician scheduling and task assignments. This makes it possible for fleet managers to improve resource allocation, monitor progress, and ensure accountability.

• Inventory tracking: CMMS software streamlines inventory management by tracking spare parts and materials. Maintenance teams can locate items quickly, reduce delays in repairs, and integrate inventory data directly with work requests to enhance operational efficiency.

• Maintain regulatory compliance: CMMS data helps organizations maintain compliance by storing information on all maintenance work, provides audit trails, and can generate reports showing proof of maintenance activities.

When these components are combined, fleets can set up robust maintenance strategies, complete with time-saving automations and workflows that help accelerate decision-making. This enables organizations to and , while maximizing uptime and asset performance.

What’s the difference between an on-premise CMMS and a cloud-based CMMS?

Before the rise of software-as-a-service (SaaS) products, businesses used on-premise CMMS systems for their maintenance needs. On-premise software solutions are purchased upfront, and after CMMS implementation by IT teams, the business is responsible for all maintenance and infrastructure. On-premise CMMS systems are often manual and have inefficiencies that make it difficult for fleets to streamline their maintenance processes. 

Today, fleets are implementing cloud-based CMMS software, which the CMMS provider manages. Software gets updated automatically, and new features never have to get installed by IT. 

Cloud-based CMMS operates easily on multiple platforms, including tablets and smartphones, via mobile app. One of the best CMMS software available today is Samsara. Powered by IOT technology, Samsara’s cloud-based CMMS solution leverages real-time data and AI technology to help organizations drive efficiency, savings, and a resilient, profitable fleet.

Save time and increase asset utilization with Samsara's Connected Asset Maintenance solution

A computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) is critical for fleets that need to maximize vehicle and asset uptime. Today, innovative organizations are adopting Samsara’s Connected Asset Maintenance solution to take their maintenance operations to the next level.

Samsara Connected Asset Maintenance solution is the only CMMS solution built on Samsara Intelligence. By harnessing the power of your fleet's data, you can save time and boost utilization, track costs for deeper insights, and consolidate systems for streamlined workflows.

Samsara Connected Asset Maintenance is a user-friendly platform engineered to minimize the time your vehicles spend in the shop and maximize their time on the road, directly impacting your bottom line. By consolidating critical maintenance information and streamlining key workflows, you can:

• Accelerate work order creation with automated data: Inputting a vehicle number instantly populates work order details in a holistic view on a single dashboard, resulting in a process that takes less than a minute to complete and submit. 

• Track costs and uncover problem areas: With Samsara’s Maintenance Cost reporting tool, you can integrate both internal and external vendor spend, allowing you to analyze trends by region, vehicle or asset make, service category, and more.

• Consolidate systems and processes: By having a single point of access to DVIRs, preventive maintenance, and active issues fleet-wide on a unified dashboard, you can easily understand the overall health of your operations and prioritize labor, costs, and maintenance effectively. Furthermore, you can streamline maintenance operations with native integrations and third-party APIs.

• Harness AI to reduce manual processes and improve maintenance: Use Samsara Intelligence to leverage smart alerts to quickly surface fault codes. This makes it possible  to efficiently prioritize repairs and streamline the repair process with AI-generated action steps and instructions for technicians that you can customize to your fleet.

Learn how Samsara can help you improve fleet maintenance by exploring our Vehicle Telematics solution and get in touch with our team today.