Maintenance managers and planners are tasked with the responsibility of making sure equipment and facilities are properly maintained. As a manager, you will be in charge of office or company equipment. It is a risky job like no other.

You have heard of employees being fired because they cannot account for a certain commodity in their managerial position. At times, they have been accused of misappropriating funds meant for purchasing certain equipment. To put a stop to this; many companies are adapting the CMMS program that helps them monitor the status of their business at their convenience.

Being able to work remotely from anywhere is what you need. Before, CMMS was only used in manufacturing companies. Currently it has grown against all odds to and are used in offices, hotels and even hospitals. As a maintenance manager, you need to know the features of this software you are adapting.

Features to consider CMMS Software.

1) Customizable

The company may grow and have new employees. Other times, the company may part ways with employees. Does it mean that when the employee is gone and you hire another one, you can’t feed him or her to the system and monitor his or her work? CMMS should be customizable to fit your business. Fiix dashboard ensures all your data is sorted in due time. You need to get a good software program that will give you instant access to the information you need, so as to improve work performance. Such intel includes; overdue work orders, items that are low on stock, work requests and repairs needed.

2) Work orders

CMMS should have features that enable you view simplified work orders. They are requested by the customers. You should see the ease in creating and assigning work since it does it for you. It also manages your work. Who would not want such features on a software? MaxPanda gives you the mobile feature option. The truth is, times have evolved. From the days when you could only find CMMS in industries and manufacturing companies, to this day when they are available even in offices and hospitals. Can you imagine if you could access all this information on a cell phone wherever you are, and at whatever time? You can do that on your desktop or even laptop. You can monitor the work status, its completion and all labor data filled in the database.

3) Calendar

You should be able to view the work plan for your business under this feature provided by the CMMS. The calendar will give you authority to view and assign duties. Some even automatically assign work on your behalf. The program should also be able to balance your technicians throughout the month, so that some don’t feel more overworked than others. Let the software decide and balance their jobs equally. The assignments are assigned according to urgency, and how the software has prioritized the issue. Under the calendar feature, you get a full overview of what maintenance is being done by who, when, where, and the current status of the repair.

4) Automated schedules

You need this feature because it will make it easier to monitor repair or work progress. The database will receive all your work requests. It will arrange them according to urgency and need. This will depend on how you have customized your CMMS program. This feature is able to generate work orders for you, and prioritize them. It should give you the specific dates and time. It has an alarm or meter reader that will indicate a matter that hasn’t been handled, or less assets in the company’s stock.

5) Mobile access

You have noticed increase in smart phones and tablets. The manufacturers have gone ahead and made affordable smart phones so that everyone can get one. You need a phone app that will enable you access this information wherever you are, and at whatever time. You should be able to quickly scan the asset barcode so as to pull up the record of the asset. You can as well scan the QR code reader to also access the same information. There and then, you are able to take a picture of the damaged asset, and create a work order on the database, on location. Once the repair is done, you can use your mobile phone to take another picture of the complete job, and attach on the work order. It will give you an analysis report of what material was used, and its availability.

6) Rotation

According to TechnologyAdvice, you need to find a feature on the software that is able to rotate materials all over, and at the same time rotate employees. It helps reduce complains of biasness from employees, and overusing of one asset. With this feature available, you cannot lose track of rotating assets. The feature will enable you to monitor movement of the work orders, people, facilities and external suppliers. It will reduce the gap between the suppliers and your shop because once you are out of stock, the supplier and manufacturer will get the request and deliver on time. Fiix will do all that for you. It will request the required material from the shop, which will be delivered by the supplier in due time to your business. This will help you know the status and location of the spares and assets.

7) Report analysis

Once you key in intel, it reflects to the database immediately. It will be available to you and other company protocol available. CMMS should give you reports on all work done and entered into the system. It will also give you the time frame. The materials used should also be indicated. Practically, you will be in a position to view all labor data entered by whoever completed the assignment. With the help of the system’s database, the CMMS draws all this and analyses to give you a report. The report helps in evaluation and efficiency. You will know the areas you need to improve on. The report will also indicate work history and tasks completed. The other importance of this is that it also gives customers’ feedback to the database.