The Long Road: CMMS Lessons Learned from a Former Town Manager

A Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS) is an essential part of a utility's ability to manage, maintain, and operate its facilities, assets, and equipment. For Maintenance, an effective CMMS tracks the work necessary to re-establish a system's designed reliability as well as to maintain and document the required processes and procedures to do so. For Operations, an effective CMMS informs equipment availability and compliance challenges. Also known as Enterprise Asset Management Systems (EAMS), an effective CMMS enables asset managers and financial planners to make planning and budgeting decisions. Unfortunately, over half of new CMMS implementations fail. Even worse, industry research has shown that most organizations use only a small portion of their CMMS capabilities. The good news, if there is a silver lining, is that water and wastewater utilities are not isolated in their CMMS shortcomings. This engaging session will be presented from the perspective of a seasoned CMMS consultant turned local government Town Manager. The session will be primarily from the vantage of the 8-year story of assessment to implementation through several years of use will highlight both the positives and negatives as well as the expected outcomes and surprises. The CMMS lessons learned from other utilities, from large to small, will be used to highlight commonalities and differences with the case example. A CMMS can be ineffective or underutilized for many reasons. Gulati (2012) describes eight reasons that CMMS projects fail to reach their potential. Benson and Solomon (2017) cite 11 primary reasons for CMMS shortfalls: 1.Incorrect/Incomplete/Inappropriate requirements assessment 2. Lack of management support 3.Failure to limit vendor participation 4.Developing an in-house custom system 5.Inadequate vendor research 6.Inadequate pilot testing 7.Poor implementation planning 8.Insufficient training/documentation 9.Underestimating data collection effort 10.Poorly defined maintenance work processes 11.Failure to prioritize, optimize, and limit maintenance tasks Oldach, Solomon, and Benson (2016) have shown that these reasons are often made worse when multiple departments use the same CMMS or when a centralized department (such as Finance or Information Technology) dominates over front-line operating divisions. In the case example, the water and wastewater utility led the successful Town-wide implementation and ultimately served as the key link to restoration when the CMMS fell on tough times. Seven key observations from the case example will be provided in the session: 1.Do a formal Needs Assessment 2.Pause to make sure you have the needed Organizational Capacity 3.Do a formal Implementation Program 4.Find your CMMS champion(s) 5.Success must be driven from the top 6.The system should be integrated with Finance, Purchasing, and Customer Service 7.An organization will not be effective until all operating divisions participate The scope of the functionalities of the CMMS in the case example will also be compared to other utilities. Leading CMMS software applications allow labor and expenses to be tracked at the asset level or the functional location. Ultimately any CMMS can provide computerized tracking and reporting related to asset inventory, physical condition, maintenance activity, replacement asset value, failure codes, and link to accounting and insurance systems. One fundamental question that should be simply 'just because it can do it, should we try to do it?' Scope and context also have much to do with the effective utilization of a CMMS. The learning objectives of the session are: 1. Understand how and why a CMMS fails or is underutilized 2. Apply practical lessons learned from case example to attendee's utility 3. Appreciate the dynamic nature of any CMMS in the context of organizational changes 4. Understand the importance of formal Needs Assessments and Implementation Programs. 5. Apply different organizational perspectives to communication at home utility The session is unique in that there are limited examples of a CMMS consultant eventually serving as the ultimate end user of a CMMS that he helped select and implement. It is also unique from the perspective of being able to provide a practical, 'does it work' perspective over a full timeline of use. The session will be presented at the beginner/intermediate level, with the primary underlying assumption that attendees have a general awareness of a CMMS/EAMS. The session applies to a full range of UMC attendees.