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Why Your Maintenance Strategy is Only as Good as the Data in your CMMS

Why Your Maintenance Strategy is Only as Good as the Data in your CMMS
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Whether your maintenance scheduling and inventory control tasks depend on SAP, Maximo, Asset Suite, eMaint or another CMMS, it is only as good as the data it uses. With clean, complete data, manufacturing firms can rest assured that the right parts are in stock at the right time and in the right place.

The Maintenance team’s problem is like everyone else’s. It’s an overwhelming task to figure out how to clean up their data, how to build a reliability strategy, and how to build an asset life optimization strategy while doing their everyday job.

Data is King

Good data provides maintenance management leaders the flexibility to coordinate planned machine downtimes to minimize disruption of production. Improved MRO supply data quality also helps managers better utilize their production assets, improve the reliability of their production assets, and improve the productivity of their labor teams. Good data in their CMMS helps planners build the maintenance schedule. Instead of always putting out fires, this helps them become more strategic and helps improve the reliability of their production assets and teams.

The Foundation of a More Connected Supply Chain

Maintenance teams look to their CMMS to drive their maintenance strategy. But the quality of the data residing in those systems may be incomplete, and their maintenance programs could suffer.

  • Stock-outs of critical spares
  • Maintenance technicians spending up to 35% of their time searching for parts
  • Inaccurate inventory data leading to increased machine downtime
  • Misplaced or mislabeled parts used in the wrong environment could lead to asset failure, contamination, or worse

SDI understands the importance of clean, reliable data and helps improve the integrity of data in several ways.

  • Ensuring the latest specifications, part numbers, and sourcing information
  • Standardizing nomenclature, descriptions, and SKUs
  • Maintaining detailed procedures, schedules and best maintenance practices in the storeroom

SDI helps our clients bridge the gap between their CMMS or ERP and their maintenance team’s reliability on good data. Our clients’ systems exchange data with our Innovative MRO Technology, ZEUS. Their systems tell ZEUS the work orders, and ZEUS feeds good data into their systems. It’s important because good data is the foundation for everything.

And Data isn’t just the descriptions, which could be incomplete or not standardized for look up. It also includes:

  • Location of the part. This should be specific down to the bin in the storeroom and include point-of-use vending systems and sister locations
  • Source or manufacturer
  • Lead time.  How long does it take to get?
  • Criticality. Is this part critical for the production line to function?
  • Quantity on hand.

This data enables maintenance teams to build:

  • BOMs (bill of materials) on their production assets
  • Repair strategy (what to repair vs. what to purchase new)
  • OEM strategy (what to purchase direct from the original equipment manufacturer vs. reverse engineering).

Good data in their CMMS allows them to go from tactical to more strategic. So their maintenance strategy can go from day-to-day fire-fighting to asset lifecycle optimization and improving their overall equipment effectiveness.

The SDI Advantage

For over 47 years, SDI has helped North American manufacturers collect spare part data, improve the quality of existing data residing in their CMMS, and properly organize the storerooms. We create the actionable data to help maintenance teams do their jobs easier.

To find out how SDI’s technology and process expertise can help you maintain your data’s integrity and optimize your warehouse operations, contact us today.

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