Traditionally, equipment maintenance referred to machinery with moving parts and pieces.  Today, it is increasingly including servers and other computerized hardware. So how does this shift affect manufacturers’ priorities when it comes to managing and maintaining equipment?

In May 2012, IndustryWeek released the results of a survey where they calculated an average cost per server downtime of $18,286 and a total annual cost of IT downtime of $65,830. Given that IT downtime can lead to high, unexpected costs, you would think that maintaining IT systems is top of mind for many manufacturing companies; IndustryWeek’s survey leads us to believe that’s not always the case. Of the companies surveyed, only three out of seven respondents said they had a strategy in place for keeping critical applications up and running.

Have you thought about a strategy to manage and maintain your company’s IT systems?

Make sure equipment maintenance is an integrated part of your manufacturing solution.

Often the selection of business application software is too big in scope or the review process simply leaves out some areas. CMMIS (computerized maintenance management information systems) is one such area sometimes overlooked. But should it be? The IndustryWeek survey results, combined with increased reliance on services and computerized hardware in the manufacturing industry, leads us to believe that equipment maintenance may need to reside higher on the priority list for manufacturers.

Computerized Maintenance Management Information Systems (CMMIS)

CMMIS packages were developed in response to the need to help maintenance workers do their jobs, tracks costs, tools, and supplies.  Today, equipment maintenance is a profession in in its own right and these professionals need tools to manage maintenance operations in line with today’s business environment. A CMMIS can also help track failure data for analysis and proves useful for decision making on what to purchase, replace, repair, return, and when. Functions to automate periodic maintenance exist to create maintenance schedules based on manufacturer recommendations, a calculation of probabilities, or a simple application of the bathtub curve. 

Consider legal and regulatory factors.

The legal and regulatory environment is another key reason why equipment maintenance systems have to be a part of your overall business software solution. Even if quality and compliance are not significance parts of your business right now, one change in a law or regulation can make it a significant part of your business at any time. 

When taking a close look at your business system requirements and evaluating a manufacturing solution provider, check to see if equipment maintenance is available as an integrated part of the solution. Finding a manufacturing solution that offers integrated equipment maintenance will not only help your production managers be able to seamlessly incorporate maintenance downtimes into production schedules, but it will also help you prevent costly IT downtimes.