Facilities As Assets - Effective Building Maintenance: Protection of Capital Assets - page 17

their jobs more effectively (for example, determining which storerooms
contain the spare parts they need) and to help management make in-
formed decisions (for example, calculating the cost of maintenance for
each piece of equipment used by the organization, possibly leading to
better allocation of resources). The information may also be useful when
dealing with third parties; if, for example, an organization is involved in
a liability case, the data in a CMMS database can serve as evidence that
proper safety maintenance has been performed.
Different CMMS packages offer a wide range of capabilities and
cover a correspondingly wide range of prices. A typical package deals
with some or all of the following:
1. Work orders: Scheduling maintenance procedures, assigning per-
sonnel, reserving materials, recording costs, and tracking relevant
information such as the cause of the problem (if any), downtime
involved (if any), and recommendations for future action
2. Preventative maintenance (PM): Keeping track of PM components
and procedures, including step-by-step instructions or check-lists,
lists of materials required, and other pertinent details. Typically, the
CMMS schedules PM jobs automatically based on required service
and repair intervals.
3. Asset management: Recording data about equipment and property
including specifications, warranty information, service contracts,
spare parts, purchase date, expected lifetime, and anything else that
might be of help to management or maintenance workers.
4. Inventory control: Management of spare parts, tools, and other
materials including the reservation of materials for particular jobs,
recording where materials are stored, determining when more ma-
terials should be purchased, tracking shipment receipts, and taking
inventory.
CMMS packages can produce status reports and documents giving
details or summaries of maintenance activities. The more sophisticated
the package, the more analysis facilities are available.
Many CMMS packages can be either web-based, meaning they are
hosted by the company selling the product on an outside server, or local,