Time is money: Tips for using maintenance software to save time and spend more efficiently

This post is part of a series detailing the benefits of digital transformation in maintenance and how facilities can establish best practices and improve asset management by using maintenance software. Check out the other articles in this series:

• Major league maintenance: How to cut costs and boost revenue with digital maintenance technology
• Knowledge is power: How to improve asset reliability with a digital knowledge hub
• Break free from breakdowns: 7 ways to reduce downtime by updating your maintenance technology

Time is money; a phrase that couldn’t be truer for manufacturers. Even a few minutes of extra productivity can mean the difference between success and failure at many facilities. Saving time on everything from routine maintenance to creating reports can lead to higher production levels, increased revenue and higher morale.

However, there are many challenges to face in the quest to save time. Most maintenance professionals barely have a minute to spare between repairs, reporting, preparing for audits, tracking inventory, and compliance tasks—to name a few. There’s just not enough time in the day. If that’s not enough, attempts to carve out more time can often lead to worse results. Rushing, shortcuts and band-aid solutions can save time now, but often cost more in time, money and safety later on.

Technology, like maintenance software, is one way to bridge the gap between an overwhelming to-do list and cutting corners to save time. For instance, facilities where most personnel using maintenance software report greater improvements in labour efficiency. And there are more benefits to using maintenance software to save time in a safe and efficient way, including lower costs, more uptime, a safer workplace and easier audits.

How to save time and improve asset reliability by using maintenance software

Here are five ways that software can help your maintenance team save time and reap the rewards.

Make preventive maintenance more efficient

Using maintenance software like a CMMS help technicians and managers schedule preventive maintenance and set up triggers for tasks. This way, maintenance, repairs and checks are only done when necessary and time-wasting breakdowns are less likely to occur. Using digital tools, PMs can also be assigned to specific technicians, which cuts redundancies and maximizes everyone’s time.

Eliminate paper and spreadsheets

Shuffling through papers, making notes, writing down tasks and creating spreadsheets can take up a lot of time. Using maintenance software allows teams to eliminate pen-and-paper and spreadsheet methods of record keeping. Instead, this information can be documented, organized, accessed and archived digitally. When all these items are collected into one place, time is not spent creating, searching and filing on separate platforms.

Organize work orders

Paper and spreadsheet-based work orders have lots of limitations that lead to wasted time. These limitations include not being able to access them from anywhere and not being able to easily see the status and priority of projects. With mobile maintenance software, team members are privy to all this information with the touch of a button. This helps technicians quickly prioritize daily tasks and transition from one task to another quicker.

Create reports faster

Without a software solution in place, creating a report requires pulling together numbers from a variety of paper documents and/or spreadsheets. This takes time and increases the chances of mistakes. With a digital solution, such as a CMMS, data from assets and work orders is tracked in real-time and can be sorted into reports easily.

Provide better resources for repairs

Unplanned maintenance is an inevitability, but being prepared with the right tools can cut repair time while increasing productivity and helping maintenance teams take control of backlogs. Using maintenance software provides an opportunity to attach documents, manuals, checklists, root cause analysis details and other information to assets. With all these resources in one place and easily accessible, time is not spent tracking down documents or using a trial-and-error method of repairing the problem.

7 features of the Fiix CMMS that help maintenance teams spend their time more efficiently

The following are a few key tools within Fiix’s CMMS that can be used to save time so you can improve maintenance by focusing less on breakdowns, backlogs and data entry and more on and reliability, efficiency and growth.

Work request portal

A work request portal allows users to track the status of all maintenance work requests. Users don’t have to follow up with maintenance directly, which eliminates a lot of follow-ups, distractions, and delays. The portal can also be customized so a request has all the key information your maintenance team needs to get the job done without guesswork or needing to hunt down the person who submitted the request to get clarification.

Report writer and scheduler

The report writer tool allows users to drill down into maintenance data without collecting the numbers through multiple paper forms or Excel spreadsheets. Analysis is quicker, reports are delivered sooner and action can be taken without wasting time. The report scheduler takes the time savings one step further. The feature gives users a chance to automate frequent maintenance reports so you don’t need to sit down every day, week, month or quarter just to fill in a template.

Mobile work orders

Using Fiix’s mobile CMMS to create, organize and track work orders  helps to improve maintenance and opens the door to a variety of time-saving opportunities. Writing, submitting, prioritizing and assigning work orders can be done right from a user’s mobile device. This cuts down on the time spent on work orders every step of the way. Preventive maintenance tasks can also be scheduled through the mobile maintenance app, so time isn’t spent jotting down duties every month and technicians are alerted right away.

Stock levels and minimum quantities

Fiix’s maintenance software allows users to set stock levels and automatically trigger low stock notifications by setting a minimum quantity. Inventory levels can be viewed using the digital platform so you don’t have to spend time visiting the storeroom for parts or count how many of each part is available. Users are also notified when they are running low on a part, which means fewer trips to count essential pieces of equipment and less time spent inputting numbers on a computer.

Checklists

Although preventive maintenance tasks save time in the long run, an inefficient process can make things drag on and on. Technicians frequently spend time consulting various paper materials, retrieving lists and records or finding and talking to those who know the asset best. With Fiix’s CMMS, preventive maintenance checklists can be added to assets. This standardizes each task, which can improve maintenance and reduce the time it takes to perform checks, regardless of who is responsible for the task.

Requests for quotes

Keeping up with inventory is time-consuming. The ordering process is one of the biggest opportunities a facility has to save time. The request for quotes feature on the CMMS software allows users to set up automatically triggered RFQs to selected suppliers when parts run low. Not only does this save you the time of tracking parts and creating requests, but it also cuts down on the time between needing equipment and receiving it. The outcome is less downtime and fewer backlogs.

Standard failure codes

A failure code is the reason an asset failed or broke down. Facilities can set up the Fiix CMMS with common failure codes. Technicians can then quickly select a pre-set failure code while completing a work order, which explains what went wrong. This allows managers to quickly spot trends and improve maintenance by preventing future failures instead of sorting through paper work orders or spreadsheets. Failure codes provide consistency, makes reporting easier and allows technicians to find the best solution in the quickest time.

Learn more about using cloud-based maintenance tools to save time and optimize your work day:

• How to create a balanced maintenance program using reactive, preventive and predictive maintenance
• How Much Time Is Data Entry Costing You?
• How five companies found CMMS success