Work Order Management
EAM solutions often give both technicians and administrators the structure, data and communication they need to quickly diagnose problems, assign technicians, schedule work orders and keep track of upcoming work.
This is achieved using features that:
- Automate purchases so you have the correct parts in the right place at the right time.
- Keep track of every spare part, including important details like purchase date, availability on certain sites, where the part is stored and more.
- Inform technicians what parts are needed for a particular prepare, and where those parts can be found.
- Track big-picture metrics like inventory costs, order histories and usage statistics.
Ultimately, this can enable you to manage both reactive and preventive maintenance requests for a comprehensive facility and maintenance management solution.
It can also facilitate better resource scheduling and enable faster repair time, thereby improving labor efficiency and reducing both labor and overtime costs.
Asset Lifecycle Management
Your assets can make or break your business’ profitability. Without proper asset management, things like unplanned downtime, emergency breakdowns and reactive maintenance policies can shorten asset lifecycle and ultimately cost your business time and money.
A robust EAM can provide you with the asset data and documentation you need to move from reactive maintenance to preventive maintenance, thereby extending asset life, decreasing unplanned downtime, streamlining asset inventory and more.
Here is how it works: with an EAM, asset history is tracked with corresponding maintenance history, which means that companies can analyze asset data and use it to make improvements. Specifically, asset tracking provides centralized, current access to important information like asset manufacturer, warranty details, purchase date, recent maintenance requests and asset location. EAM data analysis of this kind of information often helps identify trends that are used to shift to more proactive preventive and even predictive maintenance strategies. As preventive maintenance (PM) activities increase, assets tend to last longer, and, more often than not, reach their full life expectancy.
Additionally, an EAM allows for thorough asset documentation. For proper asset maintenance, it is essential that drawings, maintenance procedures and other asset-related information are directly linked to a piece of equipment, current and easily accessible.
Accessible asset documentation through an EAM speeds the repair process and supports assets being safely and properly maintained. IT can also help you make key decisions, like whether you should replace or repair a particular asset.
MRO Materials And Supply Chain Management
Assets and the MRO (maintenance, repair and operating supply) materials used to maintain them are a part of your supply chain. Your business has to order, use and keep track of countless MRO items to run properly, and your technicians need to access these parts in order to effectively complete repairs.
This can be costly. In many cases, MRO accounts can make up as much as 40% of a business’ annual procurement budget. An EAM can help you control costs and better control your supply chain with full oversight into MRO inventory procurement and management.
Safety Regulation
An EAM can help you maintain your team’s health and safety by providing straightforward, easily accessible safety requirements for every job, simplifying audits and reducing safety risk using incident analysis and process change management.
Labor Management
A key component of responsible asset management is managing the assessment, training and certification for your employees and contractors.
An EAM can help with this process by:
- Providing straightforward, easily accessible safety requirements for every job
- Simplifying audit logs
- Making safety procedures more accessible
- Allowing those in charge to track safety training
It can also help your organization effectively manage labor by allowing you to centrally manage both planned and unplanned work, from initial request through completion.
Service Contract Management
When it comes to service contracts, you have a lot to monitor – including compliance and spending – at every step of the contract lifecycle.
An EAM can help you create and manage your contracts with customers, vendors, partners and employees so you can better contain costs, mitigate risks, remain compliant and maximize your ROI.
Financial Management
Properly managing your finances and decreasing unnecessary spending can be difficult if you do not have a single source of truth from which you can gather data and get a comprehensive look at your financial information.
An EAM system cuts costs by streamlining maintenance processes:
- Preventive and predictive maintenance
- Parts and inventory management
- Calibration management
- Work order management
- Purchase order and facility rental management
This, in turn, reduces the number of emergency repairs and staffing inefficiencies, both of which can take a huge financial toll on your business. A robust EAM can also integrate seamlessly with your finance software to help you manage your accounting and project spending.
Reporting And Analytics
If you cannot effectively collect, analyze, access and apply your equipment data, your operations will be inefficient and under-productive. EAM software can help you extract meaningful data to pinpoint preventive maintenance needs and manage KPIs:
- Track equipment usage and performance, including metrics like mileage, gauge readings and operational hours.
- Create asset profiles so you know all the pertinent information about a particular machine at-a-glance, including failure codes, required safety equipment, maintenance history and more.
- Quickly generate custom reports on things like asset downtime or cost of inventory so you can answer important questions about your maintenance operations at any time.
- Connect with other relevant systems in your company so your maintenance data is always available to relevant departments and individuals.
This kind of advanced analytics can help you gain the operational insights you need to automate your processes and spot issues before they become bigger problems. That way, you can save money and make better business decisions.
Safety Regulation
A top-tier EAM tool can help give you peace of mind when it comes to the health and safety of your team by:
- Providing straightforward, easily accessible safety requirements for every job
- Simplifying audit logs and making safety procedures more accessible
- Allowing those in charge to track safety training
- Helping you document and report and environmental, health and safety concerns
- Reducing safety risk using incident analysis, corrective action traceability and process change management
Vendor Management
Beyond providing system access to vendors, facility management software solutions also enable vendor management, which includes tracking key information like certificates of insurance (COIs) and activity history.
They may also include functionality to create a rating system, allowing stakeholders to complete performance surveys to develop a preferred vendor list.
Document And Knowledge Management
One of the main benefits of a facility management software solution is having a centralized database or a single source of truth for all information related to your facilities operations.
This enables the entire team to access essential information about assets and facility processes through documentation and knowledge management within the EAM. This improves the quality of work from your team while simultaneously improving their efficiency in the process.