For any organization, maintenance backlogs play an important role in determining the reliability of an equipment’s operating condition, the efficiency of an organization’s maintenance plan, and the major areas of improvement in an organization’s maintenance operations. Maintenance backlogs are tasks that are ready to be done, such as preventive maintenance routines, predictive maintenance tasks, to corrective maintenance work. These tasks are critical to any business because they help to prevent safety issues, breakdowns, failures, or damage that could put you, your equipment, or your workers in danger. We all know that a certain level of maintenance backlog is inevitable, but neglecting these tasks can lead to more breakdowns, asset downtimeand a major disruption to your business operations.
Below are some tips to give you a better understanding of what a maintenance backlog is, why it’s important, and what you can do to help you manage your work order backlog.
Maintenance management is the core of your business. Not managed right it can cost you a lot of time, money, and sometimes your business. The maintenance management experience today is very different from that of spreadsheets, notebooks, pencils and paper. With the centralization and mobility of data, businesses are looking at a web-based Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS) to manage their maintenance operations.
No matter what size business or organization you have, the number of locations, or where in the world you are located, companies have similar goals:
Schedule maintenance tasks and activities, maintain historical records, and keep track of work completed.
Store all data such as work orders, history, manuals, etc., in one centralized location, and have the ability to access the information at any time from any location, via computer, smartphone, or mobile device.
Generate desired reports.
Implement a program where all of the users are comfortable using the solution.
Protection against cybersecurity.
Why you need a maintenance management software?
Without maintenance management, there can be significant delays in products and services, disruption to business operations, and an increase in expenses. Maintenance management helps companies organize and manage time and costs, to ensure the efficiency of processes and procedures while maintaining resources and controlling costs.
What is the best maintenance management solution?
Moving from spreadsheets, paper and pencils is a big step. Adopting computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) software is the first step towards streamlining and making maintenance operations at your facility cheaper, more effective, and more efficient.More on effective maintenance management.
If you would like a better understanding of CMMS software you can read this article on “What is a CMMS”.
Maintenance costs are a significant part of an organization’s budget and are usually the first department that encounters cuts. Cutting costs is only part of the solution, organizations have to work smarter and look at more innovative ways to work more efficiently and boost their return on investment.
Reducing maintenance costs is not just looking for places to cut costs; it is finding creative ways to make your investments deliver better returns.
Some ways to reduce maintenance costs include:
Getting Rid of Spreadsheets
If you are still managing your maintenance and facilities operations usingspreadsheetsthis can be costing you more money than you think! A lot of organizations start out by managing their maintenance and facilities using spreadsheets. Spreadsheets are part of a standard computer software package and are easily available. As businesses grow, keeping ahead of the competition, spreadsheets may not be the most effective way to keep up with the complicated demands of managing operations.
Spreadsheets take a lot of processing time and analysis of data, risks of errors are extremely high and are not suited for mobility, which affects team productivity and the reliability of the data.
Reduce Reactive Maintenance
Reactive maintenance also referred to as breakdown or corrective maintenance is performed only when the equipment has failed. This means no regular maintenance or repairs have been scheduled or planned to reduce breakdowns. This means that technicians may be spending a lot of hours doing reactive maintenance instead of proper planning. Equipment breakdown wastes a lot of time, slows down production and is costing you money.
Inspections are a very important part of your business. Ensuring the safety and protection of your workers and meeting compliance standards can be frustrating and complex. Trying to get everything organized and prepared for safe quality food (SQF) EPA audits, OSHA and other inspections means a lot of work and a lot of your time trying to prepare.
With the increase in regulations, safety, etc., audits and inspections are not the same as they were in the past. Having an employee walk through the department with a spreadsheet looking for signs of problems is no longer efficient. Trying to manage processes and keeping everything organized and under control requires more than a spreadsheet, pencil and paper.
Having everything stored in and accessible in a centralized system has lots of benefits and makes preparing for inspections and audits a lot easier and less challenging. A computer maintenance management system (CMMS), can help you to easily organize, store, and quickly access audit-related documents in one centralized system and create detailed reports instantly to help show that you meet inspection and audit requirements. All of this can be done from a computer, smartphone or mobile device. And anyone on the team can do this no one needs to be an expert. It is that easy. Read more….
The Cannabis industry is rapidly growing and is struggling through processes, regulations, and compliance. This industry depends on reliable, highly powerful equipment, intensity lighting, humidity control, and more to grow and process cannabis plants. The demand to manage all of the assets, equipment, the entire maintenance operations, being prepared for inspections, and meeting compliance regulations (FDA, etc.) is challenging. Managing all of the equipment, tasks and processes requires a maintenance management system that can keep up with the speed that this industry is encountering. They face many challenges to meet with the growth and the innovative technology, meet specific requirements and deliver safe products to the end-user. Read more…
To most people, “the cloud” may seem incomprehensible—it sounds like maybe a magical bank in the sky for data. While that image is far from the truth, the cloud certainly does offer some—if not magical, at least remarkable—benefits.
“The cloud. We’ve all heard the term thrown about in recent years,” says Roy Whelan, solutions director of SmartOffice. Whelan explains cloud computing means storing data on remotely accessible servers hosted on the internet. “This means businesses can manage data in a shared space and can access data from any location, not just from a local server.”
Before cloud computing, companies needed to invest in on-site servers to store their data, Whelan explains. This could get expensive with the physical requirements of the servers as they need space, physical hardware, software and maintenance, as well as an in-house IT team you’d need to manage them.
Cloud computing offers companies the chance to utilize virtual storage space on the internet. But the benefits keep building from there. If you are interested in cloud computing, read on! We asked business leaders and professionals in technology to share some of the benefits of cloud computing
7 Potential benefits of cloud computing you should know about
1. Cost
“For me, one of the biggest reasons to switch to cloud is cost,” says Greg Dickens, founder of Epilocal. “With cloud, you are only paying for server time you use, rather than having to invest lots of money up-front to run your own servers, so there’s a big cash-flow benefit there.” Dickens emphasizes that, for smaller companies and start-ups, removing that initial barrier of in-house servers can make a huge difference in their ability to compete.
A growing cloud trend, serverless architecture can further compound the savings in cloud computing, according to Dickens. “Serverless architecture deconstructs cloud servers to their absolute minimum: individual functions. So now, rather than having to rent cloud servers for the time you use them, you can rent individual functions instead.”
2. Scalability
Cloud computing is cost effective and efficient for big businesses and small businesses alike because it allows you to pay for what you use. “Cloud computing plans allow businesses to scale their data usage and computing power up or down depending on their needs and budget,” says Sebastian Schaeffer, CTO and owner of dofollow.io. Using what you need and adjusting as you go is more flexible than investing in hardware, Schaeffer points out, and many companies desire that flexibility.
For example, think of the start-up example above. If cloud computing didn’t exist, they’d have a much tougher time determining how much should be invested in infrastructure—do you tie up resources in overshooting your current needs in anticipation of growth? Incrementally add on as needed while potentially disrupting operations? Cloud computing makes these questions much easier to navigate.
3. Accessibility
Think of the sharing and collaborating capacities of platforms like Google Drive™, Dropbox® or Microsoft Teams®, and you’ll have an idea of how much the accessibility of cloud computing has revolutionized work. Cloud-based technology allows people to collaborate on the same items from anywhere, updating in real time.
“This increases productivity and efficiency due to the reduction of phone calls and unnecessary trips to gather information,” says Jeff Roscher, CEO of eWorkOrders. He points out that streamlining these processes makes work easier and faster, increasing productivity and potential profits.
As maintenance teams are preparing for the reopening ofschools and universities, they face new guidelines and challenges to ensure the safety of our children. These new guidelines and regulations bring new facility management protocols, upgrades to building systems, and the task of managing multiple vendors to ensure that the buildings are kept clean and safe.
Reducing the Transmission of Viruses
The Campus Safety and COVID-19: Clery Act Requirement Act in 2020 set stricter guidelines in keeping schools and campuses safe. Facility managers play a crucial role in ensuring that these new guidelines are met and...Read more
Downtime is a genuine danger to any manufacturing business. One of the most feared situations inside an assembling plant is that on the off chance that one area backs up, it can have a compounding effect on different areas that are waiting for parts to complete processes. Waiting for parts to complete jobs is costing you money. The longer it takes to complete these jobs, the more money it is costing you. The overall objective is to increase efficiency and reduce the amount of time that people or machines are sitting idle. An operational error, poor equipment maintenance, broken hardware or software, and various other things can escalate downtime to dangerous levels.
To help reduce losses, there are some steps that can be taken to help minimize downtime.Read more…
You’ve got control of your livestock. You’ve got control of your crops. But do you have control of your equipment maintenance?
Equipment breakdowns, depleted spare parts inventory, locating manuals and repair documents, keeping track of workers, controlling costs and keeping up with the competition. These are just some of the things that today’s farmers have to deal with. How can they keep ahead of everything and still keep their business running smoothly, while trying to keep expenses down?
Today, farmers are looking for affordable, cost-effective and easy-to-use tools to manage their farms. With the competition looking for faster and more efficient ways to manage their farms, spreadsheets are being replaced with more modern systems. The farming industry is embracing the use of software tools, such as a Computerized Maintenance System (CMMS), to get a better understanding of operating costs, extend the life of their equipment, improve processes and optimize their maintenance operations. Read more….
We take data security seriously to ensure our customer’s data is safe and protected against attacks.
eWorkOrders has an ongoing effort to maintain the security of our systems and our customer’s data. We have utilized a third party, SecurityScorecard to analyze and continuously rate how well prepared we are at preventing cyber-attacks.
After years of struggling with an out-of-date paperwork order system, we decided to go with eWorkOrders. Since going online with eWorkOrders church members and school staff are able to open work-orders and get timely feedback almost instantly. Our maintenance staff is able to easily inform the originators of the progress on their work order. It is nice to have the best of both worlds.
They could get it up and running the same day. Very full-featured. Excellent support that understood not only the product, but also my real need for it. In other words, they took the time to understand my business, not just sell their solution. Responsive, easy to understand and easy to reach. Exceptionally good value. We have tried both the Timberline and MRI service management modules and we find this product 100x easier to use. We have been very pleased since we first started using it. Not only is the product very good, but the service is over the top good. I was trying to develop a custom solution with a programmer and wasted dozens of hours and thousands of dollars to get way, way less functionality that is delivered by this product.
eWorkOrders has been a great tool for us to begin to get a handle on our work orders, no special software is required which our IT dept. loves. Our customer communication has improved greatly. The ease of use has helped us with the transition from paper work orders to electronic. The reports help us to track our progress in many areas and we are better able to provide updates to management.
This is a wonderful system. Extremely user-friendly. And the Customer Support is always available. I would recommend this system for anyone looking to implement a new work order billing system in their office.
It is very easy to setup as well. They provide excellent customer service. When I have a question or concern they respond within hours not days. That’s huge for me.
They always care about what we the customer wants. I could not ask for better support. The product is super.
eWorkOrders saves me 18 hours each month doing my customer chargebacks. A couple of clicks and one simple report generates a detailed listing with all our general ledger codes and monthly charges for our accounting department.
I have been using “informationpros” systems for several years and found the customer interface friendly and easy to use. On the rare occasion that I had an opportunity to use their support, they were fast, understanding and efficient. I will gladly recommend them to friends and associates.
Whenever we acquire a new site, one of the first things we implement is eWorkOrders. It’s the best way to service the employee population.
eWorkOrders keeps all of our work order requests organized and the ease of assigning work to multiple groups fosters collaboration amongst the various maintenance trades.
We were looking for a software solution that not only met our needs but was also flexible, scalable and affordable. We’ve had the eWorkOrders CMMS software now for more than five years and the reliability of the software has been beyond our expectations; along with the Customer Service we received.
Yovanny Director of Applications and Data Management
We are a franchise operator for over 400 restaurants including, KFC’s, Pizza Huts, Taco Bell’s, Tim Hortons, A&W’s and Long John Silvers. Our Account Manager, Norm Stepp walked us through the eWorkOrders CMMS software platform. Excellent! Norm, as well as most of the eWorkOrder Team, is a seasoned user of eWorkOrders. The implementation was quick and easy. During setup, Norm brought his expertise and provided some great recommendations and tips to help us get even more out of the system. It is a real benefit working with someone who has actually used the system. We were up and running very quickly and even the non-technical customers found it extremely easy to put in service requests. eWorkOrders came with a lot of robust features, at a very affordable price. Since using eWorkOrders we have:
