Graduating to CMMS - Cover Story

Engineered Systems, Feb, 2004 by William R. Sousa

In the North Andover project, the program was limited to include just the new high school in the early phase, with the caveat that the solution should be easily expandable to add additional facilities later. Since the high school construction project had already been started, adding extra responsibility for more detailed equipment data collection to the contractor's scope of work was not practical. In other building programs where the determination to have equipment data forms completed by the supplying contractors is made early, the scope of work can be simply included in the bid documents.

It is important to learn as early as possible what O&M manual information is available in which formats. Is the information available electronically or, as in the case of older existing facilities, are they dog-eared, paper versions? New construction information can be both paper and electronic, as was the NAHS. Other requirements that need to be addressed raise questions such as, "Does an existing database exist for older facilities equipment?" and "Is there an equipment numbering or label scheme in place?" Older maintenance databases need to be taken into account when developing a new solution. New facility projects that have no legacy equipment data schemes, such as the NAHS, allow a "clean sheet of paper" to put best practices in place.

Whenever a new management system is being developed, it is extremely important to learn from any existing operation's processes what works, what doesn't, and why. Existing manual or computerized maintenance management processes developed over many years have had the advantage of constant tweaking to meet the organization's needs. Understanding how they work, what are the process flows, and what arc the interlaces with other functions in the organization are all key to providing a successful, new solution within the larger organization's environment.

SYSTEM CONSTRUCTION PHASE

The selection of the CMMS software and hardware, their procurement, and setup are the next steps toward system implementation. For NAHS, RDK partnered with InterPro (www.interprosoft.com), a Boston-based maintenance management solutions firm, to identify the requirements for the CMMS application software.

Using a firm specializing in this type of software application allowed a rapid identification of best practices and a broad understanding of what would work best in North Andover's situation. The number of expected users, the number of expected pieces of equipment, the access strategy, the method of maintenance work order execution (in-house and/or out-sourced), and the potential for growth will all influence the software system requirements.

The hardware required to run the CMMS application needs to meet the user's internal standards as well as having capacity to host the software. NAPS was able to leverage existing municipal supplier relationships to procure the hardware and operating system soft ware, and its public school status gave them an advantage in procuring the CMMS. InterPro loaded the software systems on a dedicated server equipped with remote Internet access and the necessary security and communication interfaces. The system is Web-accessible not only to the NAPS staff, but also to RDK and InterPro for any needed support and administration.