Optimize your equipment management for enhanced performance!

Equipment management, closely linked to quality management, is essential in any business sector. It aims to ensure the reliability, availability and conformity of a company's machinery and equipment, while applying a profitability approach .

The company's equipment and systems must operate optimally to meet business objectives. However, this is subject to imperatives and constraints, including competition, changing regulations, time-to-market and the need for innovation. Efficient equipment management has a positive impact not only on production, but also on other areas such as marketing, purchasing and customer service.

Maintain, upgrade, check, improve, simplify: equipment management is broken down into various activities. It includes not only maintenance, but also planning. What are the objectives and tasks of equipment management in a company? How can you effectively manage your equipment? As we shall see, there are tools to help you make the right decisions, and this is where CMMS software comes into its own!

Objectives and challenges of equipment management

Which companies are concerned?

All types of company with a fleet of equipment to maintain are concerned. These may include

• service sector companies with IT equipment (computers, printers, etc.) ;
• construction companies (tools, etc.);
• production sites (industrial machinery, etc.).

In the broadest sense of the term, equipment can include any production tool, but also intervention vehicles or personal protective equipment (PPE), for example.

The objective: to boost productivity and competitiveness

The management of a company's equipment is based on a number of different objectives, each of which contributes in one way or another to the profitability of equipment use. The aim is to better allocate resources in task management, so as to concentrate efforts on activities with the most direct impact on the company's productivity.

Good equipment management and the associated maintenance operations aim to bring greater profitability, produce the expected quantity without increasing costs, and obtain an overall view of the equipment fleet, while reducing risks for personnel. In this way, by ensuring greater reliability of its value proposition, the company builds a better image with its customers, and can thus gain in competitiveness.

More specifically, what are the expected benefits?

Benefits of good equipment management

The benefits of good equipment management include

• time savings;
• cost optimization ;
• greater supervision and better control of risks;
• a safer working environment for operators and fewer accidents;
• respect for production deadlines ;
• assurance of product quality, thanks to periodic adjustments;
• guarantee product conformity, by keeping abreast of regulatory changes;
• protecting the environment, etc.

This being the case, equipment management is of strategic importance for the entire company. It includes, in particular, upkeep and maintenance, which must be handled with the utmost care.

The strategic role of care and maintenance

An integral part of equipment management, maintenance is at the crossroads of different expectations:

• it ensures short-term operation of equipment to meet production requirements efficiently;
• it meets other medium- to long-term requirements for maintenance teams, who are responsible for ensuring that technical production resources are properly maintained: with a view to reducing costs, we need to move towards more preventive maintenance and less corrective maintenance.

Maintenance means better production. If mission-critical equipment or materials are unavailable, this leads to additional operating costs. Direct business activity can suffer the consequences, with a consequent loss of sales.

Implementing a real maintenance program can support your approach to efficient equipment management, to increase the availability of production machines without compromising on the quality of the finished product.

Investing in preventive maintenance is synonymous with return on investment, and translates into :

• improved productivity,
• fewer production stoppages,
• reduced repair time,
• fewer wasted parts, less inventory,
• improved energy consumption and management.

Finally, depending on the type of equipment concerned, a preventive maintenance program may be required by occupational health and safety organizations, as part of the maintenance requirements laid down in ISO 9000 standards.

So how do you plan and implement equipment management in practice? Depending on the size of the company's machine fleet, asset management can quickly prove complex. Let's take a look at the various actions that need to be put in place in order to proceed step by step.

How to optimize equipment management?

You're looking to optimize the monitoring and management of your equipment in a simple, efficient and cost-effective way. You want to manage your output and increase the potential of your equipment. Maintenance is a key support function, often underestimated, but gaining in importance as machines gain in complexity.

In addition to setting maintenance budgets, maintenance plays a vital role. Not only corrective or curative maintenance, but also and above all preventive maintenance, which requires the development of a dedicated program.

How do you set up a preventive maintenance system? How can you streamline its management? Here are your options:

Use a clear and efficient bill of materials

You can start by making an accurate and detailed inventory of the equipment your company owns, and in particular codify machines and production assets.

👉 An example of a naming rule:

"Equipment name - Make - Model - Location - Machine number".

Whatever tree system you choose, the important thing is that it is legible and easily exploitable by its users, so that they can quickly identify an item and locate it geographically.

Identification allows you to centralize the make and model of each piece of equipment, as well as its precise location. This information can be integrated into management software and/or recorded on a nameplate.

Identify equipment with codes or chips

To take things a step further, you can also use barcodes, QR codes or NFC chips, which can be easily retrieved from a computer or cell phone.

This digital identification saves time when it comes to managing interventions, especially for service providers or any maintenance personnel who are not yet familiar with your equipment fleet.

Closer monitoring of equipment life cycles

Once your equipment is clearly catalogued, it's a good idea to keep a record of movements and actions undertaken on your equipment fleet. This enables you to ensure constant monitoring and complete traceability of the use and condition of each piece of equipment.

Ultimately, it's the entire life cycle of the equipment that needs to be tracked: its location, the status of its use by operators (in operation, in stock, etc.), its maintenance history, its assignment to a given project, its documentation, its accessories and spare parts, and so on.

Thanks to all this data, carefully collected and logged, you can improve the safety and availability of your equipment fleet.

Provide users with access to documentation and procedures

As soon as you create equipment documentation, including serial numbers, status, date of last maintenance, etc., it's a good idea to provide easy access to this information.

You can use dedicated tools, such as :

• an equipment data sheet;
• a maintenance sheet or a machine maintenance follow-up sheet;
• service reports, work orders, etc.

The aim is to collect all the data and technical characteristics of the equipment required for maintenance, as well as the history of operations carried out, which will be of use both to the company's own departments and to external parties. The technical data sheets will be regularly updated and revised as part of a continuous improvement process.

For efficient work management, procedures need to be streamlined and known by all. For example, when ordering parts to be replaced, the process can be simplified by reducing the number of people involved. Indeed, it is sometimes the validation system during a purchasing process that can prove long and costly.

Create a preventive maintenance program

The measures to be implemented can be integrated into a maintenance program, which structures and organizes the maintenance work to be carried out. To minimize machine failure, inspection periods and frequencies should be defined: either with the help of the manual supplied by the manufacturer, or according to breakdowns and repairs that have already taken place, or based on observations made by maintenance personnel.

An order of priority can also be established according to the "criticality" of the maintenance:

• health risks,
• production stoppage,
• quality impairment,
• environmental hazards, etc.

In addition to periodicity, other factors need to be taken into account, such as the type of maintenance, the allocation of personnel to equipment maintenance, the scheduling of work, etc.In addition to periodicity, other factors need to be taken into account, such as the type of maintenance, the assignment of personnel to maintain equipment, work scheduling, spare parts inventory control, and the resources responsible for monitoring and carrying out the maintenance program.

Mistakes to avoid when managing your company's equipment

When it comes to managing equipment, there are many mistakes you can make that can be costly. Here are some of the most common ones, to save you a lot of headaches.

1. Don't ignore preventive maintenance: It will help you avoid unexpected and costly breakdowns. And lower maintenance costs.
2. Train your users regularly: Skilled operators are the guarantee of well-performed tool maintenance.
3. Choose the right equipment management software: An ergonomic tool that collects the right data saves you time and money.
4. Make data your friend : With the right tool, you'll be able to use the information gathered to plan ahead for major maintenance periods - handy for planning machine stoppages in advance!
5. Update your inventory regularly : you'll avoid redundant purchases and optimize your resources.
6. Have a clear material assignment system : for better team cohesion and maintenance that's never postponed.
7. Don't neglect Personal Protective Equipment (PPE): here too, ensure proper management of inventory, training, maintenance and inspection .
   1. Keep up to date with the latest regulations on personal safety.
   2. Clear procedures in the event of equipment failure are recommended.

CMMS software to facilitate management

What are the benefits of computer-aided maintenance management software? When it comes to managing your equipment and business systems, a dedicated software solution offers many advantages.

Benefits of CMMS software

Equipping your organization with an information system designed to address these issues enables :

• reduce costs and save time: all essential information is centralized in the solution, and tracked via a calendar;
• increased productivity: time spent on administrative tasks is freed up to concentrate on other tasks;
• proactive scheduling of preventive maintenance visits: production downtime is minimized and equipment uptime is maximized;
• equipment knowledge and organization: identifying and monitoring the status of the entire equipment pool enables better supervision, to control and manage risks;
• improved management: faster, more relevant interventions, with faster response times;
• lifecycle supervision and compliance monitoring for the entire machine fleet: traceability of all changes, history of interventions, etc.

Now it's a question of equipping yourself to work with the right tools. Which software packages can help you manage your maintenance activities effectively? Here are a few examples.

Our software selection

In this comparison table, you'll find all the software discussed in this article. All prices have been updated to April 2024.

Altair Enterprise

Altair Enterprise is a CMMS solution based on web technology, accessible from any browser and featuring almost 250 functions. Flexible and scalable, it adapts to the needs of your organization and enables you to manage data relating to your equipment and maintenance, including schedules and requests for intervention.

inoteam.com

Altair Enterprise strengths :

• user rights management and screen customization,
• software designed by experts in the field,
• ergonomic, user-friendly interface.

Dimo Maint

Dimo Maint is a complete software package for computer-aided maintenance management. In terms of equipment management, it offers a global vision of your assets: all information concerning your equipment is accessible, from technical description to interventions carried out, including accounting data.

Dimo Maint

Dimo Maint's strengths :

• unlimited number of tree levels,
• equipment movement and allocation history,
• preventive maintenance management, with alert system.

Ermeo

When it comes to monitoring your equipment, consider the Ermeo web and mobile solution, which digitizes all operational processes in the industrial sector to boost productivity and safety.

Create inspection forms and control or audit sheets without IT knowledge, then make them accessible to field operatives for their maintenance routinesManage and reference your assets in a comprehensive, centralized database, providing a 360° view of fleet status.

Ermeo's strengths :

• provides an ergonomic, no-code editing studio for creating dynamic, interactive, pre-fillable forms that can be used without a connection;
• interfaces with a wide range of software (CMMS, EDM, BI, etc.) to take full advantage of your mobility;
• offers in-depth personalized support to help you make the most of all its functionalities.

Pricing on request.

Hector

Hector is a modular, scalable and easy-to-use inventory and equipment management software package that supports you at every stage of your business, from loaning equipment to your staff, to periodic maintenance, inventory tracking and fleet renewal .

Whether it's your IT fleet, tools, vehicles or audiovisual equipment, Hector provides complete, real-time , fully centralizedequipment management . Finally, thanks to a mobile application and an open API, you can manage your equipment from any device, and integrate Hector with other solutions you're already using.

Hector's strengths :

• a loan management system for ultra-detailed tracking of the various stages of an equipment loan: registration, preparation, assignment, receipt, return, re-inventorying, breakage, handling, etc ;
• real-time monitoring of asset depreciation: you can track the lifespan of each piece of equipment, based on the number of times it has been borrowed, for example;
• an intuitive and rapid equipment loan request system: employees make a request via the platform, and all you have to do is define the validation system: either by a member of staff, or by automated free management.

Available from €237.49 per year, or €19.95/month on annual invoicing, for 100 assets tracked, with 15-day trial.

Twimm.me

Twimm.me is a solution dedicated to property owners and managers. It enables them to obtain an overview of all the sites they manage, and to visualize all the equipment installed within their estate, with their technical data sheets and operating status directly accessible within the application. As a property manager, you can monitor the activity of maintenance contractors and the real-time status of planned interventions on your property.

Twimm

The strengths of Twimm.me :

• facilitated communication and exchanges between all the players involved: managers, service providers, technicians, etc., in a shared space,
• a platform that interfaces with other solutions such as ERP or accounting software,
• automatic generation of service activity reports .

Equipping yourself with the right tools can't be improvised!

Whether you're a company director in the service sector, a plant manager, a production operator, or a manager or service provider in the maintenance industry, your central concerns remain similar: you want to maximize the potential and uptime of the equipment under your responsibility, with simplicity and efficiency.

As machines become increasingly complex, your approach to their care and maintenance needs to be structured and formalized. The aim is to be more proactive and less reactive, in other words, more proactive than reactive. Maintenance takes on a key importance that must not be overlooked.

Your choice of tool will therefore be decisive: it must be flexible and adaptable to the reality of your business, depending on the type of equipment, complexity and scale of your asset base to be managed. Similarly, you'll want to choose software that's easy to use, scalable and backed up by high-quality support services, to ensure that it integrates seamlessly with your processes and teams.

Don't hesitate to ask for a free demonstration or trial version of the tool you choose to test!