It’s one of the most important but overlooked tasks in many organizations: Maintenance management. For industry sectors like oil & gas, manufacturing and utilities — as well as any company with a field services organization — it’s absolutely vital to a companies’ health. But it’s important for almost any company.One of the best ways to perform better maintenance is to deploy a computerized maintenance management system (CMMS). Better yet is a mobile CMMS, given that much maintenance needs to be performed not in a central location, but in many different ones.
A survey from Software Advice, Mobile CMMS Software UserView offer a great deal of insight and advice about how mobile CMMSes are being used, what you need in one, and more. Let’s start off with what may be the most important finding: Respondents find mobile CMMSes improve people’s efficiency. A full 43% say a mobile CMMS offers a significant increase in efficiency, with 28% reporting a moderate increase. Only 13% reported no increase, while 16% said they had seen a minimal increase.
People who use mobile CMMS on a tablet rather than smartphone say they’ve had the most increase in efficiency: 65% report a significant increase, versus 41% who use smartphones, and a little under 20% for those who use both.
The most-used feature, by a slim margin, is inventory tracking, cited by 25% of users, followed by preventative maintenance, cited by 24%, then asset tracking (19%), predictive maintenance (17%) and work order management (15%).
The top benefit gained with a mobile CMMS is improved work order tracking, cited as the most important benefit by 42% of respondents. That’s followed by 21% who say it helps them make more informed decisions, 20% who say it increases productivity, and 17% who say it leads to decreased asset downtime.
Most Important and Most Used Mobile CMMS Features
As to what users want in a mobile CMMS, 40% say the most important requirement is real-time data access on all devices, followed by 32% who say an easy-to-use interface is important, and 28% who point to full functionality on a mobile device.
The most-used feature, by a slim margin, is inventory tracking, cited by 25% of users, followed by preventative maintenance, cited by 24%, then asset tracking (19%), predictive maintenance (17%) and work order management (15%).
Finally, workers use tablets more than they use smartphones for accessing a mobile CMMS, with 44% accessing one only on a tablet, 35% on a smartphone, and 21% on both.
The heart of a mobile CMMS system are forms. When building mobile forms, it’s important that they be mobile-optimized, and not just replicate paper-based forms. Alpha Software CTO Dan Bricklin explains, “These are applications that run on the tablet that can take advantage of a wide range of input types, that can have input means that are tailored to the needs of the particular data type and data values being entered, that can have layouts that are flexible, and that are customizable to the needs of the particular task.”
Learn how Alpha Anywhere can help you build sophisticated mobile-optimized forms.
Know more information about Bricklin’s recommendations on how to build the best tablet-based forms.
Also important for a mobile CMMS is that it be able to work even when Internet access isn’t available.More details about how Alpha Software lets you create mobile apps that work even when offline.
Read the Mobile CMMS Software UserView survey.
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