Whether you are involved in reactive, preventive, or other maintenance tasks, or even if you just don't like things breaking. At some point you will probably be using some form of maintenance software. Better understand what it is and how it is used by learning the answers to some of the most commonly asked maintenance software questions below.
Maintenance software is a broad term used to describe any software that helps plan, track, coordinate, execute, and/or report on maintenance tasks within a company, facility, or organization.
Maintenance software is often used interchangeably with the term “maintenance management software”, but even maintenance management software can refer to a wide array of software used for a variety of purposes across a variety of teams and use cases.
Maintenance software is most often used by maintenance technicians, safety inspectors, facility managers, plant supervisors, property managers, and virtually anyone on or interacting with a maintenance team.
A maintenance team is responsible for the proper inspection, maintenance, and performance of any assets and equipment owned or used by a company or facility. As such, maintenance software allows the maintenance team to efficiently plan, track, or perform reactive, preventive, or even predictive maintenance tasks.
The type of maintenance software needed or used is highly dependent on the industry or use case being applied to it.
Examples of use cases by industry:
Example One: The transportation industry may use a fleet maintenance software in order to keep track of vehicles, the condition of those vehicles, or for tracking the expected maintenance needed or current maintenance being done on those vehicles in their fleet.
Example Two: The property management industry may use property maintenance software to allow tenants to report work that needs to be done (a work request) to their landlords, and for the landlords to assign a work order to the maintenance team, and keep track of when the work is completed.
Keep in mind maintenance is more than just fixing things that break or cleaning up other people’s messes. They are responsible for ensuring the safe operation of all assets and equipment and for minimizing downtime when breakdowns occur.
A computerized maintenance management system or CMMS software is a type of maintenance software and is usually core to the maintenance team. The term maintenance software however, can refer to a more broad range of any software used by the maintenance team including: ERP, inventory management, and many other software.
The most common maintenance software include:
There are many uses for maintenance software, this usually depends on the type of maintenance software being used. For example:
CMMS Software
CMMS software usually comprises all if not most of the maintenance team software under one product suite.
Facility Maintenance or Management Software
Facility maintenance or facility management software, keeps track of all maintenance tasks activities at a given facility or group of facilities.
Work Order or Work Request Software
Work order software is used for when internal teams must report work that needs to be done, while work request software is requested by external individuals.
Fleet Maintenance or Management Software
Fleet maintenance software tracks maintenance work on an organization's vehicles, whereas fleet management tracks vehicle history, location, as well as current and historical maintenance.
Asset Maintenance Software
Asset maintenance software is for tracking maintenance of specific assets in an organization while also factoring in amortization and other assets specific calculations.
Property Maintenance or Management Software
Property maintenance software allows for tenants or residents to report work to a landlord and for maintenance workers to track routine maintenance work on a property. Property management software is more complex and can track maintenance, as well as rent, occupancy, and more.
Parts and Inventory Management Software
Parts and inventory software for maintenance tracks how many parts are used or will be needed for maintenance.
Preventive Maintenance Software
Preventive maintenance software helps schedule maintenance tasks on assets or equipments before something breaks. Which can save money in the long term.
Equipment Maintenance Software
Equipment maintenance software allows technicians to run diagnostics as well as track work on specific pieces of equipment in the facility.
Building Maintenance Software
Building maintenance software tracks maintenance specific to tasks in the building like heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) and more, as opposed to the equipment inside the building.
Maintenance Scheduling Software
This allows maintenance technicians to plan for and schedule maintenance on both reactive and preventive maintenance tasks; for themselves and their team.
Although this is a difficult question to answer, generically speaking if you have a member of your company responsible for maintenance or you employ a maintenance team, you will find that maintenance software can increase productivity of these employees, while at the same time saving you money resulting from equipment downtime
