Determining CMMS needs in an industrial group

Abstract: Background: In order for manufacturing companies to stay competitive today, it is important to continuously strive towards eliminating any sources of waste. One of the tools to address waste elimination is to work with Total Productive Maintenance (TPM), which essentially is a structured way of improving the company’s machine reliability and production effectiveness through enhancing the sites maintenance operations. To fully realise the benefits of TPM, large amounts of data has to be gathered, stored and analysed, which calls for the support from an IT-system, often referred to as a CMMS (Computerised Maintenance Management System). The case company Trelleborg is an industrial group with more than 100 manufacturing sites of which most of them needs, or will need, the support from a CMMS in order to have efficient maintenance operations. Trelleborg recognised potential benefits of having the same CMMS in all of their manufacturing sites and wanted to investigate it. Problem: As a CMMS is closely linked to successfully working with TPM, that implicates that it should be beneficial for an industrial group to have a standardised CMMS to ensure every plant has the tools necessary to realise the benefits of TPM. Research on the implementation of CMM-systems has shown that the benefits of the systems greatly diminish if it is not utilised properly, and in most cases low utilisation is the result of an inadequate selection process, resulting in a poor organisational fit. Consequently, choosing a CMMS to standardise in an industrial group is a challenging task with both high risk and reward. Purpose: To develop a step-by-step procedure that can be used in order to identify the needs of a CMMS system in an industrial group. Method: As the authors aimed to both understand what criteria that are important to consider when selecting a standardised CMMS, and to use those criteria to determine the specific needs of Trelleborg group, an abductive pragmatic approach to research was held. The study was conducted with a mixed research strategy, incorporating both an embedded, single-case study and a survey strategy. The focus was to extend the current, single-plant context, theory with the practices of an industrial group, to determine what criteria are important to consider in this context. This was done through data gathering, either by interviews or a survey, from 30 of Trelleborgs plants that had a structured approach to maintenance, which then was compared to the frame of reference. The frame of reference was created through literature studies, internal material from Trelleborg and unstructured interviews with both CMMS-suppliers and Trelleborg employees. The combination of these two acted as a foundation for the analysis and the development of the need identification process, as well as further recommendations to Trelleborg. Conclusion: A number of factors that are important to consider in the standardisation of a CMMS in an industrial group, which can be categorised into six groups; group, plants, individuals, system, supplier and technology. This project also resulted in a need identification process designed to assist an industrial group in the evaluation of these factors in order to determine which requirements they have on a CMMS. The application of the process on Trelleborg yielded a need specification that they felt was relevant, and it seemed possible to find a standardised CMMS in this case. Need identification process: The developed need identification process is a 5 step approach incorporating start-up, data gathering, need elicitation and specification. It is aimed towards both ensuring that all relevant data is gathered, and that the data is converted from statements and observations into a structured need identification that can be used when evaluating which CMMS to standardise.