Equipment Maintenance Software For Maximising Reliability for Machinery, Tools, and Vehicles
Equipment Maintenance Software provides in-depth equipment-focused tools that allow technicians to automate and deploy proactive maintenance strategies to deliver greater uptime and reliability of heavy equipment.
What Type of Maintenance Jobs/Work Orders Do You Do?
What Is Equipment Maintenance Software?
Equipment Maintenance Software is a system used by maintenance managers to plan, schedule, track, and analyse maintenance activities for equipment. It differs from tools like CMMS Software in that it focuses primarily on equipment maintenance activities.
That includes maintenance for heavy equipment, construction equipment, farm equipment, and specialised equipment maintenance.
The driving objectives for deploying Equipment Maintenance Software are four-fold:
- Reduce downtime/equipment failure (82% of companies experience unplanned downtime at least once every three years)
- Increase the reliability of ageing equipment reducing costly churn rates
- Maximise equipment’s optimal working condition and output
- Standardise operational safety for heavy equipment
To achieve these goals, an equipment management system provides features such as workflow management, maintenance scheduling, work order management, inventory management, and reporting and analytics.
These features allow maintenance teams to deploy preventive, predictive, condition-based, and corrective maintenance strategies for equipment. With a comprehensive maintenance management plan, companies can see an ROI of up to 545% over 5 years.
8 Most Recommended Equipment Management & Maintenance Systems
Mainsaver by Spidex
The Product
A maintenance management solution with embedded HS&E features, strong integration capabilities and on-premise deployment.
Ideal For
Medium to enterprise-sized organisations looking to implement a sustainable, strategic maintenance transformation
Industry Fit
Manufacturing, Pharma, Automotive, Food and Beverages, and Waste Management
Pricing
From £10,000
Maintmaster
The Product
A self-configurable CMMS with fixed software, implementation, training and support costs.
Ideal For
Organisations looking for a low TCO, self-configurable CMMS with out-of-the-box compliance capabilities
Industry Fit
Manufacturing, Logistics and Distribution, Utilities, Food and Beverages, and Waste Management
Pricing
From £12 per user, per month
MaintainX
The Product
A scalable solution designed to standardise work across multiple operations, with a library of customisable processes and integrated messaging.
Ideal For
Organisations looking for a self-service maintenance management solution that can be easily scaled
Industry Fit
Manufacturing, Buildings and Facilities, Food and Beverages, Hospitality, and Education
Pricing
From £13 per user, per month
Shiresystem
The Product
A modular maintenance management solution that replaces manual H&S, asset and maintenance processes.
Ideal For
A modular maintenance management solution that replaces manual H&S, asset and maintenance processes
Industry Fit
Manufacturing, Food and Beverages, Engineering, Construction, and Automotive
Pricing
From £744 per annum
Emaint
The Product
A comprehensive, configurable solution for demanding industries and context-driven workflows.
Ideal For
Organisations in asset and maintenance-intensive industries with data-rich workflows
Industry Fit
Automotive, Food and Beverages, Buildings and Facilities, Oil and Gas, and Manufacturing
Pricing
From £59 per user, per month
Workmate By Cayman
The Product
A quick-to-implement, all-in-one CMMS solution with flexible deployment.
Ideal For
Organisations with 3+ maintenance engineers
Industry Fit
Manufacturing, Food and Beverages, Engineering, Construction, and Logistics and Distribution
Pricing
From £1,490
IFS Ultimo
The Product
A lifecycle-focused asset and maintenance management solution with integrated maintenance, operations and HSE capabilities.
Ideal For
Organisations responsible for complex asset, project, facility and plant lifecycles
Industry Fit
Manufacturing, Chemicals, Energy, Healthcare, and Logistics and Distribution
Pricing
From £54 per user, per month
Fiix
The Product
A CMMS solution that connects rapidly to production and business systems and provides AI-driven insights.
Ideal For
Organisations in equipment-intensive, reliability-focused industries
Industry Fit
Manufacturing, Oil and Gas, Utilities, Retail, Engineering, and construction
Pricing
From £40 per user, per month
How Equipment Maintenance Software Prioritises Uptime and Output Efficiency
Features For Driving Equipment Reliability & Reducing Downtime
- Inventory Management: Important for allocating resources (spare parts or replacements) for corrective or preventive maintenance tasks.
- Equipment Maintenance Scheduling: Scheduling routine maintenance, services, and checks prompts a preventive approach to equipment maintenance. In the product dashboard, scheduled maintenance is shown in calendar format. This displays when work orders were raised and when maintenance is due.
- Maintenance Tracking: Equipment Management Software dashboards allow managers, supervisors, and technicians to see all in-progress maintenance activities and if they meet OEE targets.
- Work Order Management: The essence of scheduling preventive maintenance; work order management helps to create, prioritise, and assign work orders. Photos, manuals, checklists, and failure codes can also be attached to improve inspection and repair times.
Features For Prolonging Optimal Equipment Lifecycle
- Equipment Maintenance Planning (Preventive & Corrective): This is integral for scheduled equipment downtime affecting production lines. A preventive example would be if an oil refinery plans to service a heavy reactor, the entire plant needs to be shut down. Effective maintenance planning is required to allow operations to be back up and running as soon as possible.
- Equipment Data Analytics: Understanding equipment performance through real-time analytics (with predictive maintenance strategies) creates a foundation for addressing ageing equipment and prolonging lifecycles. This helps to understand ROI if a piece of equipment should be repaired, replaced, or scrapped. Maintenance to prolong equipment life costs just 2-3% of the amount needed to replace equipment per year.
- Creating Maintenance Workflows: Understanding what maintenance activities should be assigned and when depending on set thresholds and alerts.
- Mobile Access for Technicians: Mobile access to Equipment Maintenance Software dashboards brings a greater pace to equipment maintenance. It allows technicians to track work orders and access checklists and maintenance logs in the field.
Find Equipment Maintenance Software That Matches Your Equipment Uptime Requirements
What Type of Maintenance Jobs/Work Orders Do You Do?
The 4 Most Common Equipment Maintenance Methods
1. Preventive Equipment Maintenance
Preventive maintenance reduces the likelihood of unplanned downtime for equipment by routinely scheduling checks, services, and maintenance activities.
When it comes to maintenance management, a preventative approach is the most popular. 80% of maintenance leaders view preventive maintenance as a top priority compared to reactive and predictive plans.
Pros of Preventive Equipment Maintenance | Cons of Preventive Equipment Maintenance |
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2. Predictive Equipment Maintenance
Predictive maintenance programs utilise data collected from IoT sensors and condition-monitoring devices to analyse patterns in equipment performance and predict when failures will occur.
Predictive maintenance reduces maintenance costs by 25-30%, breakdowns by 70-75%, and downtime by 35-45%. 91% of manufacturers who deployed a predictive maintenance program saw a reduction in repair time.
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3. Condition-Based Equipment Maintenance
Deploying condition-based monitoring techniques for equipment involves the real-time monitoring of operating conditions through advanced sensors. Once identified, a set trigger event occurs and notifies of the maintenance required.
CBM can be condensed into a 3-stop method:
- Sensors collect equipment data
- Equipment management tools analyse equipment data
- Maintenance teams make decisions based on equipment failure probabilities
Pros of Condition-Based Equipment Maintenance | Cons of Condition-Based Equipment Maintenance |
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4. Corrective/Reactive Equipment Maintenance
A corrective, or reactive, approach to equipment management means only addressing an issue once it has happened. Although this approach can be time-consuming, expensive (it has a 40% higher cost expectancy than preventive maintenance), and result in unplanned downtime, it is unavoidable in certain scenarios.
Take a jammed printer for example. This is a situation that can not be planned for. So, instead, it becomes a reactive maintenance task as a work order is raised and prioritised to fix the printer.
Pros of Corrective Equipment Maintenance | Cons of Corrective Equipment Maintenance |
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How Industries Benefit and Thrive From Equipment Management Tools
Equipment Maintenance Software is utilised primarily by organisations reliant on equipment uptime for overall business operations.
For instance, although a maintenance system can benefit an e-commerce business in terms of managing computer and server maintenance, it would prominently impact a CNC machinery plant more.
Six key industries utilise equipment maintenance systems:
- Manufacturing: Plants and workshops require regular equipment maintenance to keep machinery operating at optimal performance and reduce unplanned downtime. A focus on equipment maintenance practices plays a role in achieving the gold standard for Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE).
- Construction: Heavy equipment maintenance is required on construction sites to ensure operational safety on-site. A preventive approach to heavy equipment maintenance encourages a prolonged equipment life cycle, which reduces the chance of unplanned downtime causing jobs to be delayed or cancelled.
- Agriculture: In peak farming season, equipment must be operational at the time of need. If equipment fails during a harvest, that harvest is delayed and possibly scrapped altogether. Regular farm equipment management programs prolong equipment lifespan too, enabling farmers to keep within strict budgets year-on-year.
- Oil and Gas: Oilfield equipment maintenance is crucial for identifying safety risks and preventing catastrophic failures. Preventive maintenance planning and non-destructive testing (NDT) methods are deployed to avoid corrosion, erosion, and wear-and-tear of ageing equipment.
- Food and Beverage: The upkeep of specialised equipment in the food and beverages industry includes freezers, coolers, and customised temperature-controlled vehicles. This is required to meet UK food and safety standards and avoid outcomes such as cross-contamination.
- Facilities Management: Although specific facilities management systems are available (like CAFM Software), facility managers choose to digitally handle equipment management tasks only, like building preventive maintenance planning for an HVAC unit to comply with energy efficiency targets.
Real-World Examples of Successful Equipment Maintenance
HVAC Equipment Life Expectancy
Studies by the US Department of Energy and the Building Owners and Managers Association (reported by ramech) analyse the comparison of maintenance approaches to HVAC equipment. The first is showing the difference in cost per horsepower (HP) per year (YR):
- Reactive maintenance (run to failure): $18/HP/YR
- Preventative maintenance (Time-Based): $13/HP/YR
- Preventative maintenance (Condition-Based): $9/HP/YR
The study then compared the expected life of a 20-ton air conditioner unit, with a 14-year life expectancy, that had been poorly maintained against one that had been well-maintained.
As shown below, the well-maintenance equipment (curve 2) reached its 14-year expectancy while maintaining high output. Whereas the poorly maintained equipment (curve 1) saw year-on-year performance drops and had a life expectancy of just 9 years.
A Global Mining Company’s Preventive Win
A leading global mining company deployed industrial Equipment Maintenance Software (uptake) to predict and prevent failures. These failures were causing significant unplanned downtime of equipment used for transporting iron ore from mining sites to the seaport.
This company had already collected huge amounts of historical data regarding Wheel Impact Load Detection (WILD), Wheel Condition Monitoring (WCM), Hot-Box Temperature Detection (HBD), and Bearing Acoustic Measurement (BAM). So they deployed the AI-powered equipment maintenance system for its advanced analytics capabilities.
By doing so, the system could prescribe recommended solutions based on predictive outcomes. They reduced downtime of unscheduled maintenance, on average, by 50%. Saving $34 million in maintenance costs over 5 years.
Equipment Maintenance Software or a CMMS?
An equipment management system is primarily focused on managing and maintaining individual equipment. Whereas a CMMS focuses on all aspects of the maintenance process, which is ideal for more complex maintenance management.
Essentially, both solutions offer maintenance managers the same capabilities, although a CMMS has a broader scope. Equipment Maintenance Software can be seen as a subset of CMMS Software.
Alternative Methods For Maintaining Equipment
There are other methods for focusing on equipment maintenance aside from implementing an equipment maintenance system. The top three methods of maintenance management are pen-and-paper (39%), spreadsheets (52%), and software (63%).
These alternative options are handy to keep in mind when factoring in budgets, requirements, and time:
- Excel Spreadsheets
- Paper-based systems
- Cloud-based maintenance management tools designed for SMBs with fewer capabilities
- Customised maintenance management packages for areas focused on heavy equipment, construction, agriculture, and more
- CMMS Software
- Computer-aided facilities management system
- Design for Reliability (DfR) practices
- Continuous Improvement (CI) programs