7 Steps For Successful CMMS Implementation & Rollout

CMMS implementation can be complex, time-consuming, and expensive. On average, between 50-80% of all digital transformations breakdown, and CMMS is no different. 70% of CMMS Software implementations fail, citing poor project management and communication as the leading causes.

Yet, the outcome of successful implementation is substantial. It empowers organisations to implement maintenance workflows that reduce downtime, improve Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE), and organise maintenance data.

CMMS implementation opens the door for preventive, condition-based, and predictive maintenance plans. The latter yielding, on average, a 91% decrease in unplanned downtime and a 20% increase in asset longevity.

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How Long Does CMMS Implementation Take?

Typically, deploying a CMMS takes between 3 weeks to 18 months. That’s when factoring in vendor research, purchasing and negotiation, and implementation. This also depends on the type of system and business size (SMB or enterprise). With some larger on-premise solutions taking up to 3 years to roll out company-wide.

Consider an organisation with 50 pieces of equipment and over 100 employees. When following a well-structured CMMS implementation plan, the average timeline for the complete roll-out of a new system is 8 months:

• Preparation and project planning takes 1 month
• Configuration and data cleanup takes up to 2 months
• Employee training and education takes 1 month
• Testing and troubleshooting takes 1 month
• Company-wide roll-out takes up to 3 months

Although this may be longer than anticipated, it isn’t necessarily bad as it ensures all steps have been taken and gives the best possible chance of successful implementation.

Pre-CMMS Implementation Checklist

1. Gather information from the procurement team: To help with timeline planning and prioritising tasks, gather as much information as possible from the procurement team and stakeholders. That includes ROI expectations, initial reasons for purchasing a CMMS, and intended maintenance strategy.
2. Understand the type of implementation required: Communicate with stakeholders on what implementation is needed for this new system. Types include agile, direct, phased, big bang, parallel, and hybrid.
3. Prepare for data migration: The data going into the new system must be cleaned, organised, and ready in time for testing. That includes clearing wrongful data, assigning fields and tags to unassigned data, and mapping existing maintenance workflows. Ideally, a dedicated IT team will handle this in parallel with CMMS implementation.
4. Identify your project lead: This person leads the implementation process and its success. They act as the go-between for stakeholders and top management, assigning tasks to the implementation team. Typically, this will be a reliability manager, maintenance coordinator, or project manager.
5. Choose a project management tool: Although pen-and-paper and spreadsheets can be used, having a dedicated project management tool increases the chances of success by 2.5 times. A good tool will improve team collaboration, workflow management, and task management.

The 7 Steps of CMMS Implementation

1. Risk Management

CMMS implementation starts by identifying, assessing, and mitigating all potential risks. This is where expectations are set, and stakeholders understand that CMMS implementation isn’t linear. This project requires continuous feedback, collaboration, and back-and-forth communication.

Potential risks to the project include:

• Technical challenges (integration, configuration, security, data migration)
• Scope creep leading to delays and budget overrun
• Resource constraints (lack of skilled maintenance personnel or project management tools)
• Challenges in user acceptance from the maintenance team
• Inadequate pilot testing resulting in undetected issues before going live
• Challenges going live (integration failures, failed real-time data retrieval from sensors, etc.)

By focusing on risk management, you gain clarity on the project scope as a whole; what are the potential delays? What could cause budget over-run? What if data quality and collection don’t match the intended maintenance outcome?

2. Create a Project Scope

The project scope is created to solidify a timeline for implementing a CMMS. Working with maintenance teams, the project lead will take into account:

• The desired time for completion
• Will it be a phased or direct implementation
• The number of assets
• The type of equipment
• Priorities such as planned maintenance activities
• The size of the maintenance team and number of users, from floor managers to operators
• The maintenance features and capabilities required

With this in mind, a realistic implementation schedule can be devised. This will include the projected budget, estimated completion time, time needed for data migration and testing, resources required for training, potential risks, and key milestones along the way.

Once completed, take this scope to stakeholders and collect feedback.

Top Tip: Communication

Although not a step on its own, the importance of communication can not be overlooked. 61% of maintenance managers find CMMS implementation challenging. This can be easily rectified with good communication and a dedicated implementation team.

The best chance of CMMS implementation success is good communication. This includes:

• Tracking status updates and reports
• Keeping stakeholders and top management informed at all levels
• Encouraging feedback and assistance from project team members and stakeholders

This is where the use of a project management tool comes in handy, too. Enabling stakeholders and teams to track all communications in one platform.

3. Maintenance Data Input and System Configuration

Two main factors can derail CMMS implementation:

1. Lack of data integrity
2. User resistance

Data integrity refers to the accuracy and reliability of the data being collected. In this case, data from existing legacy systems or spreadsheets. That includes equipment details, work order types, parameter triggers, spare parts information, maintenance workflows, and operator assignments.

Once missing and inaccurate data is cleaned, input it into the new system. This can be done with the software vendor’s assistance or via file export compatibility.

The next step is system configuration. User resistance occurs when the new system is too complex or unfamiliar, this is linked to poor configuration. A system should be configured and customised to resemble something a user is familiar with.

That means similar data fields, work request processes, work order prioritisation, maintenance scheduling, and inventory management.

This can be a quick and simple process with most SaaS products, whereas the process can take up to 6 months with on-premise systems, which have to be built and customised to your requirements.

4. Training and Education

Training is a continuous exercise. Most maintenance teams focus on training only when a new CMMS tool is live. However, training should be given to CMMS users before the system is made live. This helps to speed up the company-wide implementation process and encourages greater user adoption.

Soft training should start once you have decided on your new maintenance workflows. This includes training materials, online modules, in-person workshops, and hands-on pilot testing.

Training before Go-Live should be focused on system navigation. Training after go-live needs to focus on improving the maintenance culture.

Appointing CMMS ambassadors and conducting regular soft training events improves overall system usage. It also helps to stimulate communication surrounding maintenance processes.

5. Testing and Troubleshooting

As the rollout event gets closer, it’s important to make sure the system works as intended. This is where integration, data migration, security, or configuration issues arise. To engage in real-world testing, maintenance teams will carry out a pilot test.

A pilot test is when you choose a piece of equipment or machinery, ideally one that isn’t essential to operations, and incorporate it into testing the new software.

An ideal scenario for testing would be to encourage user testing as part of employee training. Here, maintenance teams can understand how information is used within the system such as raising work requests, prioritising work orders, and scheduling planned maintenance. They can also acclimatise themselves with the UI, dashboard, and analytics features.

When testing for preventive and predictive maintenance outcomes, sensors and IoT devices need to be purchased and affixed before testing. For optimal real-time data collection, these tools need to be fitted correctly.

It’s important to share testing information with stakeholders to get feedback and communicate whether testing has succeeded or failed.

6. Go Live

Once testing is complete and after communicating with stakeholders, a date will be confirmed for the company-wide roll-out of the new CMMS system. Ideally, this time and date will be during a slow period. This allows for any issues to be corrected straight away and not impact operations.

This date is referred to as go-live. It also means that any existing systems will be switched off and employees will expected to use the new system.

With SaaS CMMS products, it’s ideal to have vendor support ready for this transition so that all risk areas are covered.

7. Post-Rollout Monitoring

The roll-out was a success, and your CMMS implementation process is complete. But that’s not necessarily true.

The project lead will continue to monitor the system to understand how it is performing and if it is performing as intended. In a nutshell; is it matching the expected return on investment?

Monitoring how the system is working is an important part of the implementation process. If course correction is required, it needs to be actioned as soon as possible. Otherwise, data and workflows can be impacted. It raises questions like:

• Are all maintenance workflows set up correctly?
• Are there any issues with user dashboards?
• Is equipment data being pulled through as expected?
• Have preventive maintenance programs been set up?
• Are parameters being triggered at the right intervals?

It’s encouraged to set time aside for corrections, updates, or further user training.

Challenges to Be Wary of After System Roll-out

Unfortunately, even after initiating a thorough implementation plan and successfully rolling out a CMMS company-wide, the failure rate is still high. To avoid this, be aware of certain challenges that can arise, like:

• Failing to continually monitor system performance after roll-out
• Teams reverting to old ways of working when managing work requests and scheduling maintenance
• Poor data integrity during migration or after roll-out due to human error or malfunctioning tracking equipment
• User resistance due to lack of communication or poor employee training