This is the ninth post in our blog series, 9 Reasons EAM Implementations Fail (And How to Fix Them).
Reporting is where a CMMS or EAM system delivers most of its value. When your reporting capabilities are limited, either because the software product lacks report development tools or because you haven’t taken the time to set up reports, it presents a huge roadblock to getting the information you need.
Developing EAM Reports
If you avoid all the pitfalls we’ve discussed up to this point, your EAM software system will generate rich and accurate data on a consistent basis. The next step is to create EAM reporting tools that will get the data out of the system and turn it into meaningful, actionable information. There are three basic tools for doing this: dashboards, reports, and scorecards.
- Dashboards give users easy access to the information they need daily, such as stock-out events or past-due preventive maintenance (PM) jobs.
- Reports analyze a certain set of information, such as the reasons for work delays or the costs of equipment failures.
- Scorecards grade how well users or business functions are performing on KPIs by measuring actual performance against strategic goals.
You should develop these reporting tools for each business function that uses the EAM software. This could include maintenance, reliability engineering, MRO materials management, MRO procurement, and other business functions.
Most EAM solutions include both pre-built (“canned”) reports and a tool for building advanced, customized reports. A successful EAM implementation will leverage both. Take advantage of the canned reports that came with your EAM product, but also develop custom EAM reports to fill specific information needs. EAM systems can also export data to a set file format. Once the data has been exported to a file—a spreadsheet, for example—users can manipulate the data to their liking.
This custom-built report shows work orders by priority.
Types of Asset Management Reports
EAM and CMMS reports fall into three broad categories:
- Operational reports provide task-related information that workers need to execute their duties. For example, the Daily Work Schedule is a maintenance report listing work orders within a defined date range, and a Pick Ticket is a report that shows MRO parts and supplies requested from stores. Operational reports can also provide insights that support decision making, such as a Parts Usage Analysis that helps storeroom personnel determine optimum stock levels for different items.
- Cost and budget reports provide information about costs or costs relative to budget. For example, an Equipment Cost Summary can show maintenance and/or operating expenses within a given time frame for a specified equipment item or system.
- Asset management reports are used to analyze equipment failures, performance, and life cycle costs. For example, Mean Time Between Failures measures the average length of operating time between failures for a specific asset or similar group of assets, which is an important measure of reliability.
Top 8 CMMS Reports to Develop
What EAM/CMMS reports do you need? The answer depends on your asset management KPIs. You need reports that give you information about your performance measures and objectives, and many of these will be unique to your organization. However, some reports are best practices for any asset management program.
Here are eight CMMS reports that are valuable for any organization:
- Maintenance Cost Summary (Total Maintenance Costs as % of ERV)
- Maintenance Labor Costs (Maintenance Labor Costs as % of ERV)
- MRO Material Costs (MRO Material Costs as % of ERV)
- Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF)
- Mean Time to Repair (MTTR)
- Schedule Compliance (% of Planned Work Completed On Schedule)
- Estimated versus Actual Time (measures planning effectiveness)
- % Emergency Work (measures reliability and PM/PdM effectiveness)
Getting ROI with EAM and CMMS Reporting
Even the best EAM reports will be useless if you have bad data. Reporting tools depend on the data in the EAM system for their insights, and the quality of that data depends on the elements we have discussed in previous posts: high-quality master data, standardized practices, clear roles and responsibilities, and the rest.
The diagram below illustrates how those foundational elements of your EAM or CMMS implementation work together to enable informed decisions that lead to value creation.
EAM reporting is key to turning data into ROI.
If you haven’t taken steps to create reliable data in the system (by standardizing practices and master data), report development will get you nowhere. However, once you have good data in the system, a good reporting engine is key to extracting information and getting ROI on your EAM software.
In the final post in this series, EAM Pitfall #9: Not Auditing, we’ll talk about developing an effective auditing program to keep your EAM/CMMS implementation on track.