Maintenance Technology July 2017 - 40

SOLUTION FOCUS

Step 2: Asset Hierarchy
Site: Regional operation
Building: Plant name
Department: Support, materials, production
Process: Manufacturing, materials handling, quality, engineering, maintenance, EHS
Master asset

Master asset

Line 1, 2, 3

Facilities, general

Quality equipment

Powered industrial vehicles

Asset group
Fixture cell
Cell 1 fixture
Cell 2 fixture

Asset hierarchies allow organizations to easily identify key assets on which to focus reliability and maintenance efforts.

American manager of Excellence in Maintenance stated
live-chat support, and automatic updates. Company
that the key to quick implementation was understanding
managers then defined requirements for the desired
what a CMMS can do, establishing goals, and securing
CMMS, starting with the fact it should be a software-aspositive buy-in from management.
a-service (SaaS) maintenance solution that offered access
A formal project plan with milestones and goals was
to real-time information, customizable asset hierarchies,
established. Formalizing the plan saved time and reduced
and the ability to track equipment-performance trends and
costs along the way. By setting clear objectives to take
costs to maintain the assets.
advantage of the full potential of a CMMS,
The list of requirements also
the company:
specified functionality in managing
■ incorporated a defining phase to develop
work orders and work requests,
all pertinent data standards, ensuring
preventive maintenance, purchasing
Excellence in
consistent data collection
and inventory control, planning
maintenance
■ leveraged the knowledge of an experiand scheduling, asset history, cost
enced CMMS implementer for guidance
tracking, condition monitoring,
requires informed
■ built a defined initial-implementation
document storage, and reporting.
timeline to track progress and next steps.
They determined that the solution
decision making.
Developing goals and a vision for how
offered by eMaint (eMaint.com,
maintenance teams will function alongside
Marlton, NJ) was a good fit.
a fully implemented CMMS is crucial. It is
Multi-site implementations of
also important to document and communicate goals for the
anything can be challenging. In the case of its CMMS
role of maintenance personnel in facilitating organizational
efforts, this manufacturer achieved notable success based
success, the company's approach to maintenance, and how
on a methodical approach. It established goals and vision
a CMMS will support business processes. As it turned
for the solution, built an asset hierarchy for greater control
out, upfront planning enabled the company to be up and
of equipment, and standardized processes across the entire
running in 30 days.
corporation.
2. Build an asset hierarchy. Nine plants across the
company's North American operations were targeted to
Steps to success
use the CMMS. About 10,000 assets were structured within
1. Establish goals and vision. The team began by mapping
an asset hierarchy, ranked according to their criticality,
operations with the greatest needs, and prioritized implefrom the highest level to subordinate parts. Establishing
mentation to locations with failing systems. The North

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MAINTENANCE TECHNOLOGY

JULY 2017

http://www.eMaint.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Maintenance Technology July 2017