Current global business events are bringing to focus the importance of a robust supply chain. The supply chain is akin to the blood vessels of an economy transporting essential goods to support life, industry and commerce.
Modern supply chains require the backbone of information technology to support the supply chain blood vessels. IT is radically transforming different facets of the industry and is dubbed digital transformation. It is having an impact on how the supply chain functions in this connected world.
CMMS for Supply Chain Management
CMMS systems are used to manage and maintain the capital assets of a company. These range from large machinery fixed in place to vehicles used in transporting goods. CMMS helps organizations in many ways, including:
- Tracking assets of an organization
- Managing all maintenance activities
- Enabling routine checks and inspections
- Enforcing SOPs
- Performing preventive maintenance
CMMS helps to increase the usable lifetime of components, devices and equipment. It is accomplished by ensuring maintenance activities are accomplished promptly. In addition, preventive maintenance is performed with the help of CMMS. It helps to avoid serious machine failure by recommending appropriate intervention before the failure happens. It helps to reduce costs, improve efficiency and increase machine life.
All capital assets of a company are part of the supply chain function. Here are five ways using a CMMS can help to make supply chain management easier for your company.
1. MRO Management
One of the most challenging aspects of managing a supply chain is to keep track of all the capital assets of the firm. It is equally challenging to manage maintenance, repair and operations (MRO) of plant machinery. CMMS is used to keep track of capital assets and their maintenance. Machine operations and repair can also be managed within the software. By using CMMS, MRO is driven by software solutions. This eliminates cumbersome spreadsheets used to manage assets.
All information related to the assets of a facility can be tracked using a single portal from any device. It gives the management great visibility into the operations in different plant facilities. CMMS makes managing a challenging part of the supply chain simpler and resilient.
2. Communication
Information is important for the effective operation of a company’s supply chain. CMMS makes it easier to send and access information from anywhere in the supply chain. When data is updated, the change is reflected in the cloud. The latest information can be accessed from anywhere within the organization. Recording, storing and disseminating information becomes much simpler and easier with CMMS.
Interpersonal and interdepartmental communication also becomes faster with CMMS. The facility for real-time communication between supervisors, technicians and management is facilitated by CMMS. Beyond this, communication with OEMs and vendors also can be incorporated with the maintenance software solution. CMMS acts as an easy and simple tool for communication across the value chain.
3. Eliminate Paper Trails
All information is recorded and transmitted digitally with CMMS. It also keeps digital records of machine manuals, SOPs, checklists and other documents related to facility maintenance. This eliminates the need to keep physical records of these documents. Eliminating paper trails and moving all documentation to digital platforms makes access to documents easier. No space or special care is required to maintain records, which is not the case for physical documents.
4. Process Automation
Many maintenance tasks are algorithmic in nature: complete 1,000 miles of driving and then change engine oil, change belt after 12 hours of machine operations, etc. It is not necessary to expend human capital for routine processes. Such tasks can be automated with the help of CMMS. Manual management of processes in a large facility becomes untenable. The CMMS software, along with artificial intelligence, can create smart workflows that improve the efficiency of plant operations.
5. Predictive Maintenance
Recent global supply chain issues are a testament to how supply chain destruction can create chaos. Machine failures and unscheduled downtime in plant facilities severely impact it. The best solution is to prevent such incidents from happening, and predictive maintenance accomplishes just that. It uses historical data and machine learning algorithms to predict future machine failures. This information is used to perform maintenance activities to thwart such failure. This reduces the chances of machine failures and unscheduled downtimes alleviating pressure on the supply chain of the company.
Supply Chain Digital Transformation
The supply chain of any company is quite vast and complex. But the sheer scale also has been a deterrent to implementing advanced digital tools to manage the supply chain.
The supply chain crunch experienced across the world announces the urgent need for digital transformation in supply chains. CMMS becomes an important part of the supply chain digital stack with the operational benefits that come along with its implementation.
