9 Critical Signs You Need to Digitise Your Maintenance Operations
In today’s fast-paced digital age, the adoption of technology has become essential for businesses across all industries. One area where digital transformation can have a profound impact is in maintenance operations. Digitising the maintenance processes can streamline workflows, enhance productivity, and improve overall operational efficiency. In this article, we’ll explore seven critical signs that indicate the need to digitise your maintenance operations.
- You are using spreadsheets or paper-based workflows:
Relying on manual, workflows for maintenance tasks can be time-consuming and error prone. Digitising maintenance operations eliminates the need for paperwork and allows technicians and operational teams to access work orders, manuals, and other essential information from their mobile devices, increasing efficiency and accuracy.
- You don’t have real time visibility of your compliance:
Maintaining compliance with industry regulations and standards is crucial for organisations operating in highly regulated industries. Digitising maintenance operations ensures that all maintenance activities are properly tracked, with dashboards or automated reports providing the current compliance status and overdue actions.
- You spend more time updating others and chasing contractors than dealing with the task in hand:
A huge chunk of time is spent updating the individuals who have raised requests and keeping them updated at key job stages. Not to mention having to continually chase contractors! When you digitise your operations systems can do this for you. They have lots of automated emails to keep individuals updated and provide a portal for them to login and view the status of the job. They can even remind and chase contractors for you!
- It takes more than 30 seconds to access key job information whilst away from your desk:
If you can’t access key information about job, sites, resource, assets, documents, requests or raise jobs and instruct contractors whilst on the go then you are falling behind. Digitise your maintenance operation with mobile apps!
- You are carrying out paper-based inspections and risk assessments:
If you are currently carrying out paper-based inspections such legionella checks, fire alarm testing, weekly Health & Safety Audits/ walkarounds, cleaning audits or having contractors fill out risk assessment forms manually; then you are falling behind. A lot this can be done through mobile apps with the relevant forms already attached to the jobs to be completed down. No time spent inputting the paperwork into a leverage arch file, or scanning and saving the documents to your computer. All forms and risk assessments can be automatically saves against the job itself.
- It takes forever to build reports:
Without proper digital tools in place, organisations often struggle to gather, analyse, and report maintenance data effectively. A lack of data visibility makes it challenging to track key performance indicators (KPIs) and identify areas for improvement. Digital maintenance solutions provide real-time visibility into maintenance activities, enabling data-driven decision-making. Analyse data by site, region, job type, contractors, assets and more over a specified time period. The best software will even allow you to create your own reports and schedule them to suit you.
- You don’t’ know what you have spent to date on assets/ equipment:
Managing assets manually can be a cumbersome process, leading to inefficiencies and oversights. Digital maintenance solutions provide centralised asset management capabilities, allowing organisations to track asset performance, view the maintenance history, and manage lifecycle costs more effectively.
- You Are Constantly Putting Out Fires:
If your organisation primarily relies on reactive maintenance, addressing issues only after they occur, it may be time to shift to a proactive approach. Digital maintenance solutions enable preventive maintenance strategies, helping organisations identify and address potential issues before they impact operations.
- Limited Technician Productivity:
Without digital tools, technicians may spend a significant amount of time on administrative tasks, such as filling out paperwork or searching for information. Digitising maintenance operations streamlines workflows and empowers technicians with mobile access to work orders, equipment manuals, and troubleshooting guides, increasing productivity and reducing downtime.
In conclusion, the signs mentioned above indicate that it’s time for organisations to embrace digital transformation in their maintenance operations. By leveraging digital maintenance solutions, organisations can optimise processes, improve productivity, and ensure the reliability and longevity of their assets.
If you want to have a chat about how our CAFM system could help you with all of the above then book a demo below!
Author
Charlie Bown
Ex Facility Manager, I feel your pain!
