| Industries spend nearly $1 trillion annually to | | | | aerospace, automobiles and mining and service |
| maintain their operations, assets and equipment. | | | | industries have assets worth billions of dollars. The |
| According to IBM business consulting services, | | | | bottom line of these industries depends upon the |
| maintenance costs alone represent 20 to 40 | | | | utilization of assets, increasing productivity and |
| percent of operating costs, and this has raised an | | | | also enhancing the lifespan of the assets. |
| average of 10 to 15 percent per year.The | | | | Computerized maintenance management systems |
| evolution of industrial MMS can be traced back to | | | | serve these purposes.CMMS is composed of |
| the 1960s. The focus on the reduction of | | | | networks and software modules. The software |
| inventory led to the customized software | | | | modules are customized and designed for various |
| package as part of the MRP (materials resource | | | | aspects of maintenance management, like |
| planning) program, the MRPII (which focused on | | | | equipment data management, predictive and |
| the manufacturing in terms of financial | | | | preventive maintenance planning, maintenance, |
| management) and the ERP systems, which | | | | repair and operations (MRO), parts and services |
| integrated the entire enterprise.Then came the | | | | procurement, employee management and asset |
| enterprise asset management (EAM) systems, in | | | | performance analysis.Most MMS implementations |
| which the focus is on managing assets through | | | | fail due to a mismatch between the features of |
| the entire life cycle. EAM encompasses all stages | | | | the software and the business processes. Hence, |
| of the asset life cycle right from the planning, | | | | it does not necessarily mean that implementation |
| design, purchase, install, operate, maintain and | | | | alone will solve the problems related to |
| disposal stages. Maintenance management | | | | maintenance. Top management involvement and |
| software for all types of equipment form a | | | | the end user familiarity with the software also |
| subset of EAM.Capital-rich industries like | | | | dictate the success of the system. |