CMMS systems are not just for maintenance crews or enterprise organizations. They can help facilitate work in other areas of your organization and small businesses and solopreneurs as well. Here’s a few ways a CMMS system could help your organization:
– Manage maintenance on your physical assets. Without setting up a system of reminders it can be altogether too easy to get wrapped up in taking care of customers and neglect the maintenance and upkeep of your company’s assets. Use the CMMS system to help you keep track of maintenance on your physical assets, whether it is remembering to get your delivery van’s oil changed and engine serviced or performing critical backups of your computers and servers.
– Keep track of your tasks. You are a solopreneur or small business owner running many different facets of your company. Keep a running to-do list of all the different projects and tasks spread across the company, and your business moving forward by prioritizing them, delegating them out and following what is done – and what is left to do. Around one company, a CMMS system replaced running project lists teams created using excel shared docs, individual running to-do lists on scraps of paper or post-its and numerous emails and running email threads, reminding and re-reminding individuals to complete tasks. Moreover, you can look back over accomplished projects and see everything that your organization accomplished. Should a question ever arise over when you last upgraded your server’s operating system or made a bouquet of flowers for Mr. Jones, you can look back in the CMMS system and see when those tasks were last completed.
– Keep tabs on what your team is doing. One of the most common pieces of feedback we receive at WorkStraight is that our system enabled a small business owner to see which employees were performing the most work, and how long those tasks took them to complete. As a result, the small business owner was able to delegate tasks to other less-utilized employees, optimizing their resource utilization. Moreover, by tracking the time needed to complete projects, it gave them a window into seeing who are their most efficient employees, and what tasks are most time intensive. A CMMS system also allows small business owners to see what projects employees are working on or customers they are servicing that week, or even that day. Perhaps Joe has 15 large projects assigned to him that he’s trying to move forward at the same time and needs help prioritizing them, while Kelly only has 2 small customers that she’s servicing. Use the CMMS platform to spread projects around so the work load is more evenly distributed.
– Keep important shared documents in a central location. Use the CMMS platform to store important information that needs to be shared amongst your team and kept in a central repository. For instance, make notes for the rest of the team at your florist shop that Mr. Jones only wants large red roses and that his wife is allergic to Baby’s Breath or leave step-by-step instructions for where to check the wiring for problems at Mr. Lee’s house.
– Clean your inbox. How many emails in your inbox are from members within your own organization about projects, tasks or communication about how to best service customers? Utilizing a CMMS system can Those communications and information
These are a few of the many ways small businesses can benefit from implementing CMMS systems. Are you a small business owner who uses a CMMS system? I’d love to hear from you about how it’s used in your organization Tweet to me @meredithcrawfo.
