Budget Cuts Don’t Always Result in Lower Expenses

Costs have skyrocketed across the board. So it is no wonder that companies would cut budgets with the goal of keeping operating costs in check. It is important to note that some expenditures, such as CMMS Software can deliver value to the bottom line far in excess of their cost. The efficiencies gained by using these tools reduce expenses across the board.

Budget cuts often result in lowered staffing levels. This may be appropriate based on workload, but this strategy may backfire if less maintenance staff results in preventive maintenance going undone. When preventive maintenance is neglected, breakdowns and downtime will occur. Managers need to understand the true cost of equipment downtime.

Breakdowns will incur obvious high costs in labor and materials to repair. There will also be less obvious costs including wasted product and materials, reduced capacity and decreased production and quality. These quickly add up to lost revenue and unhappy customers. Downtime effects your bottom line in a big way.

How Can COGZ Help?

COGZ collects data as maintenance is performed. This data can be used to help you to justify the return on investment of maintenance employees to the company. When used properly, it will provide the data to show management exactly what your maintenance staffing requirements are. It will also provide feedback on performance outcomes when staffing changes are made.

To ensure that COGZ has the data it needs to perform these functions, make sure maintenance staff has entered estimated and actual task completion times. Using this information, COGZ knows precisely what your maintenance requirements are. Amount of hours forecasted for both preventive maintenance and other types of work orders will be accurate.

Know your Maintenance Work Load

COGZ can assist with forecasting your Maintenance Work Load for the upcoming year. The Work Order Load Hours Report* can be used to plan the number of hours that will be spent on preventive work during a specified time period. It can also help to predict the number of hours that will be needed for completing all other types of work. This report is used to plan and balance the work load for each employee. Comparing your total work load hours with your total man hours available will reveal conclusive evidence of your staffing requirements.

Know your Maintenance Backlog

Maintenance Backlog is all of the maintenance tasks that are ready to be worked on. In COGZ, all of your open work orders make up your maintenance backlog. This includes all past due and currently due work orders. COGZ allows you to easily view and quantify your backlog. A common cause of excessive maintenance backlog is understaffing. Analysis of backlog levels may provide further evidence that additional staff is needed. Conversely, very low backlog may indicate that staff levels are too high and that technicians do not have enough work to keep them busy.

To view your Maintenance Backlog, open the Work Order List to view all of your open work orders. Open Work Orders are your maintenance backlog. Alternatively, you may print the Open Work Orders Report. Compare the number of man-hours needed to complete open work orders with your total number of man-hours available for the time period.

Estimated vs. Actual Hours

Accuracy of estimated hours is important when forecasting work load. The Employee/Assign to Performance Report** shows estimated and actual hours worked by an employee for all work order types. When variance is low between actual and estimated hours, this is proof that your estimated hours are highly accurate. If you find that the variance is large between estimated and actual hours, it is probably time to update your estimated times.

The Reset PM Repeats and Averages function will allow you to automatically update estimated PM Task times to Average times in one click. Using this tool will improve the accuracy of your forecasts. Reset PM Repeats and Averages can be found under the File Menu -> System Maintenance -> Reset Period Yearly -> Reset PM Repeats

Measure your Progress

Once you begin using these tools, your scheduling efficiency, and performance will improve. The Work Order Summary Report* will provide feedback on your progress. This report shows a summary of all work that is completed for a specified time period. It is used to report on the performance of the last work order cycle. It also shows a percentage distribution and a summary of the Total Scheduled, Completed, and Not Completed work orders by type.

If you change maintenance staffing levels, this report would allow you to see how performance was affected compared to the prior period.

COGZ Drives Bottom Line Results

Having the correct maintenance staffing levels results in an efficient and cost-effective facility. COGZ CMMS give you the tools you need to accurately forecast workload so that you know exactly what proper staffing levels are. Strike a balance between budgeted costs and reduced downtime to drive bottom line results.

*This feature is part of the optional Work Order Enhancement Module.

**This feature is part of the optional Employee Enhancement Module.