Top OSHA Violations You Should Avoid
The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) doesn’t just protect your organization in an audit or inspection. It’s in everyone’s best interest to be proactive about your employees’ health and safety. Maintenance workers are usually very familiar with OSHA regulations because maintenance work affects the entire organization—whether it’s on a production line, a construction site, or in a building. Maintenance techs are responsible for their own safety on the job, but they also contribute to the safety of building occupants and visitors. CMMS software helps improve workplace safety and implement worker protections to reduce and eliminate hazards, thereby preventing future workplace injuries and illnesses. MPulse customers use CMMS software to comply with OSHA standards by… Documenting safety training Publishing safety data as a reminder to employees Standardizing checklists for scheduled inspections Creating a paper trail showing preventive measures Updating safety procedures Detailing emergency procedures in case of a natural disaster or other incident OSHA Violations to Avoid Proactive action provides long-term benefits when it comes to OSHA. Here are the top OSHA violations and how to avoid them. Safety Training OSHA requires organizations to record and track safety training for employees. CMMS software helps you track health and safety data and resolve potential risks before outside auditors do, such as who’s had what training. Additionally, automated alerts notify maintenance managers when certifications will expire. Documentation Inconsistent record-keeping procedures can cause OSHA citations and fines. CMMS data provides both the big picture and the little details, so your maintenance tasks are both visible and verifiable. Much of that documentation is also automated. And best of all, you can access the information in minutes, instead of spending hours or even days sorting through a paper filing system. Failure to Report OSHA requires most employers with more than 10 employees to keep a record of serious work-related injuries and illnesses. (Certain low-risk industries are exempt, and minor injuries requiring first aid only do not need to be recorded.) Employers must report any worker fatality within 8 hours and any amputation, loss of an eye, or hospitalization of a worker within 24 hours. Failure to report serious injuries is a significant OSHA violation. COVID-19 OSHA has issued temporary enforcement guidance related to the COVID-19 pandemic. COVID-19 can be a recordable illness if a worker is infected as a result of performing their work-related duties. Using CMMS software to log employee incidents properly and to maintain records in accordance with OSHA’s current standards allows you to present the solid documentation that OSHA demands. Hazards Employers must make information about the identities and hazards of chemicals available and understandable to workers. Chemical manufacturers and importers are required to evaluate the hazards of the chemicals they produce or import, and prepare labels and safety data sheets to convey the hazard information. Additionally, employers must label hazardous chemicals, provide safety data sheets for their exposed workers, and train them to handle the chemicals appropriately. Safety in the workplace requires documentation, particularly for creating procedures and recording maintenance activities. And there’s nothing better at documenting those tasks than CMMS software. When you have solid data on your side, it makes it much easier to support your maintenance team and avoid OSHA violations. Have questions? Contact us. We have answers.
Creating Reasonable Benchmarks
CMMS software does more than keep your work orders organized and your team on schedule. It also helps you answer the deeper questions like, “How do I measure effectiveness of preventive maintenance?” Creating reasonable maintenance management benchmarks help you evaluate your team’s performance. Firstly, you start by measuring your team’s metrics. Secondly, you evaluate your company’s performance by comparing your metrics and processes with those of other organizations. Maintenance Benchmarking and Best Practices Using benchmarks, you can identify best practices that drive the metrics. Start by using your CMMS data to measure your team’s current key performance indicators (KPIs) and create a baseline. Then, research your industry’s benchmarks to see how you’re performing and where you should look for improvements. You can find benchmarks from industry associations, maintenance journals, benchmark databases, and other sources. Additionally, use your professional network to find common benchmarks that your industry uses. For example, common benchmarks in manufacturing include: Planned maintenance tasks vs. total maintenance tasks Planned and scheduled maintenance as a % of hours worked Unplanned downtime Reactive maintenance tasks Maintenance overtime Work orders reworked as a percentage of total work orders Training Safety Benchmarking in Facilities Management Facilities management maintenance has its own benchmarks. Like manufacturing, you also start with your CMMS data to see where you are. Then you compare your data with similar organizations. The facility management benchmarking process can include: Space utilization Facility operating costs by type Service provider performance Overtime Occupant satisfaction Planned maintenance tasks vs. total maintenance tasks Facility condition Sustainability criteria Facility safety Environmental control Business metrics (facility cost as % of total payroll, sales, etc.) Next Steps The next step is to analyze your performance versus the top performers. Make sure you dig deeper than the numbers—because processes, workflows, and other factors can affect these KPIs. As a result, you should understand how those numbers are calculated to make sure you’re making a fair comparison. Then, based on your team’s performance and the industry standards, use your benchmarks to determine realistic KPI goals for your organization. Also, create a reasonable timeline with goal-based milestones and efficiency goals. (Check out our earlier blog series for more information about the steps involved.) Above all, it’s vital to strategize about new workflows and processes, adjustments in data collection or software, or training plans. Need more information on creating reasonable benchmarks? Contact us. We’re here to help.
What You Need to Know About Asset Management
Asset management helps your organization get the maximum value from the assets it owns. It’s common for large organizations to have a formal CMMS asset management plan. But, it’s just as important for small and medium-sized businesses. Creating a strategic plan can impact the uptime and total life of key assets. Fortunately, CMMS makes it easy. Create a CMMS Asset Management Plan Setting up your CMMS for facility and asset management helps your organization get the most out of its investments. While creating an asset management plan might sound complicated, it actually boils down to making a few proactive decisions about your MPulse data. Identify critical assets Pick the ones that would take a significant investment to replace, and the ones that most directly impacted production capacity. Capture purchase information For each critical asset, gather information on each asset’s purchase date, purchase price, startup date, and warranty expiration date. Choose the data Identify the data you want to collect, track, and report on. Let the power of CMMS do the hard work Every job entered into the work management system created a historical record that calculates the labor costs and links the cost of the parts and inventory used for the job. Benefits of CMMS Asset Management The advantages of asset management really come into play when it’s time to make important decisions. One of the most frequent is the classic, “Do we repair it or replace it?” question. Using your CMMS data, you can determine… What was the purchase price of the asset? When did we acquire it? How much has it cost to maintain it, especially in the past year? How much downtime is the asset experiencing lately? With a little more information about operations, you can also calculate the opportunity cost due to downtime. Comparing that to the estimated cost (and potential added productivity) of a new asset would give you the answer. Additionally, you’ll have the data to back it up. If you’re thinking in terms of maximum uptime and total lifecycle cost, you’ll move beyond using your CMMS as a simple work order tracker and PM scheduler. CMMS can help you create a wealth of asset information—helping your organization make more informed decisions, and potentially saving it a lot of money. Contact us for more information on facility maintenance and asset management software. We’re here to help.
Build a Strong Team Using CMMS
Team building strategies in the workplace are overlooked or underemphasized in the maintenance department. But, that’s a mistake. With MPulse Software, it’s much easier to build a strong team using CMMS. Maintenance may look like a solitary job. But your technicians work with other team members, vendors, and almost every department in an organization at one time or another. Building a strong team and encouraging working relationships between maintenance and other personnel benefits everyone. And that includes the organization as a whole. While you can find many team building strategies for the workplace, the maintenance department has some unique issues to consider. Below are the team building tools you need. Team Building Strategies in the Workplace Communication CMMS software makes communication between team members, internal departments, and outside vendors much easier. MPulse tools that promote communication include service requesting, PM scheduling, and automatic notification features. For example, MPulse can quickly route requests to the appropriate people for review and approval, based on predetermined criteria. That enables your team to respond faster. Plus, the requester to get the status of the work order at any time, eliminating tedious emails and/or phone calls. Technology Some “old school” industrial employers are still wary of mobile technology. But mobile devices are an excellent way to improve communication. And that’s the foundation of any maintenance team. Many organizations have discovered mobile technology is a natural fit with maintenance workflows—and mobile CMMS, specifically. It allows maintainers to access information and record data on the spot—where maintenance happens, instead of in a plant or building office. Recognition Improving the relationship between other departments and maintenance starts with mutual respect and communication. You can help by ensuring all parties understand each person’s role and appreciate the benefits they bring to the organization. Make sure the people in positions of power understand what your maintenance program does and the value you bring to the organization. Share your projects, goals, accomplishments, and results for both the department and for your team members. Training Part of investing in your maintenance team is making sure they have the right training to do their jobs. Professional development as an investment in the future of the entire organization. It pays big dividends in the long run. While budget may limit formal training, think outside the box. Create a professional growth/training program for your maintenance staff. Ask them to share their experience with other team members, like an in-house apprentice program. Reward strong work performance with additional opportunities for education. What’s your strategy for building a strong team using CMMS? Leave a comment below or contact us.
Manage Inventory: Reordering and Balancing
Managing parts and supplies is always one of the biggest challenges of running a maintenance department. But the good news is CMMS software has the tools you need to streamline reordering, make sure the right parts are on the shelf, and minimize other parts that are used less frequently. Manage inventory by reordering and balancing with CMMS. Reduce Purchasing Overhead MPulse Purchase Requisitions is a comprehensive tool for managing parts and supplies requisitioning and ordering. MPulse can help by monitoring work orders, reorder lists, and requisition records, then producing requisitions as needed. As a result, you can easily track orders and requisitions all the way through receiving and restocking. This helps you determine your current inventory levels and automatically generate purchase requisitions based on need, reducing purchasing overhead. You can set reorder points, which calculate your average daily usage rate by the part’s lead time in days. This function helps you ensure a constant restocking of high-need parts. It makes it easier to identity parts that have long lead times as well. Purchase Requisitions also can help you track shipments, vendor performance, and warranty information. Data Integration Tools However, the biggest benefit of MPulse is business data integration, providing financial visibility throughout the organization and eliminating error-prone, manual data entry. Organizations can integrate transactional data between MPulse and the accounting system. To support this effort, MPulse can help by integrating master data records, most notably Inventory Records and Purchase Requisition Records. The business data integration will keep both applications in sync so users can be confident they are working with accurate and current information. As your team enters new Inventory Items and Purchase Requisitions in MPulse, that information will flow automatically to the accounting system in a timely fashion. On the accounting side, MPulse syncs any transactions by the accounting team related to those records. The system updates relevant information and provides financial history for the Inventory Item or Purchase Requisition in MPulse. In general, whenever a related record or transaction is modified in one application, those changes should be synced to the other application. As a result, you leave the accounting to the financial application and synchronize the results back to MPulse for informational and reporting purposes. MPulse is ready to help you manage inventory by reordering and balancing with CMMS. Have questions? We have answers. Contact us.
How Organization Improves Efficiency
Maintenance is as much about managing documents and information as fixing things. That’s why improving efficiency in a business can make a big difference in your bottom line. The right tools make organization as easy as possible. Above all, that includes keeping the resources you and your team need right where you need them. Of course, your CMMS software can help. Media Management for Improving Efficiency in a Business Maintenance professionals need quick and easy access to a variety of sources: documents, videos, photos, supplier websites, intranets, and more. With MPulse Media Management, your team can quickly and easily access these resources from all over your organization and all over the globe, right from your CMMS software. Your team can add links to maintenance manuals, internal documents, vendor websites, and much more. As a result, all the information is stored with the work order or asset record, so it’s easily accessible the next time around. Additionally, Media Management also lets you link videos, photos, documents, and websites to your Dashboards, so it’s right there waiting for you every time you sign in. How to Improve Efficiency in a Business with CMMS Maintenance operations that improve organization can also improve safety, response time, inventory availability, labor resources, and communication. These strategies to improve efficiency in a business solves maintenance challenges for all types of industries—from manufacturing to education to government agencies, and more. Managing documents and information stored in MPulse eliminates lost information between shifts, reducing confusion and errors. Media integration can work with a dashboard to provide rich media as part of each user’s main “console.” The media attachment capability ties any relevant documentation to the work order. This is a great way to keep your objective evidence handy and connected to the relevant scheduled audit trigger events. Media tools also can help with training new maintenance workers by making it easier to find and access resources. Documents and other information become more accessible and safe, even available via remote access. During emergencies, details for insurance purposes, emergency inspection checklists, vendor and contact information, and other critical information is easy to access. Organizations can improve regulatory compliance for critical assets, while also ensuring safety and satisfaction. [related-content] Want more information on how efficiency can be improved in a business? Contact us. We’re happy to share the secrets we’ve learned over the years!
Getting Started With A New CMMS
Getting started with a new CMMS can feel overwhelming. New software requires a lot more work after the decision is made. But, you can make it as painless as possible. These five steps outline how to implement a cmms system. How Is a CMMS System Implemented? Use this checklist to make your CMMS system implementation a success. Step 1: Determine How to Export Current Data Older software was not designed to get data out as easily as it was to get in. More current programs can export data in various file types, typically a CSV file. Often you can do this task yourself or enlist the help of a power user or an internal IT specialist. Or, if it makes more sense, you can hire some help. Step 2: Decide What Data You Want to Keep If you’ve decided to migrate to new software, there’s usually a reason. And often it’s because key needs aren’t being met by your current system and your legacy data. Now is the time to review your data and make decisions about what you really need to keep. Another option is to simply start fresh. We’ve had customers do this—their legacy data remained where it was. They simply added assets, parts, and preventive maintenance schedules to the new CMMS system. Old work orders are left behind. Step 3: Map Out the Fields Data fields aren’t necessarily the same from one system to another. So you need to map field names, sizes, types from one system to the other. We recommend using your vendor’s services to help with this process. They know their software best. Use them. Step 4: Clean Up Your Old Data Don’t underestimate the time it takes to clean up the data. You may do this step before mapping fields, but sometimes customers need to understand what the data looks like in the new system before they find issues. Take a close look at your data. Things will pop up—outdated information, incorrectly formatted data, missing data. Now is the time to get your data in good shape. Clean data pays off in accurate reporting later. Step 5: Import and Test Once your data is complete and clean, your CMMS software vendor will import it into your software. After that process is finished, it’s time to run some tests to make sure the right data is in the right place before “go live” day. We recommend testing to ensure… All field names are correct The correct data is in the correct fields Assets lists are complete Parts and inventory lists are complete Scheduled tasks have transferred correctly Key historical data is available [related-content] MPulse can help. Start by downloading our free cmms implementation guide. Make the most of our experience and knowledgeable staff. We’re not just a software vendor. We’re your partner in CMMS success. Have questions? Contact us. We’re here for you.
Is Your Calendar Working For You?
In every maintenance office in every building, you’ll find a calendar on the wall or desk. Not long ago, you had to write on a paper calendar or manually transfer dates to a different program. But now you can easily visualize maintenance work with calendar scheduling software. How Can Maintenance Calendar Software Help Me? MPulse’s Calendar Management makes sure your whole maintenance team is on the same page. For example, streamlining simple, yet time-consuming, tasks is a huge benefit of preventive maintenance calendar software. You’ll be able to see what needs to happen when, quickly and easily. MPulse lets you create CMMS calendars for anything—work order due dates, scheduled maintenance, warranty expiration, employees or vendors, task type, completion dates, and much more. Plus, MPulse Calendars work seamlessly with maintenance work order creation. MPulse Calendars can be customized and filtered. Drag-and-drop capability lets you reschedule in a flash. View calendars by month, week, or day. Plus, there’s no limit to the number or type of calendar views. What Are the Benefits of Preventive Maintenance Calendar Software? Your MPulse calendars can show exactly what your team needs to do—it can include inspections, deadlines, tasks, meetings, travel information, and more. Some things populate automatically, like weekly staff meetings. You can quickly add others on the fly. You’ll always see what’s coming up in your maintenance inspection software calendar, so your team is ready to go when the time is right. Visualizing your team’s week or month with a maintenance calendar gives you a really good idea about how to get high priority work done quickly, while making sure lower priority work doesn’t slip through the cracks. [related-resource] Calendars are a huge part of the maintenance operations management field—from preventive maintenance planning to staff schedules. The ability to visualize what needs to happen and when helps maintenance teams stay on the same page, no matter how busy they get. How could a calendar view in your CMMS software help your maintenance operations? Leave a comment or contact us.
Understanding Your MPulse Inventory Shopping Cart
Do items seem to appear on your storeroom shelves without getting properly received? Or, do spare parts disappear or miss getting linked to work orders? On busy days, tracking what’s coming and going from your inventory room can seem impossible. But, here’s a secret to success with CMMS—you can get your fastest return on investment (ROI) by implementing inventory control management. Yep. You read that right. If you ignore inventory control management, you’re also denying yourself the fastest way to find real savings for your organization. But, the key is finding the type of inventory system that works for your organization. What is the Easiest Inventory Management System for Teams? MPulse Inventory Shopping Cart allows you to check parts and supplies into and out of inventory using an online shopping cart. As a result, your team can quickly link items and their unit costs to work orders and assets, helping you track and report on consumption of those items. Scan the part. Scan the asset. That’s how long it takes to link inventory to a new or existing work order record. This system also lets you enter inventory items as they arrive and automatically track who is performing work. MPulse Inventory Shopping Cart also lets you… Scan any item with a barcode label Scan repair parts as they’re used Quickly link inventory to new and existing work orders Print barcode labels on a laser printer Instantly enter received purchases as they arrive Automatically track who’s performing work What are the Benefits of MPulse Inventory Shopping Cart? Faster inventory check in/out with the MPulse Inventory Shopping Cart can make your operation more efficient, saving money and time for both your employees and your organization. Benefits also include… Dramatic time savings—no more data entry With data entry gone, eliminates errors Makes it easier to identify parts Saves money by reducing inventory shrinkage and bloat Additionally, many organizations are unintentionally storing surplus parts—parts the company has not used in a given period of time. Those parts just sit on the shelves, forgotten, but still costing the organization money. That’s a missed opportunity to save some cold, hard cash. Because overstocked or outdated inventory takes up extra room in the storage area and manpower to count it. It also frees up capital to use for parts you actually need. Make inventory management easy. MPulse Inventory Shopping Cart puts professional grade inventory control at your fingertips. Have questions? Contact us. We’re here for you.
Define Your Maintenance Management Goals
Maintenance professionals are busy people, which often makes it hard to find time to look at the bigger picture. But if you don’t know where you want to go, you can’t move forward. MPulse can help you define your maintenance management goals and build processes in the database to support them. Maintenance management goals can be big or small. Either way, you need to pick goals that are achievable. MPulse customers offered some great suggestions for maintenance management goals. Some you may have already done. Some you might do later. Pick one or two, and start there. Document Maintenance Activities Recording maintenance tasks, activities, repairs, and information in CMMS software is the first step when you are just starting out. You can’t measure anything until you have something to measure. You also want to document maintenance tasks for regulatory compliance. Plan Preventive maintenance tasks are usually the first thing maintenance professionals think about. But planning applies to everything from scheduling to staffing to purchasing to asset disposal. A goal without a plan is just wishful thinking. Make Resources Easily Accessible Don’t waste time looking for stuff. Keep the things your team needs (historical records, part information, vendor contact details, manuals, etc.) in easy-to-find places, like your CMMS database. Automate Put your available tools to work for you. Use your CMMS software to automate the tedious stuff (data entry, email, request approval), so you and your team can focus on more important things. Link Parts Inventory is hard, but the first step is simple. Link parts with your work orders (and your assets), and you are on your way to bigger goals like controlling the cost of maintenance. Train Your Staff Training is the fastest way to improve your maintenance team’s efficiency and get the best return on investment (ROI). And don’t forget about training yourself as well. The payoff is far greater than the cost. Control Costs Perhaps the biggest—and most universal—goal of all is controlling costs. CMMS helps you capture key data and turns it into reliable information to help make cost-effective choices about asset management. As you move forward, you’ll likely ask different questions and get to bigger goals. As your goals change, your team changes, and your organization changes, adjust your maintenance goals to fit. Have questions? We have answers. Leave a comment or contact us.