Why a CMMS? Lessons from a more mature maintenance market
At Siveco China we tend to emphasize how the Chinese maintenance market is different from that of the more mature Western economies, differences we have come to call “maintenance with Chinese characteristics”. Typically, we explain how direct cost savings, such as labor reduction, may not be the right concern in China, while methodological improvements, and the resulting indirect savings, are the priority. When it comes to CMMS projects, we explain how these market characteristics explain the numerous project failures everyone can observe. We often highlight how we, with our industrial background, differentiate from IT suppliers, the so-called “EAM” suppliers, whose misguided focus is on administrative processes rather than maintenance improvement.
A recent study conducted by the French Association of Maintenance Engineers (AFIM) sheds a new, interesting, light on this matter.
First, a few words about the French maintenance market, one of the most developed in the world. With a very long industrial history, France boasts an extremely dense maintenance landscape, with specialized university degrees, a trained workforce from maintenance technician to maintenance manager – unfortunately available thanks to a high unemployment rate, suppliers of all sorts – maintenance consultants, technical service companies, system suppliers etc. Some of the world’s leading condition monitoring suppliers are French, some of the largest maintenance engineering firms and service suppliers. Taking CMMS as an example: not only Europe’s largest CMMS supplier (Siveco!) is French, but the second largest is also French (this company is actually related to Siveco through cross-shareholding). In fact, the country, which is much smaller than China, counts no less that 4 CMMS suppliers with a significant worldwide presence, most with over 20 years history! A few years ago, the technical director of one of our large French customer in China, who was soon to retire after a long illustrious career, told us that 30 years before, he was already using a CMMS in his French plant! What can we learn from such a mature market, which is indeed very different from China?
The French Association of Maintenance Engineers (AFIM), founded in 1933, aims primarily at promoting maintenance best practices in the industry. As the AFIM conducts regular surveys of its members, it recently released its 22nd CMMS survey. We will not comment on the many interesting findings of the survey (such as the fact that most CMMS projects in France are conducted by interns – students in their final year of study – which is imaginable from a Chinese perspective but a process that many French companies in China try to reproduce, with limited success obviously). One question in particular strikes a chord with us:
Table III: Main reasons for changing or acquiring CMMS software
WHAT WAS YOUR MAIN REASON FOR CHANGING OR ACQUIRING YOUR CMMS SOFTWARE?
| Reason |
Percentage |
| To increase maintenance performance |
25% |
| To increase functionality |
18.4% |
| To integrate maintenance with other company functions |
10.3% |
| Don’t know |
9.2% |
| The supplier no longer provides after-sales service for the old CMMS package |
2.3% |
| To comply with internal company standards |
2.2% |
What this table is saying is that, even in the very mature French markets where maintenance is highly optimized, most companies change (or buy – but keep in mind the vast majority of companies in France already have been using a CMMS for many years) their CMMS not for any functional, technical or system-related reason, but because they want to improve maintenance! The main goal for companies to acquire a CMMS is to improve maintenance!
What does that tell us, for the less mature, much less optimized, Chinese maintenance market? The findings of the survey are even truer when it comes to companies in China. It tells us that Siveco’s emphasis on maintenance improvement vs. IT issues is correct. It tells us that maintenance / operations should lead the CMMS selection and implementation process, not IT! And it tells us that, as the Chinese industry becomes more mature, this focus on improvement should remain!
Readers interested in maintenance improvement may want to read the article on “How to justify maintenance improvement projects“.
For more on the traditional so-called “EAM” approach to CMMS, read the article “EAM is dead“.
For more on the traditional so-called “EAM” approach to CMMS, read the article “EAM is dead“.
Siveco China conducts its own “Maintenance in China” survey, in cooperation with academic partners. For more information, see link.
