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EAM/CMMS Cost Justification and Selection

You know you need it - but how do you put together the project justification?

At first sight, the costs are easy to define - the software and installation costs you can get from the vendor. But what's missing? How much training? Do you have to change the way you do maintenance? What about new computer hardware? And the extra software that no-one told you about? Are reports included?

Benefits are even tougher to quantify. You've seen the numbers in the trade journals, but do they apply to you? And when do the benefits start? Every article says you will save materials dollars, but are you prepared for the short term rise in materials cost before they start declining? And how do you make the benefits happen?

Lots of questions - asking the right questions is the best place to start.

Now let's talk about selection.

There are two fundamental reasons why you should go through a selection process. The easy one is to find the best software for your needs. If that is "all" you want to do, then the solution can be found very quickly - despite the hundreds of vendors out there.

Question 1: how important is it that your vendor be around to support you in 3 to 5 years time? That narrows the field dramatically - only a handful has the track record and financial stability. Even then there's no guarantee, but at least you can stack the odds in your favour!

Question 2: Does the vendor have the right technology to match where you are today and where you expect to be tomorrow? No point in looking at a great Oracle solution if SQL Server is your in-house standard.

Question 3: Is your business so different that it demands a non-standard approach to Maintenance Planning and Operations? Likely not. And if so, the chances are that an off-the-shelf package has the flexibility to accommodate your needs.

Answering these three questions will narrow your selection down to a very short list; now (and only now!) we can talk about functionality, user friendliness, services and price

If our questions so far have struck a responsive chord, then the next question is why is it so difficult to choose the right solution? The answer is that it isn't. Software selection is much more about getting your staff and your business geared up to fully benefit from the software. This is the second fundamental reason for the selection process.

So what sort of preparation do you need? First you need to know that most implementations fail - reports suggest the failure rate is about 70%. Understanding "why?" is to first step to being part of the elite 30%. Here's what we have experienced as the major reasons for failure:

unclear setting of objectives and poor understanding of objectives by the users
inadequate on-going management support
treating the system as a one-time project rather than a self-sustaining program
good initial training, but poor follow-up training.

So what does all this have to do with software selection? Two things - your management and your staff need to work through these issues as part of the process of selecting the right software and services partners, and of course those partners have to fully subscribe to your business objectives and philosophy.

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