Are there any opinions out there about using microsoft Access to manage maintenance processes for smaller to medium sized companies? We are currently waffling between a purchased out of the box system versus developing our own with our in house programmer. Any information or comments from people with past experience going down this road with a customized MS Access approach would be appreciated.

Opinions? Yes - don't do it. It will cost you far more to develop in house than it will to buy a package. If you do develop it successfully in house (doubtful) you will then be dependent on the person who develops it. If they leave the company then you are in trouble.

Why go to all that trouble when you can pick up a comprehensive package for under a thousand dollars. Contact me off the list and I'll let you have an excellent demo for a low cost system.

Bryan Weir
info@pemms.co.uk

Point taken, however I've also been lead to beleive that most "out of the box systems" rarely meet all your needs based on the fact that every organization has different structure, methods, people, skills etc etc. So if you are only really able to utilize a small percentage of the software you buy and find other ways of addressing the items that do not work for you, then you may be better off developing each module yourself bit by bit. I do agree however that you do leave yourself open to risk if the developer ever leaves.

If anybody try to develop their own CMMS, I wish you success. However to me, it's not necessary to reinvent the wheel as so many other people out there have taken this programming task. Save the time, effort & money for implementation of a well selected software already available in the market. I do like to stress that a conprehensive & encompassing functional specifications should be prepared before you buy the software ie to specify what your requirements are. In other words, a lot of engineering works upfront have to be done in consolidating what items or criteria are wanted, just like when we want to buy a mechanical equipment. In coming up with the specifications, strong knowledge in maintenance management itself is absolutely required as doing it if computer will not do any good if the humans themselves are incompetent. Also beware of some softwares are written by IT people who may not be involved in maintenance works but assigned to write up a CMMS software. Extensive factory acceptance test on the software must be carried out to ensure it can give what you wanted based on a complete maintenance scenario. Demo is just agood start. TQ

<I've also been lead to beleive that most "out of the box systems" rarely meet all your needs>

This used to be the case but it is no longer a problem. Good CMMS systems nowadays should be capable of meeting just about all of your needs. Having said that don't make the mistake of trying to make the CMMS an exact fit for your existing organisation. The reason you need a CMMS is probably because your existing organisation is lacking in this area. The CMMS is the tool that can be used to fix it. Use it as it is designed.

As I said earlier, email me and I'll send you a couple of links for demo systems that you can play around with at your leisure. I think you will be pleasantly surprised at the functionality versus the low cost of some of these systems.