Problems a CMMS solves (Part 1)

This first part covers operational problems: the day-to-day ones, the ones you notice this week. The second part covers the underlying ones — the cost nobody knows, the knowledge that gets lost, what can’t be proven — which are more expensive but take longer to hurt.

Let’s start with the ones everyone recognizes.

1. The report that gets lost along the way

One report by messaging app to a technician, another by phone to the team lead, another by email to admin. Each one gets handled — or not — and nobody has the full list.

What solves it. Not banning channels, which is impossible: making sure they all end up in the same place. An incident can come in from the backend, from the client access with a description and photo, or from an email inbox that the system empties and automatically converts into reports.

2. The report that arrives with no information

“The hallway AC isn’t working,” at eight in the morning. Someone has to interpret it, call, and ask before anything can happen, and the technician often heads out with the wrong material.

What solves it. Giving whoever reports it a form with the affected equipment and a photo. The incident arrives with its type, its priority, the client, the address, and the flagged asset.

3. The work that belongs to nobody

An order with no assignee doesn’t drop off loudly: it drops off silently, because nobody misses it until someone complains.

What solves it. Making ownerless work visible — in the calendar you can tell it apart by color — and letting the technician take it on themselves from the app, because they know if it’s on their way.

4. The review that gets skipped

Preventive work is the first thing to give way when an emergency comes in, because nothing pushes back on it.

What solves it. Having preventive maintenance generate real work orders with an owner and a date, based on the checklist attached to the asset, its model, or an entire family, and its frequency. And having it check beforehand whether the day is a holiday and whether the technician is available, so a review doesn’t get scheduled for a public holiday.

5. The visit that has to be repeated

Going back because a part was missing, because the model wasn’t known, or because nobody had the key. You pay for it twice.

What solves it. Minimum stock per item in warehouses and items, which warns before you run out of what a job needs. The equipment’s history and documentation on the phone, available even without coverage. And the pending material and needs return visit statuses, so those jobs don’t live in a notebook.

6. The material that never turns up

The part used on Tuesday gets logged on Friday, or never gets logged. The system’s stock and the real stock have been out of sync for weeks.

What solves it. Making consumption a consequence of closing the order instead of a later entry: the technician logs it in the order itself, against the warehouse. And registering each technician’s van as its own warehouse, which is where the material that actually travels really is.

7. Hours written down from memory

At the end of the day, and always coming in low. With that, there’s no way to know what an intervention actually cost or what margin a job has.

What solves it. The stopwatch built into the order itself. And the app works without coverage, so the record can happen in the basement where the work was done, not at seven in the evening from memory.

8. The client who calls three times

Not to ask for anything: just to ask how it’s going.

What solves it. Their dedicated access, where they see the status of their orders, download reports, and check their upcoming preventive visits. And status changes can carry their associated email, so they find out without anyone having to write the notice.

9. Half the crew swamped and the other half waiting

Nobody notices until something’s late, because a list sorted by date has no people axis.

What solves it. The workload view per technician across the weeks, and being able to drag work to move it. With shifts, working hours, vacations, and holidays loaded into staff management, the plan is built against reality instead of an ideal calendar.

10. The warranty that gets paid for

A piece of equipment that was still covered gets repaired. Nobody ever finds out, because finding out would require having the date in front of you when opening the order.

What solves it. The asset record with its installation date, cost, and warranty expiry, and the order that can be flagged as warranty work.

11. The notification that never arrives, or the one that arrives too often

Both extremes are equally bad. If nobody hears about anything, work gets delayed; if the system notifies every internal move, people stop reading notifications.

What solves it. Being able to configure which statuses notify and which don’t, and who they notify. The notification system lets you flag the statuses that shouldn’t notify, which matters as much as the opposite.

12. The paperwork that has to be typed in twice

Someone in the office, report in hand, entering into the ERP what a technician already wrote that morning.

What solves it. Having closed orders carry their hours and material straight to the billing system. In integrations you’ll find the scope of each connector, which isn’t the same across all of them and is worth checking.

What none of these twelve solve

A CMMS doesn’t decide who handles what or at what priority. If that hasn’t been agreed on, the system will just record the same disorder more precisely — except now you can measure it.

That conversation comes first, costs no money, and shapes the outcome more than anything else.

Where to start

With the three that hurt the most from the list. They’re usually 4, 6, and 7 — reviews that fall through, stock that doesn’t add up, and made-up hours — and all three get tackled the same way: critical assets registered, checklists with their frequency, and recording in the field.

The second part covers the underlying problems. And if you want to see which ones actually affect you, you can request a demo on your own case.