Release the power of data
After over 20 years working with customers within maintenance, I still do not see much focus on the output of the CMMS:s. I see two actions all companies should take here. First, set the analysis tools free for all users and bring on the creativity!
Mia Ilkko Senior Consultant Data-Driven Maintenance at Trivalo AB, B.Sc.; Cert. European Expert in Maintenance Management
Put effort in providing a user-friendly, neat, and really attractive tool for users. Let them be amazed and baffled by the nice charts and turning tables of data. Let them twist the filters like there is no tomorrow.
Throwing the figures around gets creativity going. Finding new insights and possibilities you never knew of. More results and more good decisions will come. New intrapreneurs will step forward.
I am a big fan of securing good data and having valid models of analysis. Users not used to this will fall into easy traps and might present bad data charts… there is always a learning curve.
When we within maintenance talk about KPIs and the importance to measure and benchmark, we absolutely need secured data and valid models. Often the data tools are built around that, with terrible static reports, printable, for a few users. I have also seen some pretty good intentions – but very little in 20 years.
So, the second action needed is to set a good maintenance strategy with defined goals and find needed data-points to measure. The more defined, the easier to find out your measures. Here you set a few important KPI:s (Key Performance Indexes) controlling your process. For the every-day running of business there needs to be another bunch of measures. In order to know what to do now, how to prioritise the day and week.
We call it to be Data-Driven. Knowing where to put effort, by fact. No estimates, no fiction, but real data from all that hard work we have put into our CMMS:s 24-seven for years. All those years... is the data at all in good quality? – you will not know until you start looking.
At Trivalo we talk about Data-Driven Maintenance in the means of making both strategic and operational decisions based on good data. No matter on what level and how manual or automated. It is important that both the long-term KPI:s and the operational measures are defined, communicated and visual for all to act upon.
But, I am just saying. While setting your business goals and creating your dashboards. Do not forget to release the data for all to play with. Analysis is a free-form art of insights, fuelled by your creativity, and only limited by the tools provided. Start playing with your data and learn how to move forward.
With love,
Mia Ilkko
Senior Consultant Data-Driven Maintenance at Trivalo AB,
B.Sc.; Cert. European Expert in Maintenance Management
