Top 17 Benefits Of Preventative Maintenance Software (2021 Guide)

The Definitive Guide To Benefits Of Preventative Maintenance Software

Do you have an effective preventive maintenance plan in your business? With the perfect preventive maintenance software in your HVAC workflow, you will minimise errors, extend asset life cycle and boost productivity.

An Overview On Preventive Maintenance

What is preventive maintenance software? For commercial HVAC companies, preventive maintenance software is a centralised database where you can manage your asset information, gain visibility over your workflow and structure your maintenance schedule.

There are many moving parts to a preventive maintenance strategy and can involve handling some of the most complex parts of HVAC equipment. When you are juggling clients, checklist documentation, maintenance technicians, service managers, warranty requirements and asset history, you can often find yourself feeling overwhelmed. To counteract the difficulty of maintenance plans, CMMS software is the most efficient way to continue to deliver high service and create opportunities for growth in your company.

Preventive maintenance software can include checklists, asset reports, customer history, asset manuals and details on part numbers. With a preventive maintenance plan you can boost your workflow year round by scheduling in your quieter months of the year (Autumn and Spring).

When you have a great software enhancing your preventive maintenance plan, you have the ability to add more details to your work such as photos and real time data. With automated reminders you can keep your assets in good shape and build on your customer relationships, creating more longer lasting work.

One of the many benefits of preventive maintenance is the extended life cycle of assets. With a great CMMS system, you will be able to track performance of assets and to ensure your client’s assets are running optimally and are replaced at the appropriate time.

With preventive maintenance strategies, you will create a more predictable revenue and workflow. Imagine if your maintenance team could effectively reduce downtime with regular maintenance and increase asset life cycles?
Preventive VS Breakdown Maintenance– do you know the difference, find out what asset management type best suits your business.

Top 17 Benefits Of Using A Preventive Maintenance Software

With preventive maintenance in your workflow, you gain the advantages of reduced aset failure and more time and money in your pocket. Below we dive into the top 17 advantages of a CMMS (computerized maintenance management software) in your maintenance activities.

1. Does your maintenance backlog overflow out of control

A backlog can occur when you have a checklist of tasks devoted to your maintenance plan that have yet to be completed. While eliminating all backlog is impossible, your aim as a busy HVAC company is to reduce these tasks as much as possible. When you have a preventive maintenance software you can turn your backlog around to ensure peak equipment performance. When you keep your backlog in check, you avoid extreme costs and damages to your assets.

2. Do your assets fail before their time

Does your equipment downtime lead to smoking HVAC units that fail long before they should? The bottom line of maintenance is to extend asset life through a predictive or preventive schedule. Regular maintenance can drastically reduce excessive maintenance costs that can be accumulated when large defects occur. If you are struggling with short lived assets, a great preventive software is the key to your maintenance issues.

3. Is it hard to know what maintenance is due any given day/week/month/quarter/year?

The advantages of a maintenance strategy is a predictable workflow and a regular schedule that can be triggered by automated reminders.

With paper based systems, it can be difficult to manage and schedule maintenance activities when you have multiple sites, contracts and assets to consider. With an automated software, triggers can be selected to remind customers that their annual or six monthly service is due and prompt the cycle of regular maintenance.

4. Do repairs take too long?

Equipment failures can lead to costly repairs and wasted time which leaves you with an unhappy customer. When you have a regular schedule you can monitor asset health and equipment performance to pick up on any issues before they snowball into costly defects.

When you have a large repair bill and emergency repairs to focus on, asset downtime can be prolonged, leading to a large loss in production. To ideally keep your assets in working condition, regular maintenance can reduce asset failure and identify any potential defects.

For more on asset costs, read the Ultimate HVAC Price Book Template for more.

5. Accurately forecast the parts you’ll need for maintenance

To keep your production lines in full swing, you don’t want to be interrupted by simple mistakes, like realising you have run out of the parts you need for your current service work. Inventory management is a vital part of preventive maintenance and they work hand-in-hand to ensure assets remain in good working condition.
With a CMMS software you can take your paper based inventory system to the next level and ensure you are never left short again. Part of the power in having an automated software is the ability to forecast what you will need BEFORE you need it.

6. Avoid missing important checkpoints when visiting a site.

Without clear visibility of your maintenance schedule it is easy to miss tasks and important checklists. Having a clear view of all your contracts, and due tasks is ideal at all times for a successful HVAC business.

When you have an automated system, you gain visibility over what work has or hasn’t been done. Creating more accountability in your team and ensuring those valuable points are always ticked off the list.

7. Do you spend hours a week building customer reports?

When you spend 20+ hours a week mulling over customer reports and catching up on finicky paperwork, you are wasting valuable time that could be contributed to more rewarding activities. When you have an automated system that will collate your information with a few simple clicks of the button, you will save yourself hours in double data entry.
When you have the right time management tools you need on site, you can improve asset organization and boost your reaction time to your customers.

8. Save energy where it counts

Under performing assets can waste thousands of dollars in electricity bills each year. When time and money are the pinnacles that keep your business afloat, you need to ensure that your business decisions are reflecting your goals.
Keeping your HVAC units and equipment in working condition with regular maintenance will save your customers from spending an arm and a leg in energy bills each year because their assets are underperforming.

9. Do you lose days building each month’s maintenance schedule?

Not all your maintenance costs will be accumulated in the field. Excessive admin hours and unorganised schedules can also be costly for your business. Ideally you want your schedule to be visible for all your team to see to reduce the chance of miscommunications. When you have a job management software in place, you can easily predict and plan with the assurance of a powerful CMMS at your back.

When you have a preventive maintenance schedule in place as a part of your CMMS, you can easily share your calendar amongst your team and keep real time changes up to date.

10. Do you see your team doing endless double entry?

One of the greatest pains of doing manual admin work is the endless double data entry that accompanies it. A key part of preventative maintenance, is using your data to track asset performance levels and predict defects before they occur. However keeping track of your data can be painful and slow without a great CMMS software to help you out.
With automation you save your office team the headache of tedious paperwork and data entry. When you have the right work order systems in your HVAC business, you can reduce the time spent recreating documents and rewriting reports.

11. Is there too much randomness in your testing processes?

Consistency is key in a HVAC business. When you have reports that vary in length or checklists that cover completely different material, you will spend more time chasing your tail then getting work done.

The beauty of preventative maintenance software is the inclusion of templates to choose from, checklists that have been pre approved, and consistency in your workflow. When you know that your team is all on the same page, you can rest easy knowing you have the best maintenance strategies in place.

12. Is it hard to find key asset information quickly?

It is never a good look for a business to have technicians running back and forward from the office to the field because they forgot paperwork or a part number. This can quickly amount to 10+ hours a week lost in wasted travel time and confusion.

Ideally you want your system to be available to both the office and the field from their mobile or tablet devices. When you create this instant access to information, you build accuracy and save yourself some time.
With a great software, you can have all your asset management, user manuals and customer data on the one centralised system so your technicians are never left in the lurch.

13. Do you struggle to meet your KPIs?

It can be hard to reach your goals and KPIs when you are working from an old software or a paper based system. When you have a CMMS software you can identify what your next steps need to be to reach your goals.

Growth can be difficult in a business without a plan or steps in mind to move forward with but with a maintenance program in place, you can ensure your whole team knows what direction they need to move in.

14. Do your reports put people to sleep?

Putting your customers to sleep has never been so easy with dull reporting and pages of useless data.
When you have a preventative software in place, you can target your information and provide details such as photos of the site for your client’s benefit. With software like FieldInsight, you gain powerful reports that are visual and rich with images to further impress your clients.

15. Do you feel disconnected from the guys/gals in the field?

Nothing will divide an office more than a lack of communication. When you have your office arguing with your maintenance teams because someone lost track of a work order, you will find it very hard to make progress. When your team is lacking its team work, you can end up with more unexpected downtime and unplanned interruptions to your schedule.

With an automated software, you can connect your office and field through a central database that is designed for easy sharing of documents and information in real time.

HVAC Preventative maintenance scheuling

16. Is it frustrating when you don’t know the real job history?

Having the correct asset data is important when facing asset servicing and decision making.
When you need to complete a work order but only have half the information you need, because the paperwork is in another technician’s van – you will find progress is difficult to make. CMMS software can help with centralising your information so you never lose valuable paperwork again.

With a CMMS you have evidence of your work to back you up in a “he said” “she said” situation. With data to back you up, you will have a clear idea of what work has been done and of what quality it was.

Having a central database also records valuable information like customer details. When your technicians find themselves on site only to have forgotten the pin code to get in, they will be relieved when they can pull out their mobile and access the asset history directly.

17. Do customers continually interrupt your zen?

Imagine if you had access to real time customer data without interrupting your office? With CMMS software you gain tools like customer service portals that can increase your CRM (Customer Relationship Management) and keep your customers in the loop.

Your Perfect CMMS Solution

With job management software like FieldInsight  you have the right CMMS solution you need to conquer the difficulties in the HVAC field.

Book a free demo today to discover the benefits of a preventative maintenance software first hand.