CMMS stands for computerised maintenance management system, and cmms maintenance is simply maintenance run from one: the asset register, the schedule against each asset, the work orders raised from it, and the history of what was done. The phrase gets searched by people who have been told to get one and want to know what changes. This page answers what cmms means, what does cmms stand for in maintenance, and what is cmms in maintenance practice: the four things the system holds, the day it produces, and what it does not do.
The four things a CMMS holds
An asset register: every piece of equipment worth maintaining, with its location, its make and model, and its meter if it has one. A schedule: the preventive tasks against each asset and the interval each runs on, by calendar or by meter. Work orders: the jobs raised from the schedule and the jobs raised when something breaks, each against an asset, with a priority, an assignee and a status. History: what was done on each work order, what was found, and how long it took. Everything else a CMMS does is a view of those four.
What a day of cmms maintenance looks like
The morning starts with the work orders due today, which the schedule raised overnight, and the reactive ones that came in through the night. The supervisor sets priorities and assigns them. Technicians open each job on a phone, read what was found last time, do the work, record what they found and what they replaced, and close it. The schedule notices the closed preventive task and sets the next one. By the end of the day the history has grown by a day and the overdue list is what was not done.
What it does not do
It does not decide what maintenance an asset needs; people do that, from the manual, the FMEA and the history. It does not do the work. It does not fix a team that does not close its work orders, and it does not make an asset register from nothing: somebody has to walk the site and list the equipment. The system is a record and a scheduler, and its value is exactly the value of the records people put into it.
Starting without buying one
The free worksheets on this site are the four things above without the software: a maintenance log that is a work order history, a work order template, and a checklist for one asset class. A team that runs those for a quarter knows what it wants from a CMMS, and a team that buys a CMMS without having run them usually spends the first quarter finding out.
Questions people ask about cmms maintenance
What does CMMS stand for?
Computerised maintenance management system. The American spelling with a z is as common. EAM, enterprise asset management, is the larger cousin that adds finance and procurement.
Is a CMMS the same as maintenance software?
Broadly. Maintenance software is the category; CMMS is the name most of the category uses for itself. Preventive maintenance software and work order software are the same thing seen from one feature.
Does a small team need a CMMS?
A team with a few dozen assets and a handful of work orders a week can run on the worksheets. The moment the overdue list cannot be seen at a glance, the system has earned its place.
How long does it take to set up?
The asset register is the long part, because it means walking the site. A team that already keeps a log has most of the data; one that does not should expect the register to take weeks and the schedule to follow it.