So Your Maintenance System Isn’t in Your ERP...?

This month’s long form article was inspired by a number of conversations I had this month on how to integrate a maintenance system with an ERP system for the best results. If you are or have ever been in a manufacturing context, then this article is for you. Good manufacturing requires good machine maintenance to ensure high uptimes.

Good maintenance requires good purchasing, inventory management and accounts payable processes. In this article, I make to case to support this claim and show you how to ‘oil the gears’ between these processes for optimal performance.

Leave any questions in the comments section and good discussion will ensue. Guaranteed.

Enjoy!

Table of Contents

1. The “Transition State” Problem

2. The Optimal ‘Transition State’ Solution

   1. Keeping Users in a Single System

   2. Maximize ERP System Usage

3. So, How Should It Work?

4. What Interfaces Are Needed to Make This Work?

5. Other Benefits of This Option

6. Conclusion

Many manufacturing businesses are in the difficult position of running Finance, Purchasing and Inventory Management processes in their Enterprise Resource Planning system (ERP) while their Maintenance processes are supported by a separate, dedicated maintenance system, often referred to as a Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS).

This is usually due to the fact that when an ERP is initially implemented in a manufacturing facility, Maintenance processes are kept out of the scope of the implementation to minimize complexity. This in and of itself is not a bad thing as 80%+ of Digital Transformation projects still fail to meet the outlined objectives… Any move to minimize complexity and scope increases chances of success. That’s why this is a common practice.

The “Transition State” Problem

However, this creates a ‘transition state’ where a portion of your plant operates on the ERP system and another operates in a separate CMMS system until you can migrate Maintenance into the ERP. This causes integration issues because Maintenance requires outputs from other processes such as Purchasing, Inventory Management, Accounts Payable, etc. to function optimally:

• Maintenance Work Orders require the purchase of goods and services

• Maintenance Work Orders require the issue of parts for work execution

• Maintenance Work Orders require the price of goods and services to calculate the total cost of the order

• Etc.

Similarly, certain processes run in ERP require outputs from the maintenance system to function optimally:

• Purchase requisitions requires the goods and service requirements from the Work Orders

• Inventory Management requires the dates at which the parts need to be picked, kitted and prepared for the technicians who will execute the work

• Accounts Payable needs to know where to send the costs from the various invoices that come in for Maintenance work

• Etc.

When the ERP is first implemented, these ‘integration points’ are usually supported with 2 typical configurations:

1. Instead of carrying out these other processes in ERP, they are executed directly in the CMMS for Maintenance parts and services (MRO).

   1. This allows Maintenance to function well end-to-end but puts an unreasonable burden on Purchasing, Inventory Management and Accounts Payable staff as they need to operate in two different systems depending on the commodity.

2. The related processes (Purchasing, Inventory Management & Accounts Payable) are executed in ERP and the ‘integration points’ are supported manually.

   1. This ensures everyone works in a single system but you need ‘champions’ who manually copy information back and forth from the different systems to keep operations running smoothly.

The writing is on the wall for these two configurations.. The champions get tired. Turnover happens. Someone goes on vacation. Eventually, things get out of sync… You need Sherlock Holmes involved to try to figure out why and to correct the situation…

So, what are you to do?

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