Choosing the right CMMS system for utilities, according to Custodian

Custodian is a great CMMS choice for water management and other sectors.

Custodian is the ideal CMMS system for the medical, hospitality, and government industries, including water utilities. Cost savings is important to the water sector, and a CMMS solution can lower water-management expenses by an estimated 12 to 18 per cent. When combined with an Esri ArcGIS geodatabase, which stores location-based assets for some organizations in this industry, a CMMS solution provides the foundation of making cost-efficient decisions through life-cycle cost analysis.

Leveraging an existing workforce

There are many reasons to use a CMMS system in water utilities. Users can reduce the cost of work orders by relying on preventive maintenance instead of reactive work, and they can also adjust maintenance strategies to extend asset lifespan. In addition, a CMMS solution like Custodian can leverage an existing workforce and justify staffing requirements.

There are four common steps that a public-works department or water-utility division should take into consideration when choosing a CMMS system as part of an overall asset-management program: business processes, work-order processes, asset-tracking processes, and commissioning processes. Customers should document what other systems the CMMS must integrate with (like Esri ArcGIS, for example). Many of the technical requirements of the selection process can align the platform and software versions to ease the integration and data-migration processes.

The selection process includes developing a short list of vendors that guarantee product longevity, training resources, a known pool of references, and an existing skilled workforce in CMMS software. Consistent and accurate projections of asset costs and maintenance are necessary too. A poorly designed or installed asset will skew the maintenance cost curve in a way that does not reflect the efforts of maintenance crews.

A good CMMS solution will allow water utilities to manage assets seamlessly while replying to customer inquiries and concerns in a cost-justified process. It can be an efficient disaster-preparedness and recovery program, with true resilience embedded into its system of insight, which produces operational and risk insights in manage assets more effectively and cost-efficiently. By focusing on asset location and condition, Custodian can help restore critical systems and services in a timely way.

To learn more, contact Custodian.

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