How to Choose a CMMS: 12 Things to Check Before You Implement One

The word "CMMS" on a vendor website can mean anything: from an inspection calendar with a list of machines to a monster with sensors and a purchasing module. That is why the question of how to choose a CMMS is better replaced with a more specific one: what must this system do in our plant, and what will we never use. Below are twelve things we check in every maintenance rollout, a comparison of a subscription tool with a custom system, and a short checklist. If you are still wondering whether to leave the spreadsheet at all, start with our post CMMS or Excel.

What a good CMMS should include: 12 things to check

• 1. Asset register. An equipment card with number, location, documentation, responsible person and status. Check whether you can build a hierarchy (line, machine, component) and adapt the fields to your needs.
• 2. Inspection schedule. Dates must calculate themselves: from the last completion, from an operating hours counter or from a cycle count. Typing dates into a calendar by hand is not a schedule, just Excel in a nicer frame.
• 3. Breakdown handling. Report, assign, track status, close with a root cause. Ask how many clicks a report takes and whether the technician sees the queue on a phone.
• 4. Repair history. Every work order stays with the asset: who, when, how long, which parts. It stays in the company when the technician leaves and answers whether to repair the press a third time or replace it.
• 5. QR codes on machines. A sticker with a code, a scan with a phone, a short description and a photo. If a report takes longer than half a minute, people go back to phone calls and paper notes.
• 6. Spare parts. Stock levels, minimums, parts linked to assets, consumption recorded on the work order. You need to know what will run out before the machine stops.
• 7. Statutory inspections and calibrations. Statutory inspections (UDT in Poland), legalisations and calibrations have different cycles and protocols than your own checks. The system should tell them apart and keep PDF protocols with the asset, because the auditor will ask for them.
• 8. Notifications. Email or SMS before a deadline, after a breakdown report and when a deadline is missed. To the responsible person, not to everyone, because those stop being read within a week.
• 9. Cost reporting. The yearly maintenance cost of a specific machine: parts, hours, external services. Plus breakdown count, downtime and overdue inspections. Without this, replacement decisions are made on gut feeling.
• 10. Roles and permissions. The operator reports, the technician executes, the manager plans and approves, the auditor only reads. Check whether a QR-only operator account costs the same as a manager account.
• 11. Data import. Your current spreadsheet with machines and last inspection dates should land in the system in the first week, not be retyped. Ask who does the import.
• 12. Integrations. Cost export to accounting or the ERP, a readable API, maybe sensors later. A file export is enough to start, but the road to an API should stay open.

Not everything needs to be in the first version. The first five are the foundation; you add the rest once the basic workflow runs and people use it.

CMMS as SaaS or a custom system?

A subscription CMMS makes sense when your process is standard, the team accepts the imposed way of working and the number of users is small. Problems start in three places: cycles the vendor did not anticipate (statutory inspections, legalisations, operating hours from your own counters), reports that must look the way a customer or auditor wants, and per-user pricing when thirty operators are supposed to report breakdowns via QR.

A custom system costs more up front and takes a few weeks to build, but it is built around your process: your numbering, your cycles, your protocols, with no fee per account. The downside: you depend on the vendor, so the contract must be clear about rights to the code (a licence or a transfer) and about maintenance after launch. Do the math honestly over three years, ideally with our custom vs SaaS calculator. With a handful of users the subscription usually wins. With dozens of users and non-standard cycles, the balance tips the other way.

Checklist before choosing a CMMS

• List your equipment with the last inspection date and interval. No system will build it for you; our maintenance schedule generator will help.
• Count users in three groups: who reports, who repairs, who plans. This decides the subscription cost and whether you need a mobile app.
• Write down your unusual cycles: statutory inspections, calibrations, legalisations, operating hours. Show them to the vendor and ask for a demo on your example.
• Ask about import from Excel, data export if you leave, and where the data physically lives (servers in the EU, a data processing agreement).
• Decide which of the twelve features are needed at the start and which can wait six months. Ordering everything at once is why most CMMS rollouts end up as another unused program.
• Appoint one person to own the system. Without them, after three months the dates will be back in the manager's calendar.

See the Exmoor CMMS concept

The twelve points above are the plan of the first version we are building in a pilot programme as a CMMS for maintenance teams: an asset register with Excel import, an inspection schedule with statutory inspections and calibrations, breakdowns reported via QR code, repair history, spare parts and costs on one screen. For plants with 20-500 assets, without modules you will never use. We publish no price list or production screenshots yet, but we show exactly what will be built and in what order. Describe how you track inspections today in our quote form and within 24 hours we will tell you whether this system solves your problem and what cost range to expect.