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Hard-Hat How-To: CMMS/EAM Software Review

Sept. 21, 2009

In this edition of Hard-Hat How-To, Plant Services will help guide you through its CMMS/EAM Software Review.

Pressures from the real world are driving computerized maintenance management/enterprise asset management (CMMS/EAM) software vendors to rethink and revise not only their products, but how they can help users actually achieve a larger portion of the potential they shrink-wrap in every package. More than ever, CMMS/EAM vendors need you, their clients, to succeed. In this edition of Hard-Hat How-To, Plant Services will help guide you through its CMMS/EAM Software Review.

The Plant Services CMMS/EAM Software Review is the result of a 181-question survey probing the details of some 450 aspects of vendor companies and their packages, covering 30 categories. To access the review, click the “Software” tab on PlantServices.com’s navigation bar or go to www.plantservices.com/cmms_review/software_review.html.

The CMMS/EAM Software Review landing page is a compilation of all the asset management content that PlantServices.com has to offer. This comprehensive page features links to previous CMMS/EAM reviews, CMMS best practices, related white papers and sponsored knowledge centers. There is even a preview of Plant Services’ free Asset Management Insider e-newsletter. Make sure you keep this page bookmarked and come back often because we are always updating. If you wish to continue on, click “Go to Plant Services CMMS/EAM Software Review” at the top of the page.

Once you have completed a brief, one-time registration form, you will be taken to the CMMS/EAM Software Review.

The Plant Services CMMS/EAM Software Review is designed to allow you to compare packages across a comprehensive range of capabilities. It offers the option of weighting capabilities to reflect their importance in your application and receiving a calculated ranking of the software offerings according to your specifications.

As the “Introduction” screen explains, you can use the Review to simply browse the results of our verified vendor survey data, compare products and find further information on particular packages and vendors. Or, you can have the system rank packages according your customized and advanced criteria.

Clicking on “Software Aspects” lets you weight various features individually so the comparison engine can calculate scores and present packages according to how well their strengths match your weightings. Assign each software aspect a weight by typing corresponding percentages into the spaces provided. Remember, allocated weights must total 100% before calculations can begin.

Clicking on an individual software aspect, like “Industry Specialization” or “Global Attributes,” shows you the exact survey questions used to establish the package score for that aspect. Exercising your option to rank a question less than “very important” factors its score so it has less weight in the calculated comparison.

To compare software packages, click “Vendor Summaries” and select up to three vendors of interest. Brief vendor overviews, complete with product, annual sales, pricing and annual maintenance, help you navigate through the list of vendors. If you have already utilized the Software Aspects page, a calculated score will appear beside the vendor summary.