Press Releases:

02/12/01

Preserve Fixed Assets Through Equipment Maintenance Management

Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS) applications are big money savers for many businesses. Manufacturing, hospitals, utilities, even motor vehicle fleets are finding that with proper maintenance expensive equipment will last much longer with less unplanned down time.

While there are several CMMS applications on the market today, most seem to be lacking in one or more areas. Daniel Cook, Senior Software Engineer for DCE Software Solutions, worked in plant maintenance for nearly 20 years for the second largest commercial baking company in the United States. During this time he used several of the leading CMMS applications, including one that cost over one million dollars. Most of them are database front-ends that simply store records. MaintSmart, DCE's flagship program, does much more.

MaintSmart considers all facets of an equipment maintenance operation. These include: work orders, preventive maintenance tasks, equipment failure analysis, inventory control, purchasing manufacturing and engineering labor expenses, and equipment reliability analysis. These topics, integral to any equipment management operation, are then evaluated either on their own or integrated in such a way as to present the user with a picture of the overall cost to own each piece of equipment. This in turn focuses the user's attention on how and where resources should be applied or withdrawn to further the efficiency of the maintenance operation. Further the reliability analysis section guides the user in addressing tasks to be performed in order to avoid costly machine failures. The AMSAA military standard is used for reliability analysis.

The user interface is consistent throughout and an extensive help system makes it easy for the user to maintain current data. Shortcuts abound; including drag and drop and the ability to copy common records, such as inventory lists, in bulk to other plants in the organization. Additional labor is not necessary to enter the data. MaintSmart is completely flexible to any operation that maintains any type of equipment. The user defines equipment, tasks, breakdown causes and places them into up to 999 separate plants (or entities). Application level security is implemented in such a way as to provide the system administrator with tight control of the various functions available. This makes it possible for users throughout the company to take advantage of this powerful system.

MaintSmart is an automation controller for MS Excel. Though Excel is not required it does enhance MaintSmart by accepting data directly from the program with almost no effort. SQL Server and web-enabled versions of MaintSmart are in development.

The introductory price for this powerful application starts at $795.00 for a single user. This is far below the competition's price and MaintSmart contains many more features. Five licenses may be purchased for $1595.00. Additional price breaks are available. A fully functional demo program is available at http://www.maintsmart.com

Daniel Cook Senior Software Engineer, DCE Software Solutions,California Project Engineer and Systems Integrator for 2nd Largest Baking Company in the United States.

11/05/2001

MaintSmart Program Upgrade: Scheduling Module