CMMS vs. Spreadsheets
Microsoft Excel is handy, it’s probably right there on your desktop – just waiting to be opened up. So, it’s no wonder that companies default to Excel when they need to manage data or start keeping records. If they knew the advantages of a CMMS vs. spreadsheets, they might think twice.
At Ashcom Technologies, we’ve had plenty of customers turn to us after giving up on managing their maintenance department via Excel spreadsheets, and they’ll tell you the same thing we will: Excel works, but not very well, not in this instance anyway.
I don't need to say this but, Excel is an excellent product. Millions of users can't be wrong. But, like any tool, it is all about how you use it. My Grandad once told me “use the right tool for the right job” and Excel has been designed with finance not maintenance management in mind. Writing a simple formula or creating a budget in Excel is a breeze - again the right tool, for the right job. Beyond that, Excel can be an absolute disaster.
Spreadsheets are Not Built for Maintenance Data
Maintenance management is a far cry from finance. If finance errors are a common occurrence in a program specifically built to handle figures, what mistakes will arise when that program is used for maintenance data? We’ve all had the experience of Excel auto-formatting information we did NOT want formatted. Those part numbers you entered? Yeah, Excel thinks that’s November 23rd, 1906.
Maintenance management software, such as a CMMS, isn’t built with just data management in mind, it’s designed to service entire organizations with the maintenance department acting as the hub. For a more comprehensive list of CMMS benefits check out our article, Big Picture Benefits of a CMMS.
Let’s take for example creating and finishing a simple work order in a CMMS. You can track every aspect: the parts used, your company’s parts inventory, which vendor the parts came from, which machine the parts were used on, the location of the machine, how often that machine has been serviced, who serviced it, and how many hours they worked that week.
In order to communicate that story, you’d need a stack of spreadsheets. Once you have them, analyzing that data and pulling relevant information would be, to put it politely, time-consuming. If you’re a maintenance technician, time is your most valuable resource and most likely there’s not enough of it to bother analyzing data – you need to get to the next project. But by disregarding data, you’re costing yourself more time in the future.
Relevant maintenance data is just more easily communicated via a CMMS than a spreadsheet. Most CMMS software will supply you with reports that will undoubtedly make your maintenance operations a smarter, more efficient machine. Reports that will show you “all open work orders” or “upcoming scheduled preventative maintenance.”
These reports are possible because of a CMMS’ ability to store historical information, information that a spreadsheet is just simply not designed to communicate or store effectively.
Another reason that spreadsheets are less than ideal is that most organizations have a designated “excel expert” who sets up the spreadsheets and enters the data. If this person leaves, so does all the knowledge behind the inner workings of the spreadsheet.
The 6 Reasons Why Spreadsheets Will Drive Your Maintenance Team Nuts
So, if you’re keeping score at home, here are the reasons NOT to use Excel for your maintenance management:
- Insanely high room for error.
- Not designed to track maintenance related information.
- Not designed to track historical data.
- Time-consuming and labor-intensive.
- Difficult to analyze data.
- Storing data is cumbersome.
Look, spreadsheets are powerful enough to track your grocery budget or track information about small projects but please, if you love your maintenance department – ditch the spreadsheets and move to a CMMS like MaintiMizer.