How can Maintenance Management Software Help Make Workplaces Safer?

By Ashcom Technologies Ltd
schedule16th Sep 20

Workplace safety has never been higher on the agenda. Driven by the global pandemic new legislation has required companies to take extensive precautions to protect their workers from the threat of COVID-19 and create COVID Safe working environments here in the UK, this directive is now being supported by spot visits from the Health & Safety Executive to ensure guidelines are being followed. This made me think about what a CMMS or maintenance management software solution can contribute to improved workplace safety.

Supporting Legislation

Even before COVID-19 made employees and employers more aware of workplace safety, a CMMS was a useful tool in promoting a safe work environment. It can already help businesses comply with Health and Safety Executive (HSE) guidelines. If you’ve worked in maintenance or facility management, you’re probably familiar with the HSE, it is a UK government agency responsible for the encouragement, regulation and enforcement of workplace health, safety and welfare, and for research into occupational risks in Great Britain.

On the HSE’s website, there is lots of guidance for employer’s including what a business should do to provide a safe workplace. One of those responsibilities is to make sure work equipment is selected, installed and maintained to protect the health and safety of yourself, employees and others who may be affected by the way you use it.

That sounds like the reason that maintenance management software was first developed, to help manufacturers maintain equipment and assets, track tools and ensure that your maintenance team has what it needs when they need it.

Another of HSE’s employer responsibilities that can be supported with maintenance management software is the requirement to provide “a safe place to work”.

Conforming to HSE standards depends on your industry, company and equipment amongst other things and should not be taken lightly. A CMMS will promote and support a regular examination of workplace conditions with scheduled, reoccurring preventive maintenance. Maintenance management software will remind users when a Preventative Maintenance task (PM) needs to be performed, which usually requires a comprehensive examination of equipment.

Here’s another safety reason to keep a CMMS around, it can help prevent the often cited, costly and reputation damaging violation of Machinery and Machine Guarding.

Take, for example, an injection moulding machine. These machines always have safeguards that prevent workers from putting their body in harm’s way while it’s in operation.

A trained maintenance technician conducting preventive maintenance on an injection moulding machine would spot a faulty safeguard and could perform a Lock-Out Tag-Out (LOTO) on the faulty machine and alert the rest of the maintenance team via CMMS. Maintenance management software notifies the maintenance team that this equipment needs repairs, facilitating a quicker response and thus a safer workplace, sooner.

Preventive Maintenance = More Reliable Equipment

Reliability equals predictability and when it comes to large industrial machinery, predictability means safety. When preventive maintenance is ignored, larger more dangerous problems can arise. There are far too many stories where improper maintenance of equipment has resulted in employee injury, or worse.

What we often learn when we read these unfortunate stories is the largest peril of poor preventive maintenance: the loop of reactive maintenance. When preventive maintenance is performed it is planned for and accommodated into a schedule, when unplanned maintenance is performed it can lead to poor repair jobs because of operational pressure. It can also have the knock-on effect of other important tasks being neglected, or worse forgotten.

Anything in a facility can fall victim to poor preventive maintenance which can lead to a more dangerous environment, not just equipment but the structure of a building and the infrastructure. The best way to ensure, drive and record that a maintenance management team is following a proper preventive maintenance schedule is with a CMMS.

Digital Documentation

A CMMS is more than just a tool for preventive maintenance though, it’s also a place to store important documentation on standard operating procedures, preventive maintenance procedures, and in-house safety plans.

And unlike paper documents, your maintenance management software stores this vital information in one easily located, searchable place.

The digitization of documentation such as Work Orders and the like can even limit the amount of physical interaction needed to perform maintenance and maintain social distancing, which in the age of COVID-19, is a plus. When information can be accessed digitally, there’s no need to pass along paperwork orders or even necessarily be within close proximity of the work requester. 

Maintenance Reporting

By providing Safety Equipment Reports, a CMMS’ reporting function can be another boon to a maintenance management’s workplace safety.

So, what goes into a Safety Equipment Report? A CMMS, like MaintiMizer, will include the equipment description, equipment condition, risk level, as well as all of the work orders associated with that equipment so you can accurately assess the reliability and safety level of that particular equipment.

A CMMS is built to manage maintenance and by doing so it mitigates many of the risks that come with poor maintenance practices. If you’re thinking about implementing a CMMS, Ashcom Technologies is here to help and can guide your implementation with the safest, most responsible methods possible.


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