Effective maintenance management allows production to run smoothly, which is essential for the success of business operations. Poorly maintained resources can cause delays and endanger the safety of employees, halting production and doubling expenses. Fortunately, companies can use various software programs to assist them in maintaining the health of their assets.
By digitizing and automating the maintenance processes, maintenance software helps companies efficiently manage and track all assets, including scheduling various activities to monitor the health of these resources. It consolidates all maintenance-related data and contains features to streamline maintenance management, like work order fulfillment abilities, data reporting, asset management, and predictive maintenance capabilities.
Poor maintenance management can lead to unexpected downtime, increased expenses, and, potentially, accidents in the workplace. Avoid these problems by using one of the top 5 best maintenance software outlined below.
#1 MaintainX
Overview
MaintainX is a CMMS (computerized maintenance management system) with broad features tailored to different industries and businesses. It streamlines maintenance operations, making it easier to schedule, record, and monitor maintenance work from one place.
MaintainX also integrates with other systems, such as ERPs, IoT sensors, and more, so users can share data between platforms, synchronize records, and automate workflows. While implementing the CMMS takes three steps, it stands as one of the best maintenance software, with reviews and statistics to prove it.
Manufacturers that use the CMMS report that they have seen a 32% reduction in unplanned downtime, a 34% reduction in parts inventory costs, a 38% decrease in MTTR (mean time to repair), and a 37% increase in MTBF (mean time between failures). These statistics show how MaintainX increases the workforce and production capacity of businesses.
MaintainX has a free basic plan made for small teams who need to digitize paper-based work orders. It has three paid plans, starting at $16 per user/month. From inspections to checklists and access to reporting, this maintenance software stands out for its ease of use and broad features.
Key Features
Equipment & Asset Management
MaintainX makes it easy to record when equipment goes online and offline through automated workflows. It becomes a central repository of records where users can track the current status and downtime history for every asset.
The maintenance software also notifies when equipment issues happen to prevent them from further breaking down, which prolongs downtime. It can automatically create work orders from incoming maintenance requests to reduce equipment downtime.
Root Cause Analysis
MaintainX can improve the reliability of multiple assets and locations by showing the root cause of failure. Based on the given information, maintenance teams can schedule work orders to service the equipment before it breaks down with a preventive maintenance solution. They can also use MTTR and MTBF to better plan asset downtime. The maintenance software indicates when an asset will likely fail and how long it will be down.
Easy-to-Understand Reports
MaintainX provides easy-to-understand reports that let users keep track of preventive maintenance tasks, facility uptime and downtime, maintenance logs, and work orders by technician, equipment, or facility.
AI Workflows
MaintainX can automatically generate a procedure based on the files uploaded or instructions typed by the user, keeping everyone in the maintenance team aligned for smooth maintenance operations. It has a built-in AI-powered anomaly detection that alerts users if the work data inputs look inaccurate. This minimizes human error that could potentially disrupt operations and cause unexpected downtimes.
Unlimited Work Orders
The number of work orders, message requests, and photos created on MaintainX is unlimited. This applies to all maintenance software plans. However, attachments are limited in the basic and essential plans.
Workload Management
MaintainX increases workload visibility and control so managers can instantly see how work is distributed across the maintenance team. It features drag-and-drop workload management that allows them to balance workload quickly to maximize wrench time; they can reassign or reschedule tasks to other technicians to remove bottlenecks.
Reasons to consider: broad features, analytics, AI capabilities, ease of use, and multi-language support.
Reasons to avoid: Custom reports are limited in Excel format, and set up can be time-consuming.
#2 UpKeep
Overview
UpKeep is a mobile-first CMMS software that reduces maintenance response time, decreases equipment and asset downtime, and streames communication among maintenance teams with unlimited free requests. It provides centralized, company-wide intelligence, bridging the gaps between maintenance, reliability, and operations.
UpKeep is compatible with Android and iOS devices. The mobile app can store PDF versions of user manuals by asset, decreasing knowledge-based human error. Designed for a dispersed workforce, it gives teams one place to manage inventory, work orders, and budgets with insights into real-time performance data.
The CMMS also automates tasks that require constant supervision and time-consuming data analysis, freeing up work so maintenance teams can focus on critical priority issues. It also has a guest system for non-user work orders and requests, a necessity for large organizations with constantly shifting employees and guests.
UpKeep has four plans, starting at $20/month per user. While it's more expensive compared to its competitors, it contains all the fundamental features to support maintenance teams in managing work orders, assets, inventory, etc.
UpKeep offers a 14-day free trial, inclusive of a customer success team member to assist with the implementation. It also offers a discount if there are more than 50 paid users for the Business Plus plan. The integration is bundled and free.
Key Features
Enterprise Asset Management
Enterprises have hundreds of assets that cover manufacturing equipment, transportation fleets, pipelines, machinery, etc. They need to maintain these investments properly to extend their lifetime and maximize value. UpKee has enterprise asset management capabilities that help increase asset utilization and reliability and decrease downtime.
Safety & Compliance
UpKeep allows users to generate reports and documentation to meet safety and compliance requirements. It provides configurable analytics and reporting, so inspectors and auditors have all the information they require to assess the maintenance practices. Technicians can also upload manuals into the dedicated mobile app.
Integrations
UpKeep can integrate with existing software applications. It offers API, Webhooks, and Zapier workflows that are useful for sharing data across an organization. It also offers white-glove integration services to facilitate the automation maintenance team needs.
Organized Maintenance Scheduling
Maintenance teams consider multiple factors when scheduling maintenance work like availability of assets, specifics of the work order, technical expertise, etc. They can use UpKeep to log data from work orders and assets and keep the maintenance schedule organized. Using a CMMS helps them achieve the full useful life of assets.
Reasons to consider: mobile app, responsive customer support, easy integration, special discount for Business Plus users.
Reasons to avoid: pricey, user/team/vendor/customer administration could be improved, slow response times.
#3 Maintainly
Overview
Maintainly resolves the complications of using legacy CMMS, which are bloated with features that also make them more difficult to use and navigate. It is enterprise-grade maintenance management software designed for small- to medium-sized businesses. It boasts straightforward functionality with its quick set-up, intuitiveness, and clean design.
Maintainly is useful for many industries that need to manage and execute preventive and reactive maintenance on any asset. From rental properties and hotels, to gyms, churches and even energy facilities, this maintenance software allows businesses of all types to cut down costs and achieve better results with increased visibility across operations & maintenance.
While Maintainly contains fewer features overall when compared to older, legacy CMMS, its strength lies in its modularity, which allows users to mix and match plans and add-ons for various use cases, and its simplicity. Only about 2% of its customers request web-based maintenance management software training, as a testament to the user-friendly design.
Currently, it is priced as low as $12/month for small businesses and $24/ for enterprises. It offers a 14-day free trial with no obligation and with no credit card required.
Key Features
Asset QR Labels
Maintainly has dedicated Android and iOS mobile apps that allow users to scan asset QR labels. These give quick access to current or previous preventive maintenance and work orders. Maintenance teams can make quick decisions since information is readily available and plan tasks instead of searching through an entire database for a specific repair log.
Preventive and Reactive Maintenance Work Orders
Maintainly reduces manual admin work and eliminates the hindsight of managers by allowing them to track work order status in real-time. They are alerted of any maintenance request, status change, or emergencies so they can react promptly in these situations.
The maintenance software can also auto-generate preventive maintenance tasks based on predefined time or metric qualifiers, minimizing downtime and ensuring equipment availability. With mobile access, everyone can stay up-to-date with their assigned preventive and reactive work orders.
Meter Readings
Maintainly also helps reduce unplanned downtimes and prevent equipment failure through meter-based maintenance. Based on meter readings, maintenance teams can perform preventive maintenance tasks like equipment inspections, cleaning, lubrication, or adjustments, ensuring an asset stays in normal operating conditions.
Maintenance Requests
Even if customers don't have access rights to the maintenance software, their users can still send in maintenance requests, which maintenance managers can accept and then proceed to assign a work order to the available technician. Maintainly lets admins manage users at every level and track user time to capture payroll data like all-day tasks, overtime, and allowances. It automatically populates the daily time sheet of technicians using existing work order data.
Reasons to consider: free and affordable, fast set up, user-friendly interface, included support, modular plans with add-ons.
Reasons to avoid: lack of advanced features.
#4 Limble
Overview
Limble automates documentation and scheduling of maintenance tasks. It is a CMMS built for maintenance professionals who need to monitor their health to reduce downtime and costs. It connects team members through its communication functions and possesses reporting and dashboard capabilities for easier oversight of team activities.
Limble is consistently rated easiest-to-use on customer review platforms like G2, Capterra, and Software Advice. It seamlessly integrates with the most popular software systems like Slack, Azure Active Directory, QuickBooks Online, and Monnit. It also maintains a secure infrastructure, proven by its SOC II Type II certification and regular penetration testing.
Limble has a Free Basic plan and three paid plans, starting at $28 per user/month. Interested customers can find out how much money they can save by using its calculator or get a quote for its Enterprise Custom plan.
Key Features
CMMS Mobile App
Limble has CMMS mobile that allows maintenance teams to easily access information across assets, parts, purchase orders, and vendors. They can also view maintenance histories to make troubleshooting easier. Users get instant push and email notifications when inventory is running low or when items have gone stale.
Reports & Dashboards
Teams can build custom dashboards designed for their specific needs. Limble provides the ultimate flexibility to choose what data is accessible upfront and how users want to view the information. The status of operations gets updated in real time so admins can monitor and analyze the metrics to forecast the usage of maintenance resources.
Reasons to consider: ease of use, security, intuitive reporting, mobility, easy set-up, customization
Reasons to avoid: user management needs improvement, slow to update, technician interface needs polishing, buggy at times
#5 Fiix
Overview
Fiix combines asset, work order, and parts management tools to empower maintenance teams. It takes the complexity out of maintenance management through its intuitiveness. It has helped the biggest companies to keep their machines running at their best like NASA and Dupont.
The CMMS offers a free plan that contains basic features to get small businesses started, such as unlimited service requests, downtime tracking, a mobile app, and asset management. It has three paid plans, starting at $45 per user/month.
Key Features
Inventory Control
Fiix solves the problem of disconnected maintenance, high costs, and missing inventory through inventory control. Teams can monitor what parts they have available on hand, where they are located, and how they cost. They get alerted whenever they're low in stocks. Since the CMMS integrates with financial software like an ERP, the allotted budget and costs are easier to reconcile.
Work Order Management
Fiix also excels in work order management. The CMMS clarifies work order requests with logistical information, instructions, and documents. It also displays failure codes where a problem, its cause, and action to be taken are outlined, ensuring breakdowns are given the attention they require.
Reasons to consider: fully customizable dashboard, excellent customer support, user-friendly
Reasons to avoid: lacks user access management, synchronizing issues between mobile app and desktop version
Conclusion
Maintenance management contributes to a business's long-term success, as poorly maintained resources can disrupt core operations and increase the costs of repair and labor. Digitizing paper-based maintenance procedures transforms the processes, reducing breakdowns, decreasing expenses, and eliminating inefficient preventive maintenance.
Choose from the top 5 best maintenance software of 2024 to maximize uptime. Businesses can thrive with safe and healthier facilities and organized maintenance scheduling where every manager and technician can consult and stay up-to-date with the latest information to fulfill work orders and requests.
