What is a CMMS, and when does a small business need one?

The short definition

A CMMS centralizes four things: the asset inventory (machines, installations, vehicles), the maintenance requests people raise when something fails, the work orders used to resolve them, and the preventive maintenance (PM) schedule that generates work on its own. From those four it produces what did not exist before: a history per asset, real times, and evidence of what was done, when and by whom.

You will see it called maintenance management software, maintenance software, or "cloud CMMS" when it runs in a browser rather than on a server of your own, as this one does. Outside English-speaking markets the same thing goes by other acronyms (GMAO in Spanish and French, IPS in German). Same concept; what changes is who is speaking.

What it actually solves

CMMS, EAM and ERP: which is which

The three acronyms get mixed up because they overlap at the edges. The difference is scope.

A CMMS manages maintenance; an ERP manages the business. A typical CMMS, and onCMMS specifically, does not handle purchasing, a valued spare-parts inventory, invoicing or payroll. If that is what you are looking for, this is not it. If what you want is for breakdowns to stop being managed over WhatsApp, it is.

When a small business starts needing one

There is no magic number of assets or people. There are clear signals, and the moment usually arrives when two or three of them are true at once:

• There is more than one technician, or an external contractor does part of the work.
• There is more than one site, and each one keeps its own list.
• Somebody asks for the history of a machine and there is no way to know it.
• There are mandatory periodic inspections to prove: refrigeration, fire safety, elevators, insurance requirements.
• Management starts asking how long repairs take and where the time goes.
• The person who "knows everything" is about to retire, change jobs or go on leave.

Before that point a spreadsheet may be enough. The comparison with spreadsheets and group chats says where exactly it breaks, and it is honest about where it does not.

What to look for when choosing a CMMS

• Technicians must be able to use it on a phone. If it forces them back to the office to fill in reports, it will not be used. Check that the mobile version is the real product, not a cut-down one.
• Reporting a problem must be trivial, even for people without an account. QR codes stuck on the equipment, opening a request form when scanned, are the simplest way.
• Preventive maintenance must generate itself. A calendar you have to remember to check is a calendar that gets forgotten.
• It must leave evidence: photos, checklists, signatures and a report you can hand over.
• Look at how it charges. Per-user pricing penalizes the very thing you want, which is everyone reporting problems. Per-company pricing with unlimited requesters does not.
• Your data must be yours, with a full export whenever you ask, and hosted where your regulations require. onCMMS hosts everything in the European Union.
• You must be able to start in an afternoon. A three-month implementation in a small company dies before it ends.

What onCMMS covers

onCMMS is a CMMS for small and mid-sized businesses: maintenance requests with photos, also by QR code without an account; work orders with checklists, time tracking, photos and signatures; an asset register with printable QR labels; preventive maintenance by calendar or by meter reading; reports with MTTR, MTBF, availability and labor cost; and work orders sent to external contractors as a PDF. It runs in the browser, is built for the technician's phone first, and has a free plan with no expiry.