Frequently asked questions about CMMS and maintenance

A CMMS (computerised maintenance management system, GMAO in Spanish and French) is software that brings a company’s assets, work orders, preventive maintenance, spare parts and maintenance costs into a single system, instead of spreading them across spreadsheets, paper and messages.

For companies that provide maintenance services to clients (machinery, installations, HVAC, lifts…) and for industrial maintenance or facility management departments that need to organise their assets, plan preventive maintenance and control the cost of every job.

Yes. It is an installable web app (PWA): technicians can check their work orders for the day and record time, comments, readings and consumption without coverage, and everything syncs when the connection returns.

Excel stores data, but it does not warn you when a preventive task is due, does not link a breakdown to the spare part consumed, does not keep a history per machine and does not let several technicians work at once without overwriting each other. A CMMS automates those tasks and measures indicators such as MTBF or cost per asset.

Yes. Preventive plans are scheduled by calendar or by meter (hours of use, cycles, kilometres) and generate work orders on their own. For a condition-based approach you can connect sensors: rules with alarms open work orders when a reading goes out of range.

You can create quotes, issue invoices (with credit notes) and manage maintenance contracts with SLAs, including recurring invoicing. It is not accounting software and, for now, it does not include Verifactu or TicketBAI.

Each company works in its own isolated space. From Settings you can export all your data and delete your company completely, which are the GDPR rights to portability and erasure. The deployment is prepared for the European Union (Frankfurt region).

Check the current terms when you create your company in the app, or write to us for a demo. We will publish prices here once they are final.

Yes. GMAO is the Spanish and French acronym (gestión del mantenimiento asistida por ordenador) and CMMS is the English acronym (Computerized Maintenance Management System). They designate the same type of software.

No. An ERP manages the whole company (accounting, sales, purchasing, production). A CMMS focuses on maintenance: assets, interventions, preventive maintenance and spare parts. They can coexist and be integrated.

If it has several pieces of equipment to maintain, in-house or external technicians and needs to record the history, yes, it is useful. A small business benefits especially from cloud solutions, with no installation or own server.

It depends on the vendor and the model: per user, per asset, per module or flat rate. Compare the total cost (licences, implementation, training and support) and not just the monthly fee.

The cloud avoids installations, updates itself and lets you work from anywhere. Your own server is only justified with strict isolation requirements or without connectivity.

A basic start-up (critical assets, one preventive plan and work orders) can be done in days. Loading the full history and training the team usually takes weeks.

Yes, for specific reports or analysis. What matters is that the source of truth (assets, work orders, history) is in the CMMS and not in several sheets.

Usually yes for assets or spare parts, as long as the data is clean and the columns are consistent. Each import should be reviewed.

Preventive maintenance is done before the equipment fails, on a schedule. Corrective maintenance is done after the breakdown to repair it.

It depends on the equipment, the manufacturer and the conditions of use. Start from the manufacturer’s recommendations and adjust with your breakdown history.

No. Preventive maintenance follows a calendar or usage; predictive maintenance acts according to the real condition of the equipment, measured with sensors or inspections.

There is no universal value: it depends on the type of equipment and its use. What is useful is to compare a piece of equipment’s MTBF with its own evolution and with similar equipment.

MTBF is used for repairable equipment (time between failures). MTTF (mean time to failure) is used for items that are replaced rather than repaired.

The request is the petition for something to be done, usually from a user. The work order is the decision to carry it out, with an assignee, deadlines and resources assigned.

The technician completes it when finished and a manager (supervisor) validates and closes it, so that the review is on record.

Preventive maintenance intervenes according to a calendar or a usage set in advance. Predictive maintenance intervenes according to the real, measured condition of the equipment, when the data indicates deterioration.

Not necessarily. Often it is enough to measure a simple variable (temperature, hours of use) on a critical piece of equipment. What matters is that the measurement really anticipates the failure.

An SLA (service level agreement) is the service level commitment agreed with the client: for example, maximum response and resolution times according to the priority of the breakdown.

Some let you issue quotes and invoices linked to work orders, but they do not replace complete accounting software. You should check which tax obligations each one covers.

None is the best in general. The optimal strategy combines several according to the criticality of each piece of equipment, the way it fails and the cost of stopping.

It is the kind that decides when to intervene from the real condition of the equipment, measured with sensors or inspections. It is what is usually called predictive maintenance.

For each asset: the tasks, their frequency (by calendar or by usage), the estimated duration, the assignee, the material needed and a checklist. It is also worth recording the date of the last execution.

At least once a year, and whenever the use of a piece of equipment changes or a breakdown repeats. The history data shows which frequencies should be shortened or lengthened.

Few. If everything is critical, nothing is. As a guide, a minority of the equipment concentrates most of the risk; the rest does not need special treatment.

Maintenance, production or operations and, if clients are affected, the service manager. That way the criteria reflect the real impact and not just the opinion of one department.

It is the stock level at which an order must be placed so that the spare part arrives before it runs out. It coincides with the minimum stock calculated from consumption, delivery time and safety margin.

It depends on how much consumption and the supplier’s lead time vary and on the cost of running out of the part. For critical spare parts it is usually higher than for normal-rotation ones.

There are free options with limits and open-source software that does not charge a licence, but they require you to host and maintain it. Completely free with no cost in time or infrastructure is uncommon.

It depends on the provider or on who hosts it. Check where the data is stored, whether there are backups, how it is isolated between clients and whether you can export and delete it under the GDPR.

It is software that records the HVAC equipment at each site, schedules its periodic checks, manages technicians’ work orders and keeps the history of every intervention.

Yes, if the software organises clients, locations and equipment. That way each technician sees the orders on their route and you see the history and cost per client.

It is maintenance management software aimed at production plants: it records assets, schedules preventive maintenance by usage, manages work orders and spare parts, and calculates indicators such as MTBF.

No. The control system runs the process; the CMMS manages maintenance. They can exchange data, for example sensor readings that trigger work orders.

A CMMS focuses on asset maintenance and work orders. Facility management software may also cover spaces, bookings, cleaning or security. In practice, many companies use a CMMS as the core of building maintenance.

Yes, as long as it lets you record a request with its location and turn it into an assignable work order, with a priority and follow-up until closure.