Why ERPs are not Maintenance Management Software
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software is great at what it does. Unfortunately, that does not include being an intuitive data capture and workflow tool for your staff.
Some of our customers use SAP, Oracle or Netsuite, to manage their business costs, inventory, purchasing, etc. These ERPs are also supposed to be used for maintenance to automate reporting and workflows that relate to parts and machine maintenance scheduling.
Ultimately, our customers are looking to capture GOOD data and generate reports that provides insights on:
- What parts do I have in supply and what do I need to order?
- What are my Maintenance costs - including parts and labor?
- Why are the causes of machine issues and how can they be prevented?
The Data Collection Conundrum
In order for an ERP to provide these insights, it needs to feed off of data that either comes from machine sensors or from humans. If the ERP receives poor data, the resulting reports will be of poor quality and the derived insights may be misleading.
SAP, Oracle and Netsuite know this but they have done little to make their product's frontend more user friendly. ERPs are more interested in the needs of their “buyer”, which is typically IT managers, who understand software and coding, and executives, who want reams of data to be automatically processed into simple reports.
As a result, ERPs focus much more on the back end of the “data funnel” (i.e. reports and graphs) and little on the front end of data funnel (i.e. data collection).
Save time and increase on-boarding effectiveness
Our customers save time and resources by cutting onboarding time down by over 90%. With Weever Inspections, they simply hand new employees a tablet and talk them through the basics. The app does the rest.
The app provides a superior user experience through:
- A personalized “intelligence hub” that removes the clutter and highlights high-profile content
- Forms that include step-by-step instructions featuring images and videos so users get it done correctly the first time and every time
- Intuitive forms that automate mundane tasks, such as calculations.
Integrating Preventive Maintenance with an ERP system
At the end of each week, our customers simply download a spreadsheet from the Weever Apps platform and upload it to their ERP system.
The result of this process is that staff are more productive, processes are more efficient, and the ERP is loaded with better data that it can “crunch” to provide insights for senior management. Everyone wins!