5 Reasons Why City Maintenance Teams Are Switching to a CMMS

Picture this. A major pipe just broke underneath one of your city’s busiest streets, leaving thousands of residents without access to clean water. City maintenance crews scramble to address the situation as your local population continuously calls city hall looking for answers. The repairs cost your city millions of dollars from your already-tight budget, but the damage to your city government’s reputation is irreparable.  

City governments are responsible for all of the critical infrastructure that keeps the community and public services operating smoothly. Yet, in so many instances, taking a reactive maintenance approach like in this example leaves essential functions inoperable and tax-paying citizens in a tough spot.

Fortunately, there are means for your local government to upgrade its maintenance processes to be more proactive, to prevent costly downtime of key infrastructure and maintain your constituents’ trust. And a computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) can help. Here’s everything you need to know about how refined processes and technology upgrades can transform your city maintenance for the better. 

What Does a City Government Maintain? 

City departments maintain all of the critical infrastructure and public services required for a community to function, including:

• Parks
• Sidewalks
• Public restrooms 
• Transportation systems
• Government buildings
• Utilities (water, sewage, gas, electricity) and more. 

These departments are the unseen force behind a functioning, livable city that keeps all facilities and infrastructure clean, safe and operational for the public every day. But keeping this vast network of public assets safe and functional comes with unique challenges. When governments choose to be reactive instead of proactive, maintenance costs can quickly balloon. In fact, reports indicate that a preventive maintenance strategy can reduce facility operations costs by 12 to 18 percent, a cost savings of hundreds of thousands or millions depending on the size of your municipality. In order to achieve this level of savings, having the right processes and technologies is a must. 

That’s where a CMMS comes in. City governments facing tight budgets, aging infrastructure and rising labor and material costs can leverage maintenance software to transform maintenance processes, enhance inventory management and collect insightful data. Here are five common issues city maintenance teams face that become much more manageable when using a CMMS.

Challenge 1: Manual, Inefficient Processes

Using a spreadsheet, or worse, paper for maintenance work orders is inefficient, disorganized and can result in lost or misplaced documentation. It also requires maintenance team members to be in office for recording and filing purposes. Plus, it puts maintenance supervisors at a disadvantage since they aren’t able to track maintenance data in real time and, therefore, don’t have a full picture to make more informed decisions. This lack of information results in misallocated funds, delayed tasks and ineffective scheduling. 

How a CMMS can help:

• Maintenance technicians can leverage a phone or tablet to access work orders online with documented processes and procedures, asset history and a checklist of their to-dos from the field.
• When a project is completed, the technician can mark it as complete from the field and record all meaningful actions and notes from their device, giving department leaders direct insight into how progress is coming and the status of critical infrastructure, improving visibility and coordination.
• All of the historical work orders are stored in the cloud and automatically integrated into real-time maintenance reports — that means no more disorganized, manual filing. This keeps your department better organized and allows for data-backed decision making. 

Challenge 2: Understaffed Departments

Governments often face recruiting challenges that worsened in the wake of COVID-19 and have grown increasingly difficult in recent months as the federal government aims to reduce spending often meant for localities. This lack of staffing can result in longer asset downtimes and intense pressure on already overworked teams. So the question remains: How can city governments still embrace a proactive maintenance strategy and perform critical repairs efficiently?

How a CMMS can help:

• A CMMS automates manual tasks to streamline workflows, allowing teams to accomplish more with less resources. 
• Enhanced and automated scheduling processes ensure preventive maintenance tasks are prioritized to save time and resources long-term.

• Maintenance reporting allows teams to prove the value of their work through data, making it easier to justify staffing needs by highlighting which tasks are performed and how budgets are allocated. Coast Customer Matt Butler with City of Dallas was able to do just this after Coast gave him the data to prove he needed another team member and additional fleet vehicles.

Challenge 3: Lack of Data

Playing guessing games with your city’s infrastructure and utilities is a recipe for disaster. Department heads need concrete data to ensure they’re using budget wisely and can catch patterns and issues before they result in costly breakdowns and downtime. Without digital reporting, it’ss impossible to effectively plan long-term. 

How a CMMS can help:

• A CMMS automatically tracks maintenance KPIs like machine uptime, work order completion time and maintenance costs.
• Real-time maintenance dashboards support data-driven decisions, whether it’s deciding to repair or replace an asset or making a case for more funding.
• Maintenance reporting can be leveraged to identify and address bottlenecks, measure technician performance and optimize inventory management.

Challenge 4: Limited Communication

Historically, data silos limit access to critical information across departments (or often within the same team). Critical maintenance needs or updates commonly fail to reach key stakeholders, resulting in wasteful duplicate work, confusion or even delays in servicing that could result in breakdowns. 

How a CMMS can help:

• Connecting departments with one simplified maintenance platform grants everyone access to the same data, allowing anyone to view and filter only the critical information they need.
• Automated alerts and notifications keep everyone updated on work order status and the state of key assets.
• Historical data records ensure accountability and transparency for every maintenance task. 
• A CMMS also offers in-app chat features, and you can even communicate within a work order.

Challenge 5: Rising Operational Costs

With high inflation rates since COVID, the cost of everything from fleet fuel to spare parts to heavy equipment have increased drastically. With the combination of rising costs paired with stagnant budgets, city governments are expected to do more for less. Efficient use of resources is critical when deploying maintenance teams to repair and replace key parts and equipment. 

How a CMMS can help:

• Technicians can receive and close out digital work orders from the field, eliminating the need to return to the office, saving both time and fuel.
• Smarter routing and digital scheduling tools help optimize technician routes and minimize travel.
• Preventive maintenance reduces emergency breakdowns and extends equipment life, helping departments make the most of their assets.
• Digital inventory management cuts down on unnecessary spending by preventing double buying.

Don’t Wait to Upgrade Your City Maintenance Protocols

Your city leadership and maintenance teams face increasing pressure to do more with less as you deal with aging infrastructure, rising costs and staffing shortages. Embracing city maintenance software like Coast gives your public works departments the tools to modernize operations, streamline communication and shift from reactive to proactive maintenance. 

Digitizing your work orders, centralizing data in intuitive reports and improving visibility and communications across departments can prevent equipment downtime, extend the life of critical assets and make a significantly stronger case for budget and staffing increases. 

Ready to see how a modern CMMS can transform your maintenance operations? Book a free demo of Coast to learn more about how easy it is to simplify maintenance, boost team productivity and keep your city running smoothly.