How Coast Turns Raw Data Into Actionable Insights

You have all the raw data you could ever need. You use spreadsheets and PDFs to store information on inspections, repairs and preventive maintenance for every machine you own. So, why does it feel like you’re still running blind, reacting to every breakdown? Several maintenance, reliability and asset management teams face this problem every single day. You’re drowning in data but starving for insight.

Enter the computerized maintenance management system (CMMS). This software isn’t just a digital filing cabinet. It’s a strategic tool designed to solve this exact problem. It’s a system that helps you turn raw, messy information into meaningful data you can use to make better decisions that improve uptime and reduce costs. And Coast is built from the ground up to be that exact tool — and here’s how.

The Raw Data Problem: Drowning in Spreadsheets & Clipboards

Let’s talk about the world before a CMMS. You’re trying to figure out why the same piece of equipment on your assembly line keeps failing, but all you have are scattered, handwritten work orders and inspection reports. The data is there, but it’s siloed. It’s trapped in a binder on a shelf, stuck on a clipboard in a truck or buried in a folder on a manager’s desktop. 

Plus, manual data is prone to human error — a typo can throw off an entire report. And it’s impossible to analyze at scale. You can’t sift through hundreds of paper records to spot a trend in a part failure or identify a maintenance technician who needs more training. You can’t see the full history of the asset, track costs over time or identify a recurring problem without hours of manual work. You’re left with a reactive strategy because you don’t have the time to turn the data into anything else.

From Manual Logs to Coast Dashboards: The Data Transformation

With Coast, the data transformation begins the moment you create a work order. Instead of writing things down on paper, your team uses a mobile device to log every detail into the system. We’re talking instant data — parts used, labor hours and maintenance costs — from the shop floor. 

“Coast is designed so that data doesn’t just sit in the system — it’s structured in a way that makes it usable across the organization,” says Joyce Young, Coast’s customer success manager who works extensively with customers on CMMS implementations. “Instead of having fragmented notes or siloed spreadsheets, every work order, inspection, asset detail and time entry is captured in a standardized format. That consistency means teams can quickly surface trends, like which assets are driving the highest downtime or where labor hours are being concentrated.”

The software also creates a web of connectivity by linking every work order to a specific asset, location and team member. This ensures a comprehensive, centralized record of all maintenance activities, providing a single source of truth for your entire operation. 

“This makes the data actionable,” Young adds. “Maintenance managers aren’t just logging what happened, they can see what it means for reliability, cost and resource planning. The result is a shift from reactive firefighting to proactive management, where decisions are based on clear patterns and metrics instead of gut feel.”

The Pillars of Actionable Insight

So, how does Coast turn this raw data into something you can actually use? It’s a process built on four key pillars that empower you to take control of your operations:

1. Contextualize the Data

A repair record is just a note without context. But Coast links every action to the specific asset it affects. This gives you a clear audit trail of who did what, when and for how long. Every service request, every preventive maintenance task and every repair can be tracked as part of an asset’s maintenance history. And it’s this deep context that helps you understand the full story of an asset’s life cycle.

2. Visualize the Trends 

Numbers in a spreadsheet can be overwhelming. Coast’s customizable dashboards visualize your data in clear, easy-to-read charts and graphs. You can see work order volume by month, track parts and labor costs and monitor open requests at a glance. This turns messy data into a story you can understand and share with your team or your boss. It highlights patterns you might otherwise miss, like a specific machine experiencing a spike in reactive repairs.

3. Analyze the Performance

The system crunches the numbers for you. It automatically calculates key performance indicators (KPIs) like mean time to repair (MTTR) and mean time between failure (MTBF) hours. You can pull reports on the total uptime percentage for a piece of equipment to help you spot recurring issues and make data-backed decisions that improve efficiency and save money.

4. Automate the Action

This is where data becomes truly actionable. Coast uses the data it collects to trigger automated responses. For instance, you can set up a rule where, once a machine hits a certain usage threshold, the system automatically creates and assigns a PM task to the right technician. This moves you from a reactive model to a proactive one, allowing you to service equipment before it fails. This is the difference between fixing a problem and preventing it altogether.

Real-World Results: Coast in Action

Here’s what this looks like on the front line:

• Proactive problem solving: A quick look at your Coast dashboard shows that a specific robotic arm is generating a high number of reactive work orders. By drilling into the asset’s history, you discover the same part is failing every six months. You can now adjust your preventive maintenance schedule to replace the part proactively at five months, preventing costly downtime and unplanned repairs. The data helps you fix the root cause, not just the symptom.
• Justifying equipment upgrades: You need to prove to management why an old machine needs to be replaced with a new one. With Coast, you can pull a report showing the total cost of ownership for that asset, including all repair labor, parts costs and downtime hours over the last year. The data makes the case for you, providing the evidence you need to secure a budget for a new asset.
• Boosting team efficiency: Coast’s real-time messaging, built directly into work orders, eliminates back-and-forth emails and phone calls. Technicians can communicate directly with managers and request parts right from the work order screen, all while the system logs the activity for future analysis. The result is a more efficient and collaborative team that spends less time on administrative tasks and more time on high-impact work.
• Smarter inventory management: Coast tracks parts usage for every work order. You can run a report to see which parts are being used most frequently and which ones are collecting dust. This helps you optimize your parts inventory management, preventing costly stockouts of critical parts and reducing the amount of capital tied up in slow-moving inventory.

Why Coast Is the Right Choice for Your Data

Coast is designed to be the customizable CMMS that grows with your business. Every team has different assets, different workflows and different data needs, so a one-size-fits-all solution is a non-starter. But with Coast, you can create custom fields, checklists and workflows that perfectly match your operations. No more rigid software that forces you to change how you work.

This flexibility means you can track the exact data points that matter most to your business. You can create asset-specific preventive maintenance checklists to ensure consistent data collection, no matter who is performing the task. And with our simple interface and mobile-first design, even team members who aren’t tech-savvy can get up and running quickly, ensuring your data is always accurate and up-to-date.

How Coast Helped a Tim Hortons Franchisee Cuts Maintenance Expenses by 50%

This is exactly what Coast Customer The McCluskey Group experienced within their first year of using Coast. The Tim Hortons franchisee used our software to not only streamline their team’s work but to also report when equipment was down or broken, helping them answer questions about what to repair or completely replace. This data also allowed them to challenge manufacturers on repairs that were more manufacturer-related instead of user error. 

The result? The company was able to close a major gap of inefficiencies, which reduced their maintenance expenses by 50 percent in that first year.  “Now, anyone can report when something is down. So, instead of being down for two days, we’re back up and running within a few hours,” says Tara Lee-Hendrycks, the company’s director of operations. “Less downtime means more opportunity for driving sales.”

Stop Reacting, Start Strategizing

Raw data alone won’t improve your maintenance strategy. It’s what you do with that data that counts. Coast gives you the tools to move past paper logs and messy spreadsheets into a world of clear, actionable insights. It helps you move from being a reactive firefighter to a proactive strategist, empowering you to improve asset uptime, reduce costs and make smarter decisions that benefit your entire organization.

Ready to turn your maintenance data into a competitive advantage? Sign up for a free account of Coast.