IT & construction new horizon

Computerises construction management system (CCMS)

An Impartial View of CCMS Functions, Selection and Implementation.

Introduction

A number of years ago, the principles of CMMS were applied to hospital equipment maintenance, where critical breakdowns could lead to the development of life threatening situations. In recent years private companies have come to recognise the value of these systems as a maintenance performance and improvement tool. The advent of the PC during the last few years has further boosted their popularity. As more and more maintenance personnel become computer literate they are regarded as an increasingly attractive option. Companies are also investing in CMMS's because they are generally designed to support the document control requirements of ISO 9002 and are a key part of the TPM philosophy.CCMS is derived from this magnificent innovation, yet it has to be introduced in the construction industry as computerised construction management system and applied in the beginning of construction process rather than in the last part (as a maintenance support).

Manual SystemsComputerised systems are now being installed in preference to the manual (paper based) preventive maintenance systems that have been around for many years. Commonly, these paper systems are little more than a record of scheduled maintenance. These have had limited success because of:the problems associated with training people to be disciplined enough to maintain the maintenance system, that is, to input the data to the systemthe effort required, by supervisors and managers, in the organisation and documentation of the systemtrade group's reluctance to become involved in paper workthe effort associated with the acquisition and compilation of meaningful data and statistics from the system.In a typical paper system, each piece of equipment or asset will have a history card or file. This file will contain the asset's detailed description, along with information on maintenance procedures to be used, periodicities, trades required, last maintenance dates, and perhaps some out of date information about a breakdown, which occurred years ago! To determine what maintenance is due requires someone to look through every card, check each of the last maintenance dates against the periodicities and select those, which are due. Next, the appropriate maintenance procedures must be selected from the file before work instructions are raised and issued to the relevant trade's persons. Upon completion of the work, the relevant asset's file must be selected, details updated and the file replaced in its slot. Whether one or several persons complete these tasks, many man-hours are involved and to properly support any reasonable sized system of this type can become virtually a full time occupation.

What does CCMS do?

In essence, a CCMS may be used to:
-control the company's list of maintainable assets through an asset register
-control purchase order
-manage construction programme
-control construction/project procedures and documentation
-control the issue and documentation of planned and unplanned construction work.
-organise the construction personnel database including shift work schedulesschedule of site meeting and borrowed instruments-assist in contruction project management
-provide construction budgeting and costing statistics-control construction inventory (store's management, requisition and purchasing)
-process condition monitoring inputs-Provide analysis tools for construction performance.

What returns can be expected?

The transition to CCMS will require a substantial investment. The return on this investment will be dependent on the suitability of the selected software package, the effectiveness of its implementation and the commitment of all personnel to the new system. Most vendors sell their packages by claiming:
-increased construction quality within specified time by reducing down time-lower operating costs
- by reducing overtime, spares inventory and prolonged asset life - by more effective maintenance
-reductions in wasted inventory - by identifying optimum materials to be used
-simplified access to construction data and statistics - through report generatorCCMS's should perceived to be no more than a means of scheduling and managing construction work.

This is because most people's experiences of management will have been on one of the manual systems typically used. While scheduling is normally part of a computerised system, most of them are capable of much more than this. Virtually all aspects of a construction management work can be managed by the modern, integrated software packages. These can have many options, which may be chosen according to the user's requirements. Wide ranging statistical data and reports should be readily available from any CCMS system, for example it should be capable of providing information such as the number of times labour finish to lay tile in a given period, etc. Details of the options, which are generally available, are outlined systemetically.