CMMS Data Integrity and Data Quality: Why It Matters

Can you confidently say the information derived from your CMMS data is accurate?

The information that drives financial, reliability, and resource decisions in the pursuit of sound business choices? Maybe you do trust it; maybe you think the data is good enough. If not, could the data quality be better? This leads to the question: what really is lurking in the depths of your CMMS? 

The black hole, the abyss, the records that may have fallen out of the workflow or don’t have any active assignments, or the wrong assignment, or the wrong status or work type. There’s something unique about each of these records that keeps them from being seen by the end user who would normally act on them. You know these records are out there, somewhere, hiding in the shadows. Think about how many scenarios might exist, or to what extent they could be impacting your business.

Some of the factors causing issues could have been present from the initial implementation of the software, or they could have occurred with an update or change in the workflow. The reasons can go on and on, further supporting the need to find and address these lost records.

In this article, we'll focus on the importance of auditing your CMMS, and the integrity of the data living in it.

Why You Want to Audit Your CMMS Records

Organizations leverage certain systems to collect different types of asset data throughout their equipment’s life cycle. Some examples of these systems are:

• Service requests

• Work orders

• Maintenance costs

• Requisions and purchase orders

• Bills of materials

This historical data can be aggregated and analyzed to make well-informed reliability and business decisions for the physical assets driving the success of the business. This is why it's important to audit different records in the CMMS to ensure processes are effective, are being followed, and that the data is correct.

If audits are performed on a set frequency, issues can be identified, discussed, and planned to be properly addressed in a timely manner. If auditing systems and processes are ignored for a prolonged period of time, you may not know if your data is compromised, which can result in poor decisions made from bad data. The more time that passes, the worse the problem gets.

If you're auditing your processes and systems, congratulations! However, if your company is not, maybe you should consider starting the initiative. What will cost more: performing the audits and realizing the value and return on investment the CMMS was designed to provide, or dealing with the stress of unreliable data and the bad business decisions that follow?

What Is Data Integrity and Data Quality?

In the article What is Data Integrity? Definition, Best Practices & More, the author Chris Brook says, “Data integrity refers to the accuracy and consistency (validity) of data over its lifecycle.”

Brook goes on to say, “Compromised data, after all, is of little use to enterprises, not to mention the dangers presented by sensitive data loss. For this reason, maintaining data integrity is a core focus of many enterprise security solutions.”

Decisions Are as Good as the Data Supporting them

Are you aware of any data integrity issues at your organization, or when the integrity of your reports were error checked and validated? Data integrity issues that exist due to inconsistencies compromise records. As a result, records and/or data ends up missing your end users and your reports. 

Your organization probably has a set of KPIs they report on monthly, quarterly, or some other frequency. Those KPIs are based on queries to identify and measure data that meets specific criteria. Here are some questions to think about:

• Have you ever heard anyone question the validity of the supporting data?

• What about the records that fall outside of standardized queries?

• If issues with those records were addressed, would additional data then be included in KPIs?

• Could that data impact the KPIs people are using to make business decisions if they were corrected?

• Could the difference sway a business decision one way or the other?

• How long has it been since your organization performed an audit of your system?

• Does your organization have folks to monitor these things?

• Is it possible configuration or system changes were made, and reports weren’t updated to compensate for those changes?

The Void: Unmanaged Records

Whether your CMMS is already existing or a new implementation, the potential is there for records to fall into the CMMS void and never to be seen again. That is, until someone stumbles upon them by mistake, or an event occurs which triggers someone to search the system for associated records. If that occurs, it’s too late, and the incident might have been avoided

Don’t wait for an unfortunate event to occur or a decision based on bad data, commit to seeking out these data issues and take action! 

Does someone in your organization monitor your system for these CMMS data problem children? If no one has this role, or you don’t know who this someone is, you need to consider the impacts of letting such records sit idle in your system. Look at it this way, the integrity of the data determines the quality of the data. You don’t want to be making business decisions from poor quality data, do you? If we knew we could improve the information we use to make critical business decisions, we would do it, right?

What You Can Do

Decide to take action because you can make a difference. Help start the movement to uncover these records and take corrective action; however, don’t do it alone! I tried to manage many records like these in the past during my scheduling days. Every couple of weeks, I would scour the system for out-of-place records. I would send tons of emails to folks, copying others, and asking for updates on the records. It felt good as we would clean up some records, but it wasn’t sustainable. 

It was frustrating, not just to me, but also to the others on the receiving end of my communications. We weren’t fixing the root cause of the issues. The idea here is to make an impact that can lead to lasting improvements! To do that, you’ll need support and help. 

Acknowledge There's a Problem

Start by having a discussion with your supervisor about what you want to do and why. Get his/her buy-in, so you can also have the support and alignment of your department. Discuss if you’re the right person to lead this initiative. If not, talk about who might be a good fit. It could even be a team effort. You’ll want your subject matter experts to be part of the investigation--the folks who understand the system and its quirks best. 

Also, don’t assume everyone in a similar position does everything the exact same way. Some may perform functions with minor differences if the system lets them. These nuances could cause issues with records, making them unique in some way. 

The Right Resources for the Job

In my case, I was the right person for the job at the time. My previous experience as maintenance planner, maintenance scheduler, supervisor for outages and turnarounds, and CMMS project manager provided me with a unique overall understanding of our processes and how our system is configured to manage associated records. Having just finished a CMMS improvement project and filling a supervisor role in our yard-wide turnaround, I was in-between projects. I had the knowledge, the skills, and the timing was right.

Communicate, Ask Questions, Drive Engagement

Figure it out as a team. Going through this exercise and letting folks know why the business has decided to move forward with this initiative is important. Do this from the start; it will increase engagement and buy-in, as opposed to waiting until you're midway complete or finishing up.

Deal with questions at the beginning, not the end. If you wait until the end, you might miss out on valuable feedback from your peers, especially if communication on the initiative is not clear from the beginning. 

As issues/inefficiencies are uncovered, folks will be starting to think how they can be improved. This initiative won’t just clean up stale records and improve data integrity, it will lead to workers gaining a better understanding of the overall processes. When our people have a better understanding of our processes, discussions will be more productive, leading to more effective improvement suggestions. Don’t waste these ideas; document them in the event that improvements can be made to the system in the future. It will provide for a solid starting point.

Keep the Initiative Manageable

Start diving into the data and create a list of queries that identify these “lost” records. Don’t bite off more than you can chew at first. For example, I audited service requests, several types of work orders in different statuses, inconsistencies between systems causing records to be out of sync, and found many good things that needed to be followed up on. I organized those findings and put them into buckets that could be managed realistically. From there, I referred to ongoing goals and initiatives in our organization that I could tie the buckets to. 

Schedule update meetings with your supervisor, and talk about progress in staff meetings. Don’t be surprised if everyone involved wants to help and offer their assistance. As your coworkers start to understand the end goal of having a sustainable dashboard, and the opportunity to address process gaps and gain efficiencies, they will want to be part of the solution. After all, those choosing to be part of the solution have the opportunity to be heard. Change becomes easier when everyone is engaged, and when people understand how the changes will help them in their jobs.

Sustainable Change Is Manageable Change

Be prepared if you’ll need technical support to create a sustainable report. I’m not necessarily the most technically skilled person when it comes to merging data tables and creating SQL queries, but that doesn’t mean I can’t be prepared to assist the person who will help create the sustainable dashboard.

If a resource has been identified and is available to help, be prepared! Know exactly what you want to find. Specify work types, statuses, status durations, field names, specific screens, or applications where the field is located. Then identify similar items in another application if data needs to be merged to be compared. 

You can imagine how frustrating it can be for someone who creates reports to sit with someone who's requested a report and doesn't actually know what they want. It can be a waste of time for everyone involved. Know what is required before you meet and have a plan.

When I thought I was finished identifying scenarios to find rogue records, my direction was clear. The data was telling me to look at records associated with preventive maintenance (PM) tasks. Not just work orders generating from PMs, but the PMs themselves. Our first sustainable dashboard we would create not only tracked the issues we identified but would also show our progress, so we could report to management. 

Here are some general examples of scenarios to get your investigative gears turning.

Key Takeaways and Conclusion

• Ask yourself if your business performs system audits to identify gaps and records that are out of place. 

• If the answer is yes, review those audits to ensure they’re effective. If not, and you think there might be issues/records that need to be addressed to improve the data integrity of the system, make the decision to discuss this with your supervisor/department.

• After approval, develop a plan to move forward identifying queries to expose these out-of-place records.

• Identify who will do what.

• Communicate, communicate, communicate! You want others to know what’s going on and why. Most likely there will be improvement opportunities as a result of this initiative. 

• Immediate solutions may not be feasible. Create sustainable reports to identify out-of-place records that can be run and checked on a set frequency.

• Document process improvements for potential future implementations.

Don’t limit your investigative work to the items mentioned here. Use this article as a catalyst to think about how you can improve the data integrity of your system. Your users know your system best and will be able to actively participate in a conversation about an initiative like this. Remember that your employees are your most valuable assets! I bet they know of a few scenarios that cause issues if asked. 

Now go get support, dig into the data, and make a sustainable difference! Good luck, you can do it!

Author Bio:

Jason Weis' career began in 2000 when he was accepted to a 5-year IBEW indoor wireman apprenticeship. Over his 12 years with the IBEW, he worked on several industrial and commercial projects as an electrician. In 2009, he began working as an instrumentation and controls technician after earning the EPRI certification.

In 2012, he was offered an opportunity at a local refinery that changed his career. Since then he has held several positions in the maintenance organization including I&C Technician, I&C Planner, Scheduler, Outage Supervisor, and Project Manager for CMMS-related projects. He became fascinated with the maintenance organization and wanted to read and learn everything he could about it.

Jason earned a bachelor's degree in Construction Management, a Graduate Certificate in Project Mangement, and earned the following certifications PMP, CRL, and CMRP. The main motivational factor for Jason has been his wife and two kids. One of his favorite sayings is the African proverb, "If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together."