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115 Posts

gmowattTeam Fiix

published in Supercharge your maintenance strategy

Fiix CMMS Certification now available 🎓📓

Hi Fiixers 👋, I’m Gail, Senior Manager of Training and Education here at Fiix. I am also the go-to person for change management and our new Fiix CMMS Certification program. The Fiix Learning Center has been updated with new content so that you and your team can now become Fiix CMMS certified users. There is a custom learning path for administrators, technicians and managers to train all types of users on how to get the most out of Fiix. The length for each learning path varies and there is an estimated time provided for each course. Once you and your team complete all the courses and knowledge check quizzes successfully, you will automatically receive your Fiix CMMS Certification along with badges for each completed course🎖️.And, did I mention there is no cost of becoming Fiix certified 🙌.Plus, this is a great training resource for onboarding new team members as well as a refresh for all users. It’s easy to get started: Create a Fiix Learning Center account – OR login to you

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11 days ago

Eric Wallace C.E.T.Fiix Community Team

published in Supercharge your maintenance strategy

6 Maintenance Resources for Maintenance Pros

With the maintenance & reliability industry constantly evolving, it can be hard to stay on top of following recent trends, adopting new technologies, and even refreshing your fundamentals. Fortunately, there are plenty of podcasts, websites, and video channels that make it easy to get your maintenance news & education anywhere, anytime.So, without further ado, here are 6 resources we think can help you and your team stay on top of that oh-so-important professional development. 💻 Websites 💻 Maintenance WorldHosted by a management & reliability consulting firm, Maintenance World is one of the web’s top destinations for the articles, videos, news, trainings, and conferences that matter to your team. For those of you on LinkedIn, they also have an excellent maintenance-themed newsletter, released every Wednesday: Midweek with Maintenance World. MaintworldAs the first and only Pan-European publication of EFNMS (European Federation of National Maintenance Societies), Maint Worl

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2 months ago

Tanya_GoncalvesTeam Fiix

published in Supercharge your maintenance strategy

Making sense of maintenance metrics: Planned maintenance percentageMAINTENANCE TIPS

This article outlines everything you need to know about planned maintenance percentage (PMP), including what it is, how to calculate it, and how to use PMP to improve your maintenance planning. What is PMP?It’s never a good idea to walk into a supermarket without a grocery list and twice as dangerous if you’re hungry. Without a plan, it’s easy to get overwhelmed, forget items, and spend too much on unnecessary ingredients. PMP calculates the amount of planned vs. unplanned maintenance at your facility. In other words, it tells you if you’re controlling maintenance or if maintenance is controlling you.– Tanya Goncalves All these problems are magnified when it comes to maintenance. Unplanned maintenance wastes a lot of time and money while setting production back several steps. That’s why planned maintenance percentage is a crucial maintenance metric. PMP calculates the amount of planned vs. unplanned maintenance at your facility. In other words, it tells you if you’re controlling mainte

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7 months ago

gmowattTeam Fiix

published in Growing as a leader & people manager

Celebrate International Education Day with the Fiix LMS!

January 24th marks International Education Day. In honor of this important but little-known holiday, we’d like to remind you about the great training and continuing education options offered by Fiix. Did you know that your organization can have its very own personalized learning group in the Fiix Learning Management System (LMS)? Imagine having the capability to register your learners, enroll them in courses or learning paths, and easily track their progress, all in one dedicated space. And it’s totally free! Let us be your ally in boosting your maintenance team's expertise. Access the Fiix Learning Management System The training materials in the Fiix LMS are designed for convenience, with manageable courses available 24/7. No more scheduling headaches; your learners can access training at their own pace. Tailor the learning experience with role-based paths for Technicians, Managers, and Admins, eliminating the guesswork. Whether you're onboarding new hires, refining skills with recu

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9 months ago

ElizabethVossTeam Fiix

published in Supercharge your maintenance strategy

MRO spare parts: Five trends to watch out forMAINTENANCE TIPS

In industries like manufacturing, construction, and transportation, where the delivery of spare parts is crucial for uninterrupted operations, adopting new technology is vital. These technologies are critical for the maintenance and repair of industrial equipment and machinery to keep these assets in good condition and prevent unplanned downtime.In this article, we will explore five emerging MRO spare parts trends that will impact maintenance. It’s important to keep current with these trends because they increase efficiency, improve quality, reduce costs, and keep machines running. Trend one: Increased use of predictive analyticsAnalytics removes any unpredictability or guessing games when it comes to maintenance. That’s because the data used in analytics programs is based on real-time information, so you aren’t basing things like inventory levels on arbitrary quantities and numbers. It uses data and analytics tools to forecast equipment failure and determine when maintenance is requir

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11 months ago

Eric Wallace C.E.T.Fiix Community Team

published in Supercharge your maintenance strategy

A deep dive into predictive maintenance (part 2): the four typesMAINTENANCE TIPS

In my last post, we defined predictive maintenance (PdM) and looked at how it stacks up against other strategies, such as condition-based maintenance. It’s a clear winner when it comes to preventing failure on critical assets, but buyer beware: Not all PdM solutions are created equally. There are actually several methodologies grouped under the name “predictive maintenance,” and each has its pros and cons. Today, let’s double-click on this elusive term to break down the different methodologies behind it—and find out which could be right for you. The four approaches to predictive maintenance First, let’s recap: Predictive maintenance (PdM) is a technique that uses data analysis tools and techniques to detect anomalies in your operation and possible defects in equipment and processes so you can fix them before they result in failure. Or, as I put it in the previous post, PdM attempts to see into the future so you can act to prevent failures before they happen. With this in mind, here

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1 year ago

ChrisLeeTeam Fiix

published in Supercharge your maintenance strategy

Asset Categories Explained

Hello fellow Fiixers! I’m Chris, and I’m an Implementation Consultant at Fiix. You can learn more about me and my CMMS experience here in our Welcome & intros thread. The Fiix Professional Services team often gets asked about the best way to set up asset categories. So, I thought I’d take a moment to share some key recommendations from our team. Focusing on asset categories when considering the structure of your data ahead of data inputting/importing is critical to maximize the searching, reporting and custom field usage capability of your Fiix CMMS system. It’s also beneficial if you are looking at doing some housekeeping on your existing system. Simply put, asset categories define, identify, or classify assets of a similar type. How many layers are required for good searching or reporting?In most cases, one or two levels are sufficient to satisfy most requirements. Categories can also be set up for Locations/Facilities, Parts/Supplies, or Tools. Hierarchical tables can be create

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1 year ago

Eric Wallace C.E.T.Fiix Community Team

published in Supercharge your maintenance strategy

A deep dive into predictive maintenance (part 1)

With the recent release of Fiix Asset Risk Predictor (ARP) I thought it would be a good time to talk a bit more about predictive maintenance (PdM). What is it? How is it different from other maintenance strategies, like condition-based maintenance? And when is predictive maintenance right for you? Let’s take a closer look at this often-misunderstood topic. What is predictive maintenance? Predictive maintenance (PdM) is a technique that uses data analysis tools and techniques to detect anomalies in your operation and possible defects in equipment and processes so you can fix them before they result in failure.In other words, PdM attempts to see into the future so you can act to prevent failures before they happen. This proactive approach (the opposite of reactive!) is the essence of PdM. And the result isn’t just less downtime, it’s less waste in general. To see why, let’s place PdM in the context of other maintenance strategies using the simple example of a conveyor belt. Reactive

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1 year ago

ElizabethVossTeam Fiix

published in Supercharge your maintenance strategy

What is reliability?MAINTENANCE TIPS

We’ve discussed reliability culture in the past, and in this article we will explore reliability vs. availability and why it’s important to differentiate between reliability and other maintenance-related concepts. To put it simply, if something is reliable, it does what it’s supposed to every time you use it. In maintenance, that means that the systems, equipment, and processes you use will work as intended for a given time and under specific conditions. The better things work, the less downtime you experience. Reliability vs. availabilityPeople often confuse reliability and availability or use the two terms interchangeably. Availability measures the operational ability of an asset, meaning the duration of time that a particular piece of equipment can perform its intended tasks. Reliability is the dependability of equipment operating without disruptions or downtime. A piece of equipment is reliable when it avoids unplanned downtime. That same piece of equipment could be 80% available

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1 year ago

Sabina AzizliFiix Community Team

published in Supercharge your maintenance strategy

A guide to preventive maintenance checklistsMAINTENANCE TIPS

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1 year ago

Sabina AzizliFiix Community Team

published in Growing as a leader & people manager

Celebrate National Higher Education Day with the Fiix LMSE-LEARNING

June 6th marks National Higher Education Day. This little-known holiday celebrates and promotes the way that continued education improves our society and our lives, both personally and professionally. Here in the Fiix community, we think it’s the perfect opportunity to share with you a great (and free!) resource at your disposal for continuing your Fiix CMMS education. The Fiix Learning Management System (LMS) is an online portal providing a variety of learning paths for the different roles within your organization (administrators, managers, technicians), as well as courses on specific topics, such as Change Management. There are 3 role based learning paths that lead to a Certificate of Completion and managers can even create user groups to assign trainings to their team and track progress. It's like having your own superhero sidekick for training management! Many Fiix users tell us that the Fiix LMS has been a game-changer for them in adopting Fiix Software. But don’t take our word

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1 year ago

Eric Wallace C.E.T.Fiix Community Team

published in Supercharge your maintenance strategy

How to become carbon neutral in five stepsMAINTENANCE TIPS

At its core, maintenance and sustainability go hand in hand. It’s all about keeping the same equipment, materials, and assets in use while producing the least amount of scrap and waste possible.Better-maintained equipment leads to less waste, and more efficient production lines, resulting in less energy being consumed. But that’s not the only way maintenance can become more sustainable. Read on for our top tips for becoming a certified carbon-neutral organization. What does it mean to be carbon neutral?For years, we’ve run our lives on fuels that put carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. If we stay on this path, greenhouse gases will skyrocket, amplifying the heat trapped in our atmosphere and causing a whirlwind of global environmental change.We need to change the way we do business.Percentage of CO2 in the atmosphere[Source: BBC Bitesize]Going carbon neutral is one way to help fight these changes and do your part to create a sustainable future. Being carbon neutral can be defined in on

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1 year ago

Eric Wallace C.E.T.Fiix Community Team

published in Supercharge your maintenance strategy

Eight tips for negotiating the best deal from your parts vendorsMAINTENANCE TIPS

This article was written by Marc Castel, who has decades of experience in maintenance, the plastics industry, and digital transformation.Parts will always need to be ordered and equipment will always need to be repaired. That’s just the reality. Without a good parts vendor, those orders and repairs can get expensive really quickly. That’s why getting the best deal on parts and pairing that with service you can trust is important to not only your bottom line, but ensuring production isn’t affected by breakdowns. The key to getting the best value for your money is through the art of negotiating.In this article, we discuss eight tips to help you negotiate the best deal with your vendors – including knowing what to ask for, building a relationship with your vendor, and doing your homework. What to ask for and what not to share 1. Don’t volunteer or initiate pricing with the supplierIt might seem counterproductive not to discuss your budget with a vendor, but it’s actually a very powerful n

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1 year ago

gmowattTeam Fiix

published in Growing as a leader & people manager

Announcing a new eLearning series on Change ManagementELEARNING

Hello Fiixers Community,As the Senior Manager of Training & Education at Fiix, I am excited to announce the release of our latest eLearning series on Change Management.This 2-part series is designed to help individuals and people managers effectively adapt to change and lead others through transitions.The first course in the series is called “Strategies to Thrive Through Change”. This course is tailored towards individuals who want to develop the skills and knowledge needed to navigate change in their personal and professional lives. This course covers topics such as understanding the different types of change, identifying your personal response to change, and developing strategies to manage change effectively.The second course is called “Leading your Team Through Change”. This course is specifically designed for people managers who want to lead their teams through organizational changes. This course covers topics such as understanding the role of a manager and learning how to ef

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1 year ago

Eric Wallace C.E.T.Fiix Community Team

published in Supercharge your maintenance strategy

Three real-world problems you can solve with Fiix Foresight

Let’s take a look at three ways you can use Fiix Foresight tools to solve real-world problems.First, a quick reminder about Fiix Foresight. Fiix Foresight is the AI brains behind your CMMS. It powers three tools at your disposal: work order insights, parts forecaster, and asset insights. Let’s explore each tool and the common problems they solve for your maintenance team. Work order insights Here’s a common scenario: It’s the busy holiday season and a lot of technicians are taking time off. Perhaps some are also missing work due to an illness going around. This means that open work orders are left hanging, and it can be difficult to identify each one that requires reassignment (especially at hectic times like the year end). It’s likely that at least some work orders will slip through the cracks, delaying maintenance and possibly even resulting in equipment failure. The solution: With work order insights, work orders at risk of delay are automatically flagged so you can act quickly to

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1 year ago

Eric Wallace C.E.T.Fiix Community Team

published in Supercharge your maintenance strategy

A (re-)introduction to the Fiix Foresight AI engine

In the first post of our series, How data fuels greatness in maintenance, we looked at why data is so important for today’s maintenance teams. The follow-up post, Harnessing the benefits of data and AI powered maintenance, broke down the different levels of data usage.Today let’s get specific and take a look at one key tool you can use to unlock the benefits of your data: Fiix Foresight. But first, we need to understand the technology behind it: artificial intelligence. What is AI?When it comes to using data to improve maintenance, one term comes up again and again—artificial intelligence. What is AI (without the jargon), why is it important, and how can it help in your day-to-day work? I spoke with Fiix Product Manager James Binckly to find out.“You’re probably already familiar with two AI-powered tools: Google’s autocomplete search feature and Netflix’s movie recommendation engine,” says James. “Both systems work the same way.”“You’ve got an artificial intelligence chewing on your da

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1 year ago

Eric Wallace C.E.T.Fiix Community Team

published in Growing as a leader & people manager

Fighting knowledge loss (part 2): the four solutions

Following up on our last post on the value of tacit knowledge and the three common culprits behind knowledge loss, let’s look at four key strategies for fighting back and preserving your team’s hard-won knowledge. Knowledge sharingSince knowledge retention is first and foremost knowledge sharing, we need to figure out how to ease fears around job security and foster a culture of openness. Kathir Haran, a Solutions Engineer at Fiix, offers this piece of advice: “When you’re building a maintenance program out, make sure you have every single stakeholder, including the person turning the wrench, in on that decision.” Knowledge retention is first and foremost knowledge sharing. When maintenance professionals of every seniority level are looped into the process of building out a maintenance program, they see information sharing as a gain instead of a loss. Their contribution is more visible to senior personnel, which turns their knowledge into an asset.The same concept also applies to expe

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1 year ago

Eric Wallace C.E.T.Fiix Community Team

published in Growing as a leader & people manager

Fighting knowledge loss (part 1): the three causes

You spend a lot of time maintaining your plant. What about your knowledge? A key team member leaves. A log is filled out incorrectly.A helpful tip is never recorded. In any of these scenarios, the end result is the same—valuable knowledge is lost. Tacit knowledge is particularly vulnerable to being lost. It’s the often unspoken and undocumented know-how gained from doing the same work in the same place for a long time. It can’t be bought and it can’t be faked. Tacit knowledge is the mechanic who can tell when the oil in a lube pump needs changing just from the smell, or the feel of it between their fingers. It’s the technician who can tell you what’s happening inside a machine just by listening to the vibrations. Or that one team member who knows where every odd part is stored. Maybe you recognize yourself in one of these examples.Tacit knowledge takes years, even decades, to build up–but it can be lost in an instant. With record-breaking rates of employee turnover, cybersecurity thre

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1 year ago

Eric Wallace C.E.T.Fiix Community Team

published in Supercharge your maintenance strategy

Harnessing the benefits of data and AI powered maintenance

Following up on our post on how data fuels greatness in maintenance, let’s dive into how you can begin combining your data with the power of AI to accelerate your maintenance maturity journey from preventive to predictive maintenance. Understanding the maintenance maturity journeyWhile every journey will differ in timeline and complexity, here’s how a typical maintenance maturity journey progresses: Reactive: You’re starting to record data (typically break-fix operations) Preventive: Now you’re planning maintenance based on time and usage Condition-based: With sensors connected to your assets, you can collect and use equipment condition to plan maintenance activities Predictive: Now modern AI algorithms can identify trends and anomalies without specifying conditions or thresholds (using the data you started recording in the reactive and preventive stages) Prescriptive: At this point, you’ve got an almost fully automated maintenance process. Clear action plans are auto

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1 year ago

Emma MuldoonRetired Team Fiix

published in Supercharge your maintenance strategy

The five most common types of maintenance triggers

Maintenance triggers aren’t a one-size-fits-all solution. Matching the right triggers to the right assets takes time and effort, but the end result is a more efficient and reliable facility.In this post, we’ll explore the five most common types of maintenance triggers and share when and how to use each of them to improve your maintenance program. #1 Breakdown triggerThis occurs when a piece of equipment breaks down and can’t be used anymore. When this happens, an alert is triggered and maintenance is scheduled to fix the problem and return the equipment to operation.Breakdown maintenance triggers are a clear sign that a run-to-failure maintenance strategy is being used for an asset. They are also often put in place on non-critical assets that can be replaced or fixed quickly with little cost or effect on production with planned stock availability.For example, a light bulb is allowed to operate until it goes out, which triggers a maintenance order that can be fulfilled quickly because

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1 year ago

Eric Wallace C.E.T.Fiix Community Team

published in Supercharge your maintenance strategy

How data fuels greatness in maintenance

If you look at the top businesses in almost any industry they all have one thing in common: data is a key part of what fuels their greatness. It makes good teams great and great teams the best. One of the best examples of this is in sportsThe conversation around data in sports was almost non-existent 20 years ago, as illustrated in these examples:but we can look at a few key examples to see how this has evolved over time: The MLB’s Oakland Athletics used data to pinpoint the right metric to maximize their offensive outputs (and win more games) F1 teams used data to run over 2 billion simulations of every race to figure out everything from the best tires to use to when to pit stop College football teams like the University of Virginia used data to recruit players they think are most likely to make it to the NFL So how does this apply to the maintenance world? In this article we’ll explore the three ways data fuels greatness and how you can apply these learnings to your maintenan

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1 year ago

Emma MuldoonRetired Team Fiix

published in Supercharge your maintenance strategy

Increase your production efficiency in five simple steps 📋

While many projects can take months or years to complete, getting quick wins is crucial for building momentum and proving value for your maintenance team.In this article, you’ll learn five processes that your maintenance team can put in place quickly to help increase production efficiency.1. Optimize the frequency of your PMsGoing overboard on preventive maintenance can affect production efficiency in a few ways. It can either waste valuable time preventing non-existent failure or increase your risk of failure by meddling with a perfectly fine component.There are a few guidelines to consider when trying to find the right balance between too many and too few PMs:Use equipment maintenance logs to track the found failure rate on preventive maintenance tasks (Tip: start with PMs that take the longest to do or cost the most) If a PM leads to regular corrective maintenance, keep it at the same frequency If a PM rarely identifies failure, try increasing the time between inspections If the fo

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2 years ago

Melissa MeyerRetired Team Fiix

published in Growing as a leader & people manager

5 ways to empower your operators and optimize routine maintenance

You want your maintenance team to feel supported in all the work they do. Providing resources and best practices helps them work more effectively, so you can achieve goals quicker, with less downtime. In this article, we’ll explore a few ways you can help support your team's routine maintenance program: 1. Provide other visual reference materials 📚Having things like diagrams, photos and manuals will help guide operators during routine work. 2. Film a video of technicians doing the work 📹Documenting it as a video in addition to any written guides/notes ensures that work is done well without extra training or job shadowing. 3. Create a maintenance type for operator work ⚙️This can help you quickly spot work that operators might be struggling with and from there you can decide whether to transfer the work to technicians or invest in more training (or both). 4. Make sure all measurements are specific 📏Remember: what you think is obvious may not be obvious to your operators. Don’t mak

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2 years ago

Emma MuldoonRetired Team Fiix

published in Supercharge your maintenance strategy

Use the RACI framework to nail your next project 🔧

In this article we’ll cover how to set clear roles that bring clarity and confidence to your next maintenance project by following the RACI framework. The benefit of this framework is that everyone knows exactly what they are doing and what is expected of them.ResponsibleThese are the people who are doing the work Make sure they know exactly what they need to do, why it needs to be done, what success looks like, what resources are available to them, and what to do in case of roadblocksAccountableThis is the person who is making decisions, charting the course for the project, and ultimately in charge of the results There should only be one person accountable to create focus, streamline approvals and make it clear who to go with for questions or problemsConsultedThese are the people who will be part of the decision-making, quality assurance and execution process. They are impacted by the project and need to have a say in it. They are also experts in their area of business and can give cr

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2 years ago

Chris KemmannContributor

posted in Supercharge your maintenance strategy

Corporate wants 100% schedule compliance.

Our plant was recently presented with a 100% schedule compliance requirement for all Fiix work orders. While I admire the passion behind this goal, I don’t think this is feasible. Don’t misunderstand, I’m not advocating for laziness or that high goals shouldn’t be striven towards, but my understanding is that world-class schedule compliance percentages are in the low to mid 90’s.Can anyone weigh in on what would constitute as world-class schedule compliance? And more than that, what would you say to look for to bring it up to that level. For reference, our plant’s compliance percentage is around 65%.Bonus points to anyone who has 100% compliance (we hold you in great esteem) and can give some tips to us slow pokes.

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2 years ago

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