MRO Software
In many organizations because of the number of devices or products that need to be maintained or the complexity of systems, there is a need to manage the information with software packages. This is particularly the case in aerospace (e.g. airline fleets), military installations, large plants (e.g. manufacturing, power generation, petrochemical) and ships.
These software tools help engineers and technicians in increasing the system availability and reducing costs and repair times as well as reducing material supply time and increasing material availability by improving supply chain communication.
As MRO involves working with an organization’s products, resources, suppliers and customers, MRO packages have to interface with many enterprise business software systems (PLM, EAM, ERP, SCM, CRM).
One of the functions of such software is the configuration of bills of materials or BOMs, taking the component parts list from engineering (eBOM) and manufacturing (mBOM) and updating it from "as designed“ through "as built”, "as delivered", “as maintained”, and “as used”.
Another function is project planning logistics, for example identifying the critical path on the list of tasks to be carried out (inspection, diagnosis, locate/order parts and service) to calculate turnaround times (TAT).
Other tasks that software can perform:
- Planning operations,
- Managing execution of events,
- Management of assets (parts, tools and equipment inventories),
- Knowledge-base data on:
- Maintenance service history,
- Serial numbered parts,
- Reliability data: MTBF, MTTB (mean time to breakdown), MTBR (mean time between removals),
- Maintenance and repair documentation and best practices,
- Warranty/guarantee documents.
Many of these tasks are addressed in computerized maintenance management systems (CMMS). Data standards have been developed around these activities, most notably EAMXML and MIMOSA.
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