ERP
Manufacturing
Maintenance Management in ERP: Keeping Manufacturing Assets Running Without Surprise Downtime
Why Maintenance Belongs in Your Manufacturing ERP
Production planners hate surprise downtime. Maintenance teams hate being seen only when something breaks. When maintenance management lives outside ERP, it’s hard to coordinate schedules, costs and priorities with production. Integrating a CMMS or EAM module with manufacturing ERP aligns equipment care with the rest of your operations.
Asset Registry and Equipment Hierarchy
ERP-based maintenance starts with a solid asset structure:
- An asset registry listing machines, lines and supporting equipment.
- Hierarchies linking components (motors, pumps, tooling) to parent assets.
- Key data like location, manufacturer, serial numbers and criticality.
This structure underpins work orders, preventive maintenance and cost tracking.
Preventive Maintenance Plans and Schedules
Maintenance modules in ERP support:
- Time-based PMs (e.g., every 500 hours or 3 months).
- Usage-based PMs tied to counters (cycles, parts produced).
- Checklists, instructions and parts lists for each PM task.
These plans generate maintenance work orders automatically, reducing reliance on memory and ad-hoc decisions.
Coordinating Maintenance with Production Schedules
Because maintenance lives in ERP, planners can:
- See planned downtime windows during production scheduling.
- Schedule PMs during changeovers or low-demand periods.
- Block out capacity for major overhauls or repairs.
This coordination minimizes disruption and helps the plant hit throughput and on-time delivery targets.
Tracking Maintenance Costs and Equipment Performance
ERP asset management lets you track:
- Labor, parts and external services per asset.
- Equipment downtime by cause (failure, PM, setup).
- Mean time between failures (MTBF) and mean time to repair (MTTR).
These metrics support decisions about repair vs. replace and help justify capital requests.
Integrating IoT and Condition-Based Maintenance
Some manufacturers are moving beyond time-based PM to condition-based maintenance. ERP can integrate with sensors and IoT platforms to:
- Trigger work orders based on vibration, temperature or other thresholds.
- Alert maintenance teams to anomalies before failure.
- Feed usage data into warranty and service records.
This makes maintenance more proactive and reduces unplanned downtime on critical equipment.
Final Thoughts
Maintenance and asset management in manufacturing ERP connects equipment care with production, inventory and finance. By planning PMs, tracking costs and leveraging condition data inside ERP, you can keep your plant running reliably while controlling maintenance spend.
- Top Expert
Nathan Rowan
Program Research, Editor, Expert in ERP, Cloud, Financial Automation
