Implementation of a Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS) for the City of Naperville Department of Public Utilities

Abstract

This case study reviews the process that the City of Naperville Information Technology Department undertook to implement a Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS) for the city’s Department of Public Utilities–Water. A CMMS is a software system for managing infrastructure with tools for creating and tracking maintenance activities associated with physical assets. Typical requirements for a CMMS include the ability to handle requests for service, process work orders, plan preventive maintenance, provide for tests and inspections, and enable ad hoc searching and reporting. The software that the Naperville Water Utility chose for a CMMS was selected for its tight integration with its Geographic Information System (GIS), the computerized mapping database that contained a spatial model of the department’s water distribution and wastewater collection assets. Many of the challenges that the IT Department had in implementing the CMMS related to issues with the GIS data. In addition, several of the city’s ?nancial systems, such as accounting, utility billing, customer information systems, and inventory required integration with the CMMS. The case study will cover the complexities of integration with these disparate data sources that have both a technical and organizational basis. Finally, as with all implementations of software systems, the element of organizational change needed to be addressed. For that reason, business process mapping and re-engineering practices were employed to support the deployment of the software.