https://firmicore.com/blog/ CMMS, plant reliability, and factory maintenance articles from Firmicore. en Thu, 20 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://firmicore.com/blog/cmms-pricing-per-machine-vs-per-user/ https://firmicore.com/blog/cmms-pricing-per-machine-vs-per-user/ Thu, 20 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT Pricing Per-user pricing caps how many people you let into your CMMS; per-machine ties cost to the asset. The arithmetic for both, plus the hidden costs. https://firmicore.com/blog/maintainx-alternative/ https://firmicore.com/blog/maintainx-alternative/ Fri, 14 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT Comparison A straight comparison of MaintainX and a per-machine priced CMMS: where each wins on cost, user limits, and floor adoption, and how to choose. https://firmicore.com/blog/cryotos-alternative/ https://firmicore.com/blog/cryotos-alternative/ Fri, 07 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT Comparison Cryotos compared with a per-machine CMMS on what decides floor adoption: breakdown intake channel, per-user limits, and rollout effort. https://firmicore.com/blog/sap-plant-maintenance-alternative/ https://firmicore.com/blog/sap-plant-maintenance-alternative/ Fri, 31 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT Comparison SAP PM is an ERP module; a CMMS is a floor-operations tool. Where the two differ, and when a factory needs three weeks instead of nine months. https://firmicore.com/blog/how-to-report-a-machine-breakdown/ https://firmicore.com/blog/how-to-report-a-machine-breakdown/ Fri, 24 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT Guides The five ways breakdowns get reported, what a complete report captures, and how QR intake works on factory floors where phones are banned. https://firmicore.com/blog/what-is-a-cmms/ https://firmicore.com/blog/what-is-a-cmms/ Fri, 17 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT Guides What a CMMS is, what its core modules do, how it differs from EAM and ERP maintenance modules, and how to evaluate one without being sold to. https://firmicore.com/blog/work-order-software/ https://firmicore.com/blog/work-order-software/ Fri, 10 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT Guides The eight work order types every plant deals with, what a complete work order lifecycle looks like, and the features that decide technician adoption. https://firmicore.com/blog/how-to-reduce-machine-downtime/ https://firmicore.com/blog/how-to-reduce-machine-downtime/ Fri, 03 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT Operations Downtime is five sequential delays: report, acknowledge, assign, repair, resolve. Repair is rarely the longest. What to measure and which lever moves first. https://firmicore.com/blog/what-is-preventive-maintenance/ https://firmicore.com/blog/what-is-preventive-maintenance/ Fri, 26 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT Guides Calendar-based vs meter-based schedules, how to build a checklist technicians will actually complete, and a realistic first 90 days of PM. https://firmicore.com/blog/guided-operator-safety-triage/ https://firmicore.com/blog/guided-operator-safety-triage/ Fri, 19 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT Engineering Most CMMS platforms treat the minutes between breakdown and repair as dead time. Guided triage turns that window into a structured, auditable sequence. https://firmicore.com/blog/contractor-management-software-manufacturing/ https://firmicore.com/blog/contractor-management-software-manufacturing/ Fri, 12 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT Operations Contractor work is the part of maintenance that escapes the system: assigned by phone, tracked on WhatsApp, invoiced against nothing. The fix. https://firmicore.com/blog/best-cmms-for-small-manufacturers/ https://firmicore.com/blog/best-cmms-for-small-manufacturers/ Fri, 05 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT Comparison How to shortlist CMMS software for a small factory: what to prioritise with no IT team, what to skip, and the red flags that surface in month seven. https://firmicore.com/blog/cmms-for-regulated-manufacturing/ https://firmicore.com/blog/cmms-for-regulated-manufacturing/ Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT Case study What auditors look for in textile, food and beverage, and pharma maintenance records, and how to make a CMMS produce it by default. https://firmicore.com/blog/what-is-mttr/ https://firmicore.com/blog/what-is-mttr/ Mon, 25 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT Operations Mean time to repair: the formula, how it differs from MTBF and MTTA, what counts toward the clock, and the mistakes that flatter the number. https://firmicore.com/blog/the-real-cost-of-unplanned-downtime/ https://firmicore.com/blog/the-real-cost-of-unplanned-downtime/ Thu, 21 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT Operations The repair bill is the top layer. The real damage is lost throughput, scrap, overtime, missed orders, and a team that starts every shift reactive. https://firmicore.com/blog/why-qr-reporting-beats-paper-logs/ https://firmicore.com/blog/why-qr-reporting-beats-paper-logs/ Thu, 14 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT Product QR reporting is a data-quality fix, not a technology upgrade: it removes the field operators get wrong most often and starts the clock at the machine. https://firmicore.com/blog/guided-triage-for-shared-tablets/ https://firmicore.com/blog/guided-triage-for-shared-tablets/ Fri, 08 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT Engineering Shared devices break the assumptions mobile software is built on: no personal login, no session, a new user every few minutes. How triage adapts.