How WorkTrek’s CMMS Solution Can Help You Meet Regulatory Compliance

Regulatory compliance audits are something all companies need to deal with. This may involve dealing with internal agreements or external regulators. Keeping up with changing standards and being ready to verify compliance can be a daunting task.

Using a CMMS to help track standards and new code, and update assets on short notice can help maintenance professionals reduce headaches.

Learn how a WorkTrek CMMS solution can help facility managers automate and streamline maintenance management operations to pass compliance audits.

Importance Of Control And Regulatory Compliance Obligations For Buildings And Other Equipment

Regular inspection and maintenance of buildings is every employer’s responsibility and covers many issues: electricity, fire safety, air ventilation, elevators, doors, and gates are just some of the common regulatory maintenance issues. In addition, there are special standards in areas such as healthcare.

Periodic General Controls (VGP) are numerous and require perfect traceability, keeping regulatory compliance documents and reports throughout the life of the equipment.

Regulatory control and maintenance obligations therefore affect:

Safety: Good maintenance is essential to keep employees safe. Material defects can lead to accidents and endanger persons and systems.

Productivity: A downed machine or a non-compliant building means business is at a standstill. Significant financial losses and reduced competitiveness can be fatal to a company, especially in a highly competitive industry.

Corporate Liability and Criminal Penalties: Failure to comply with legal compliance obligations can result in significant penalties. The financial burden of these sanctions is a moral obligation to corporate decision-makers and a severe blow to brand image.

How To Pass A Regulatory Compliance Audit

If there is no record, regulators will assume that nothing happened. For this reason, it is important to have traceable records of all maintenance performed and regulations to demonstrate that your facility complies with government regulations.

A CMMS acts as an internal checker, ensuring your people and assets are protected while complying with external laws. By scheduling security-related tasks, a CMMS can track all asset data and protect your facility from large fines.

To ensure protocols are being followed properly, CMMS systems can link OSHA rules and maintenance manuals to equipment records.

What The Examiner Wants To See

When conducting a compliance audit, auditors want to make sure you meet the following five criteria:

1. Quality program
2. Follow the procedure
3. Quality records
4. Test result
5. Spread trading

A good CMMS can support you in all these steps. Here’s a simple example:

Suppose you are a bakery that produces a lot of bread and cakes. Industrial ovens that bake products can get greasy and dirty after use. To prevent grease and bacteria from accumulating in dangerous quantities, you should sanitize them before using them again. As a service provider, you need to create an audit trail that is easy to understand. This audit trail shall include a record of all work orders for the remediation process, instructions on how the remedial action was performed, and documentation of the completion of the remedial action. If someone has checked the oven to make sure it’s sanitized, the docs should show that as well. Next, read how to implement the work order management process.

Also, if problems arise, improvements to the process should be documented in the CMMS.

Automate Preventive Maintenance With A WorkTrek CMMS

Preventive maintenance tasks are automated by CMMS software, increasing equipment uptime, performance, efficiency, and longevity. Additionally, creating preventive maintenance orders in the CMMS reduces the likelihood of duplicating the same asset, increasing man hours and increasing technician productivity.

When preventive maintenance activities are created in the CMMS, the severity of corrective maintenance is reduced, resulting in fewer breakdowns and unplanned repairs. This keeps workers safer and better able to perform their tasks.

CMMS also allows facility managers and technicians to record service orders and track asset history. Allowing maintenance personnel to identify root causes of equipment failures and predict future problems.

How Can A CMMS Be An Important Tool For Overseeing Regulatory Compliance Controls?

A CMMS plays a key role in good readiness for audit and regulatory compliance controls. The solution supports preparation at every level with the support of automation. Better documentation of past interventions and official controls could allow rapid corrective action and significantly reduce risk levels.

CMMS solutions support central tasks such as:

Equipment Inventory

The equipment fleet is fully listed and categorized, as are the relevant documents, from user manuals to intervention plans, including photos and procedures. The tree structure of these devices helps to provide advice and ensure a better understanding of the park.

Equipment Identity

Fine-grained categorization of devices allows immediate identification of devices to be controlled and quick location of error sources. The CMMS facilitates consultation on selected terms, treaties, and past interventions.

Warning System

CMMS Alerts, Notifications, and Scheduling are keywords of CMMS that help in the comprehensive monitoring of regulatory maintenance tasks and immediate detection of violations. If deviations occur, an alarm is triggered, enabling preventive maintenance.

Automation

CMMS supports regulatory compliance control monitoring, can create complete checklists, and automatically create work orders.

Traceability Of Operations

All equipment-related operations are included in periodic reports. Data is listed in full and can be accessed quickly in cases of mandatory official control.

Dashboards and Statistics

Dashboards can foresee all operations and get precise statistics. It sets the course for maintenance strategy and provides an excellent overview of fleet compliance.

Thus, the capabilities of a CMMS help to better prepare for the required official building inspections, but the solution’s advantages don’t stop there. Through improved regulatory compliance monitoring and preventive maintenance, companies increase efficiency and improve the working environment, thereby creating added value for employees.

How a CMMS Can Prepare for a Regulatory Compliance Audit

CMMS software can help you prepare for external compliance audits. While there are a variety of features that can provide specific documentation for an audit, using the CMMS itself shows auditors that you take the regulations seriously. Here are a few ways a CMMS can help you pass a compliance audit.

Audit Trail Capabilities

The audit trail feature in the CMMS software automatically records all changes to work orders. Including exactly what was changed, by whom, and when. This creates data on the history of the ticket and at the same time provides the documentation you need to pass the review. The audit trail feature is specifically designed to meet the needs of multi-site organizations, allowing you to examine the details of operations.

Electronic Signature

FDA Title 21 CFR Part 11 plays an important role in the pharmaceutical, medical, and food and beverage industries. Instead of submitting paper documentation, you can use a CMMS to certify compliance with electronic signatures on work orders to ensure all proper procedures are followed. You can set permissions to close work orders to require approval, and you can select additional settings to allow the electronic release of any documentation you may need for compliance.

Report

CMMS software often comes with several built-in reports. Maintenance reports provide evidence of compliance, especially in relation to your equipment, maintenance activities (work orders), and manpower. Most CMMS programs have the ability to modify reports to meet your changing compliance audit needs. You can also choose a custom report generation service if you need a specific report but cannot find it.

Preventive Maintenance Tasks

In most CMMS programs, you can create a preventive maintenance (PM) task list that contains information to establish standard procedures for various tasks. Users who create PM tickets can select these tasks and add them to the ticket, ensuring the correct procedure is followed every time.

The automatic PM activation feature ensures never to miss a daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly inspection or inspection. Maintenance history records (also created for corrective maintenance work) show evidence that the work has been completed.

Employee Information

A regulatory compliance audit may also include submitting information about your employees. The CMMS links individual employee certifications to employee records so they can be quickly located when needed. Depending on the maintenance management software you choose, it may store additional information about your employees to help assign tasks correctly and distribute work hours evenly.

Custom Field Requirements

System administrators can customize the fields required to complete and close tickets, as well as other data entry fields. This ensures you capture all the information you need to pass your compliance audit.

An audit must be seen as an opportunity to ask the right questions about your business and find the right solutions. A WorkTrek CMMS enables these solutions to be implemented thanks to simple, rigorous, and effective follow-up.

Historization of data and interventions also makes it easier to provide all the necessary evidence.

What if a Worktrek CMMS was your best ally in monitoring device compliance?