The short version: a CMMS is a work-order system built around the people who do the work. A PPM planner is a compliance system built around the assets and the standards that govern them. Buildings with a maintenance department need the first. Buildings with a manager and a set of contractors need the second.
What a CMMS is for
A computerised maintenance management system runs the maintenance department. Its centre is the work order: a request comes in, a job is created, assigned to a technician, scheduled, given parts from inventory, executed, closed and costed. Everything else, including planned maintenance, hangs off that loop. The licensing follows the same logic, priced per user, because every technician and every requester needs a login.
That is the right design for a hospital, a university, a manufacturing site or a multi-site retailer with in-house trades. MEX, UpKeep, Limble, Fiix and their peers are mature products for that job.
What a PPM planner is for
A planned preventative maintenance planner starts one step earlier. Before any job exists, it holds the asset register: every maintainable asset in the building, its discipline, and the Australian or New Zealand Standard that governs its servicing. From that register it generates the recurring schedule, the frequencies and the trade required, and it records who attended, when, and where the report or certificate is filed.
The owner or manager sits at the centre. Contractors are named per discipline and execute against the schedule. Nobody is dispatched, because there is nobody in-house to dispatch; the fire contractor comes because AS 1851 says so and the schedule says when.
How to tell which one you need
- You employ technicians or a maintenance team and assign them daily work
- You hold spare parts and need stock levels tied to jobs
- A service desk takes requests all day and each one needs a ticket and a status
- You manage more than about ten sites and need a portfolio work-order view
- One manager looks after one to three buildings
- The work is done by external contractors on a service schedule
- The questions that matter are what we have, what is due, who does it and where is the proof
- The people asking are a committee, an owner, an insurer or an auditor, not a dispatcher
A club, a strata scheme, a commercial building with a single property manager, a school campus: nearly all of them sit on the second list. The reactive work still exists, so the planner keeps a callout log with a work order reference, a priority, a cost and a status. What it leaves out is the dispatch console, the inventory module and the per-seat licence.
The spreadsheet in the middle
Many buildings run on neither. A spreadsheet holds the asset list, the contractor's invoices hold the history, and the certificates sit in an inbox. It works until the insurer, the fire safety practitioner or the buyer's due diligence team asks a question the spreadsheet cannot answer: which standard governs this asset, when was the last visit, and where is the evidence.
A spreadsheet knows nothing about standards and cannot generate a frequency. The step up from it is not a CMMS; it is a register that carries the standards mapping and a planner generated from it. How to build a facilities asset register covers the register itself.
Side by side
Holds what you type. No standards, no generated schedule, no report an insurer accepts without questions. Free, and the reason most buildings cannot answer the compliance question.
Work orders, dispatch, inventory, per-user pricing, an implementation project. Built for the maintenance department. Excellent when you have one, expensive and mostly idle when you do not.
Register with 78 asset types across 11 disciplines mapped to 40+ AS/NZS standards, a generated 12-month planner, contractors per discipline, a callout log, documents by discipline, PDF and Excel reports. Priced per site. Set up in an afternoon, or handed over built.
What it costs
Per-user CMMS pricing in Australia typically runs from about $45 to $80 per user per month, with implementation on top, and most one-building managers need three or four logins to cover themselves, the committee and the contractors. Standara is $149 per month or $1,489 per year for one site on the Standard plan, and $399 per month or $3,999 per year for up to three sites on Professional, with no per-user charge. Compare the plans.
Common questions
What is the difference between a CMMS and a PPM planner?
A CMMS is a work-order system with the technician or contractor at the centre, usually priced per user. A PPM planner starts from the asset register and the standards, generates the recurring schedule, and records completion and evidence, with the owner at the centre.
When does a building need a CMMS?
When there is an in-house team to dispatch, parts to hold, dozens of sites, or a service desk taking requests all day.
When is a PPM planner enough?
When one manager looks after one to three buildings, contractors do the work, and the questions that matter are what we have, what is due, who does it and where is the proof.
Can I move from a planner to a CMMS later?
Yes. The register and the schedule export as Excel or CSV, which is the import a CMMS asks for. The register is the part that takes the work; the work-order layer can be added when the department exists.
Related
- Facility management software for Australian buildings: the whole system for one to three sites.
- Planned preventative maintenance software: what PPM software has to do and how Standara does it.
- Asset register software: the register that drives the planner, with a free template.
You now have the test: a maintenance department needs a CMMS; a manager with contractors needs a register and a planner.