CMMS and maintenance contract: the two terms come up in the same meetings, and do not name the same object. The CMMS (computerized maintenance management system) maintains equipment: assets, work orders, preventive maintenance, failure history, spare parts. The maintenance contract commits a provider to its client: a period, a volume, what can be done, who approves, and a committee where progress is reported. Confusing the two means looking in a tool for what it was not built for. This guide says what each one steers.
The CMMS looks at the equipment. The contract looks at the relationship between whoever maintains and whoever they maintain for.
"Which equipment to maintain, when to intervene, with which parts and which people?" Asset register, requests and work orders, preventive maintenance by calendar or by meter, failure history, spare parts and stock, technician schedule, costs and availability. IBM describes it as a software solution that helps companies automate and improve their maintenance operations. For example IBM Maximo, CARL Source, DIMO Maint or Mobility Work.
"Are we keeping what the contract promises the client, and does the client read it the way we do?" The period and the purchase order, the volume in days, the catalog of authorized intervention types, the roles on both sides, the committee and its frozen indicators, read by the client. As a complement, with the Interventions module, planning on actual workload and acceptance signed by the client.
A repair visit at a client's site is read twice: as work on a piece of equipment, and as a draw on the contract. Both readings are right; they do not ask the same questions.
| Question | The CMMS | pylotik |
|---|---|---|
| What is it about? | A piece of equipment, in its hierarchy | A contract, and an intervention type from its catalog |
| What happened? | The failure, its cause, the part replaced, the time spent | An intervention carried out, declared by the technician |
| Who approves it? | The maintenance manager, according to the tool's rules | The client, who signs or refuses with a reason |
| What it changes next | The equipment history, the stock, the next preventive task | The volume consumed on the contract, the payment schedule, the indicators of the next committee |
The last column says where the scopes touch, and what depends on the vendor.
| Need | Family | pylotik | Overlap or limit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Inventory and hierarchy of the asset base | CMMS | No No asset or equipment management | An EAM also covers the whole asset lifecycle |
| Preventive maintenance by calendar or by meter | CMMS | No | A preventive visit can be an intervention type in a contract's catalog, with no automatic trigger |
| Failure history per equipment | CMMS | No | The history in pylotik is that of the contract and its interventions |
| Spare parts, stock, maintenance purchasing | CMMS, ERP | No | Stays in the tool that runs the storeroom |
| Contract period, volume, catalog | Depends on the vendor, often on the supplier contracts or invoicing side | Yes In the core | A volume left empty means a contract with no cap |
| Volume consumed, committed and remaining | Rarely the center of a CMMS | Yes Deducted at each approved intervention; planning beyond the volume is refused | The count is in days, to the nearest half-day |
| Scheduling the technician | CMMS, field intervention software | As a complement, with the Interventions module: by the half-day, on actual workload | No routes, geolocation, offline mode or photos |
| Acceptance by the client | Varies: work order, signature depending on the vendor | With the Interventions module: signature on mobile, in the portal or on paper, refusal with a reason | Recorded, but neither an advanced nor a qualified electronic signature under eIDAS |
| Maintenance committee, approved minutes | Rarely the center of a CMMS | Yes Indicators frozen at the session, minutes approved or refused by the client | Some CMMS produce activity reports |
| Service levels and penalties | Some CMMS, ITSM | No | See project ticketing or ITSM |
| Contract invoice | ERP | No The payment schedule says what is to be invoiced, the ERP produces the invoice | Invoicing orders through a connector built to your needs |
A food-processing site runs its CMMS: line hierarchy, preventive plans, failure history, parts storeroom. It entrusts the maintenance of its automation to an integrator, under an annual contract in days, with a quarterly committee.
The integrator's technician closes the work order: the equipment, the failure, the part replaced, the duration. The site thus keeps the history of its assets, whichever provider is involved, and prepares its next preventive task. It is its technical reference, and it must remain so.
The contract carries its period, its volume, its catalog (repair, preventive visit, program change) and its roles on both sides. The intervention is scheduled on the technician's actual workload, already committed to a fixed-price renovation project; the site manager accepts it by signing on the phone; the volume is deducted; the quarterly committee opens on indicators that the site reads the same way the integrator does.
The same intervention thus lives in two places, each useful to its own reference: the equipment on one side, the commitment on the other. Nothing links them by default; if the volume justifies it, a connector is defined for this use case. The site has nothing to buy to read its contract: client access to pylotik is free.
On the side of the families, CMMS differ a great deal. Depending on the vendor and its modules, a CMMS manages contracts, often those of its own suppliers, and offers a request portal, signed work orders or reports for the client; an EAM also covers the whole lifecycle of assets. This guide describes families, not products: each function is to be checked in the documentation of the tool considered. The detail of what pylotik does is on maintenance contract management and intervention management.
The CMMS manages maintenance operations: work orders, preventive tasks, parts, history. The EAM, enterprise asset management, is broader: it follows the asset over its whole lifecycle, from acquisition to renewal, maintenance included. Both are about the equipment, not the relationship with a client.
Some do, often on the side of the contracts the company signs with its own suppliers, or for invoicing. The center of the CMMS remains the equipment. Keeping a contract with your own client, with its volume, its committee and its approvals, is another use: check what the CMMS under consideration covers.
No. It manages neither the asset base, nor parts, nor preventive maintenance. It steers the maintenance contract with the client: period, volume, catalog, committee, shared indicators, and as a complement the interventions planned and accepted by the client.
Yes, it is a frequent case: the client's CMMS keeps the history of its equipment, pylotik keeps the contract between the client and its provider. No data exchange is in place by default; an optional connector is built to your needs, from the Business tier.
No. The maintenance contract, its volume, its catalog, its committee and its indicators are in the core, on all tiers. The Interventions module, from the Business tier, adds planning on actual workload and acceptance signed by the client.
Yes. They find their contracts in their space, with the volume consumed, committed and remaining, interventions by status and lead times, as frozen at the last committee. They see neither your costs, nor your margins, nor your teams' workload.
Page updated on . Sources consulted on that date; what pylotik does is described from the product in service on the same date.
A demonstration on a data set that is already filled in: a maintenance contract, its volume consumed, its committee and its indicators, and what the client reads of it.