5 Questions to Ask Your CMMS Software Vendor (with Answers)
Ask Your CMMS Vendor These 5 Critical Questions
Unfortunately, most CMMS regrets start with one issue: the wrong questions weren’t asked before signing the contract. Too many buyers get lured in by flashy dashboards and vague promises. Then they discover hidden fees, weak mobile support, or sluggish onboarding and only once it’s too late to back out.
This guide helps you avoid those pitfalls. Below are five critical questions that everyone should ask their CMMS vendor before agreeing to anything. These aren’t just about features, as they’re about outcomes, support, and long-term fit.
Let’s begin with the first, and arguably most telling, question.
1. What’s Your Implementation Process, And Who’s Responsible?
A CMMS that takes months to get up and running, or never launches correctly, can drain momentum fast. Implementation is where many CMMS systems stumble. Promises made during the sales call often give way to rushed onboarding, minimal training, or offloading to third-party consultants who don’t know your business.
Why This Question Matters
The implementation phase sets the tone for adoption. If your technicians and supervisors aren’t properly trained, or if the asset hierarchy is built incorrectly, you’ll lose credibility internally. People revert to spreadsheets, sticky notes, or “we’ll fix it later” workarounds. That makes it harder to build buy-in the second time around.
What to Ask the Vendor
- Who runs the implementation, as in your in-house team or an external partner?
- Will we have a dedicated point of contact from start to finish?
- What does a successful rollout look like for a plant our size?
- Do you offer support for data cleanup and migration from our legacy system?
- How do you train staff, like through videos, in-person sessions, or live virtual support?
What a Good Answer Looks Like
A strong vendor should offer a structured plan with defined timelines and milestones. This includes discovery (understanding your goals), system configuration (customizing your asset tree, PM schedules, roles), and a phased rollout that starts with a pilot group.
Expect at least 4–8 weeks for a full implementation, depending on asset volume and site complexity. Bonus points if the vendor has experience in your industry and shares examples of successful projects in similarly scaled environments.
2. What Happens When Something Breaks?
The real test of a CMMS isn’t how it performs on day one, as it’s what happens when things go wrong. Equipment failures, sync issues, user access problems, buggy updates, these will happen. What matters is how quickly the vendor responds, how easy it is to reach someone, and whether the problem gets fixed without you chasing it.
Why This Question Matters
During production hours, you can’t afford delays caused by frozen work orders or a technician unable to access the mobile app. A lack of timely support can stall repairs, throw off compliance reporting, or put safety at risk. When your CMMS becomes a bottleneck rather than a tool, it’s already failing.
Support quality is rarely highlighted during the sales pitch. Vendors may promise 24/7 access or “dedicated” help, only for you to discover that you’re logging tickets into a system with three-day response times.
What to Ask the Vendor
- What are your support hours and channels (phone, email, live chat)?
- Do you provide emergency escalation outside business hours?
- Is support handled in-house or outsourced to a third party?
- What is your average first-response and resolution time?
- Will we have a Customer Success Manager or direct contact?
What a Good Answer Looks Like
Top-tier CMMS vendors offer multi-channel support with guaranteed response windows, especially for business-critical issues. Look for those that publish their support SLAs and stand by them. Some may even assign a success manager who checks in regularly post-launch.
Vendors who truly support manufacturers understand urgency. They should offer:
- Phone or chat access for urgent issues
- Clear response time commitments
- Escalation paths for system outages or failed syncs
- Historical uptime records or service dashboards you can check
3. What Maintenance Metrics Can We Actually Track?
A CMMS isn’t just a digital filing cabinet for work orders. If that’s all it does, you’re not getting your money’s worth. The right CMMS should give you insights you can act on, like real visibility into performance, asset health, technician efficiency, and cost drivers.
It should help you answer questions like:
- What’s our average Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF)?
- Which equipment costs us the most in unplanned downtime?
- Are we hitting our preventive maintenance compliance targets?
- Which team or shift is resolving issues the fastest?
If your vendor can’t show you how the system delivers those answers, keep looking.
Why This Question Matters
Modern maintenance teams are expected to do more than fix what’s broken. You’re expected to optimize asset performance, justify spending, and identify problems before they cause outages. That starts with reliable reporting.
Some CMMS platforms offer rich analytics and dashboards tailored to maintenance roles. Others lock you into rigid reports or worse, charge extra for each dashboard or integration.
What to Ask the Vendor
- What KPIs and reports can we track out of the box?
- Can users create custom dashboards or reports?
- Do you offer trend analysis or predictive insights?
- Can reports be exported for presentations or audits?
- Can we schedule recurring reports to be emailed?
What a Good Answer Looks Like
A strong CMMS platform will let you track:
- Preventive maintenance (PM) compliance rates
- Average repair time (MTTR)
- Downtime by asset or location
- Work order completion rates
- Parts usage and inventory trends
- Labor hours and cost by technician
Better still, it will present this data visually, like line graphs, bar charts, heatmaps, and allow custom filtering (by line, shift, asset type, etc.). Some solutions even offer predictive analytics, showing patterns that suggest an asset may be close to failure. You should also be able to share insights easily with platforms like Power BI.
4. Can Your CMMS Actually Work in the Field?
Many CMMS vendors claim mobile compatibility, but not all mobile solutions are created equal. Some require strong Wi-Fi, don’t support offline work, or leave technicians fumbling through a slow, stripped-down interface that barely works on a smartphone.
The result? Your team gives up on the app, goes back to paper or verbal updates, and you lose visibility into real-time maintenance.
Why This Question Matters
If your technicians can’t easily access, update, and close work orders while they’re next to the machine, you’re adding friction to every job. That slows response times, reduces data accuracy, and increases frustration.
Technicians need tools that work the way they do: fast, in the field, often without a desk, or even a signal.
What to Ask the Vendor
- Is your CMMS app fully functional, or does it have limited mobile CMMS features?
- Can the app work offline and sync data once connected?
- What devices are supported, like phones, tablets, operating systems?
- Can technicians attach photos, videos, or voice notes to work orders?
- Are barcode/QR scans supported for quick asset access?
What a Good Answer Looks Like
A field-ready CMMS should give technicians everything they need right at their fingertips. They should be able to open and complete work orders on a mobile device, view asset history, follow step-by-step instructions, and log details like parts used, labor hours, and comments, and all without needing to head back to a desktop terminal. Features like photo uploads, voice memos, and barcode or QR scanning make the process faster and more accurate.
Offline access is critical. In areas with no Wi-Fi, like a remote corner of the plant, technicians should still be able to view tasks, update work orders, and have everything sync automatically once reconnected.
The best systems work seamlessly across Android and iOS, adapt to different screen sizes, and offer role-based access so technicians, supervisors, and managers see what’s relevant to them. Push notifications for urgent jobs help keep everyone in sync, even during fast-moving shifts.
5. How Does the CMMS Scale and What’s the Total Cost?
When you first purchase a CMMS, it might be for one site, a handful of assets, and a small team. But what happens when your operation doubles in size? Or do you need to onboard new technicians, add remote facilities, or integrate with your ERP?
Many CMMS vendors are happy to offer an affordable entry point, but you need to understand what costs and limitations appear as you scale.
Why This Question Matters
What looks like a good deal today might become expensive and inflexible six months down the line. If the system charges per asset, per user, or by data volume, your budget can balloon quickly. Worse, if the system hits performance bottlenecks or can’t handle multi-site operations, you’re stuck switching platforms or managing siloed setups.
What to Ask the Vendor
- How do you price your system, as in per user, per asset, per site?
- What’s included in the base package vs. add-ons?
- Are there usage caps (e.g. number of work orders or storage limits)?
- Can the platform support multi-site operations and segmented user roles?
- Can we integrate the CMMS with our ERP, SCADA, or MES systems?
What a Good Answer Looks Like
A scalable CMMS should be built to grow with your operation, not hold it back. That means offering flexible user management with admin controls to assign roles, restrict access, and maintain oversight as the team expands. It should support a high number of assets, making it suitable for enterprise-level use.
Multi-site visibility is key. You should be able to monitor operations across all your facilities from a single dashboard, without needing to log in and out of different environments. Look for systems that offer clear, tiered pricing or bundled packages so you understand what features scale with your growth.
Integrations are another important factor. A strong platform will support open APIs or middleware tools to connect with PLCs, IoT sensors, ERP software, or other systems in your stack. The best systems come with performance guarantees, ensuring the platform stays fast and reliable even as you scale from one site to five or more.
Summary Table: 5 Questions to Ask Your CMMS Software Vendor
| Question | Why It Matters | Good Answer |
| Implementation Process | Poor onboarding leads to low adoption and errors. | Structured rollout (4–8 weeks), dedicated contact, data migration help, and thorough training. |
| When Something Breaks | Slow support stalls repairs and compliance. | 24/7 multi-channel support, fast SLAs, escalation paths, and in-house experts. |
| Maintenance Metrics | KPIs justify ROI and guide decisions. | Tracks MTTR, MTBF, PM compliance, labor, costs, and offers custom dashboards and exports. |
| Field Usability | Limited mobile tools kill adoption. | Full mobile functionality, offline access, media capture, barcode/QR scanning, and push alerts. |
| Scalability & Cost | Hidden costs and limits block growth. | Transparent pricing, multi-site dashboard, role-based access, open APIs, and stable performance at scale. |
About LLumin CMMS+
LLumin CMMS+ is a next-generation maintenance management system designed for asset-intensive industries like manufacturing, utilities, and food and beverage. What sets LLumin apart is its focus on real-time data integration, advanced asset tracking, and predictive maintenance and all wrapped in a user-friendly, mobile-first platform.
Rather than offering a one-size-fits-all solution, LLumin tailors its system to your workflows. Implementation is handled by in-house experts with deep industry knowledge, not third-party consultants. From site configuration and PM scheduling to technician training and data migration, the onboarding process is collaborative, structured, and fast.
LLumin CMMS+ stands out with:
- True real-time asset tracking using integrations with PLCs, IoT sensors, and industrial control systems.
- Predictive maintenance features that analyze historical data and sensor inputs to prevent failures before they happen.
- Full offline mobile access for technicians, including barcode scanning, photo capture, and auto-sync.
- Enterprise scalability, supporting multi-site operations, complex hierarchies, and high-volume work orders without performance drop-off.
- Robust analytics and customizable dashboards to monitor KPIs like MTBF, PM compliance, and downtime trends.
It also includes open APIs to connect with your ERP, SCADA, or MES platforms, making it ideal for operations that need integrated visibility across departments.
Unlike systems that require constant add-ons or support just basic functionality, LLumin is designed for serious operations that need more than work order tracking. It’s built for reliability, scale, and measurable ROI.
Test drive LLumin CMMS+ to see how it fits your plant’s needs.
Conclusion
The wrong CMMS system slows you down, wastes budget, and creates more work than it solves. The right one improves reliability, helps your team perform better, and gives leadership the visibility they need.
Don’t just compare feature lists. Ask tough, specific questions about implementation, support, mobile usability, analytics, and scalability. And don’t settle for vague promises or templated answers. Vendors that welcome hard questions, and give clear, confident responses, are the ones more likely to support your long-term success.
Curious how LLumin stacks up? Test drive LLumin CMMS+ and see how it fits your operation before you commit.
FAQs
What should I ask a CMMS vendor?
Ask about their implementation process, support responsiveness, mobile and offline capabilities, scalability, and reporting tools. Find out who handles onboarding, how long it takes, and whether integrations with your existing systems are supported. Clarify pricing models and any hidden costs. Make sure they can demonstrate how the software fits your plant’s day-to-day needs.
What’s included in a CMMS RFP?
A CMMS RFP should include your operational goals, asset volume, user types, reporting requirements, integration needs, and timeline. It should also list specific questions about implementation, support, pricing, compliance features, and scalability. Vendors should respond with clear technical capabilities, pricing structures, and customer references. Always ask for a live demo or trial access.
What’s the difference between vendors?
While many vendors offer similar features on paper, the differences lie in usability, industry focus, support quality, and how the software performs at scale. Some are better suited for small facilities, while others handle multi-site enterprises with advanced IoT integrations. Look at real-world case studies, user reviews, and how responsive vendors are during your evaluation. The right fit depends on your specific workflows, not just feature checklists.
How do I evaluate CMMS software?
Start with your maintenance goals; whether it’s reducing downtime, improving PM compliance, or tracking costs. Evaluate how each platform handles work orders, asset hierarchy, inventory, mobile access, and analytics. Run a pilot or request a sandbox environment to test usability with your team. Strong vendor support, transparent pricing, and real-time reporting tools are non-negotiables for long-term success.
Ed Garibian, founder, and CEO of LLumin Inc., is an experienced executive and entrepreneur with demonstrated success building award-winning, growth-focused software companies. He has an impressive track record with enterprise software and entrepreneurship and is an innovator in machine maintenance, asset management, and IoT technologies.