Most CMMS demos look good on a clean sample site. These questions are meant to expose the difference on yours.
Eight questions
- Can we load our own asset list and run a real fault through it during the demo?
- Does it work in basements, plant rooms and lift lobbies where signal is poor, and what happens to a job closed offline?
- Can a subcontractor's technician be given access to one site and nothing else?
- Does every job close with a time-stamped photo and a location?
- Can preventive schedules be set per asset, not only per building?
- Can we report against the KPIs and service levels in our contracts?
- Can we export our data in a usable format if we leave?
- Where is staff and location data stored, and who can see it?
The last question matters more than it looks
Attendance and GPS records are personal data about your staff. Singapore's Personal Data Protection Act applies to them, so ask where the data lives and how it is protected before signing.
Start with the work, not the feature list
Pick the three jobs your team does most often and ask the vendor to show those. A system that handles them well in the field will usually handle the rest.