Here’s an uncomfortable truth about industrial maintenance management software: industry practitioners widely report that a large majority of EAM and CMMS implementations fail to deliver expected results. Not because the software is flawed. Most plant maintenance systems on the market today are perfectly capable. These implementations fail because selection decisions obsess over feature checklists while ignoring what actually determines success: integration architecture, data readiness, organisational change, and implementation expertise. After 35+ years deploying asset management solutions across petrochemical plants in Alberta’s Industrial Heartland, mining operations in Northern Ontario, and energy facilities along the Gulf Coast, we’ve watched the same patterns repeat. Organisations buy equipment maintenance software expecting transformation, only to end up with expensive shelfware abandoned within 18-24 months.
Note: Software capabilities, pricing, and implementation requirements change frequently. The information in this guide reflects conditions as of early 2025. Verify current specifications and pricing directly with vendors before making purchasing decisions. Certifications and licensure requirements vary by jurisdiction. In Alberta, engineering services are regulated by the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Alberta (APEGA), while other Canadian provinces maintain their own regulatory bodies, such as Engineers and Geoscientists BC, Professional Engineers Ontario (PEO), and equivalent organisations in each province and territory.
This guide takes a different approach than the typical “Top 10 CMMS” listicle. Rather than ranking products by marketing features, we examine maintenance tracking software through the lens of successful deployment. You’ll learn what separates platforms that transform operations from those that collect digital dust, which selection criteria actually matter for your facility type, and how to evaluate your organisation’s readiness to implement.
Why does industrial maintenance software matter now? According to Siemens’ 2024 True Cost of Downtime report, unplanned equipment downtime costs the world’s largest industrial companies over $1.4 trillion annually. That figure represents a 62% increase from $864 billion in 2019. For a mid-sized petrochemical facility running 24/7 operations, unplanned downtime can translate to $200,000 or more per hour of shutdown, though individual facility costs vary significantly based on operations and market conditions.
Understanding the Industrial Maintenance Software Landscape: CMMS vs. EAM vs. AIM
Before comparing platforms, understand what you’re shopping for. The terminology is a mess, and vendors love blurring lines to make products sound more capable than they are.
A Computerised Maintenance Management System (CMMS) is software that tracks work orders, schedules preventive maintenance, and manages spare parts inventory. CMMS serves as the operational backbone for day-to-day maintenance. Think of CMMS as your maintenance team’s daily operating system. Work order management, meaning the systematic creation, assignment, tracking, and completion of maintenance tasks, forms the core function that separates professional maintenance programs from spreadsheet chaos.
Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) software extends beyond maintenance tracking to encompass the complete asset lifecycle. EAM covers procurement through 20-40 years of operation and eventual decommissioning. EAM includes everything CMMS does, plus financial tracking, capital planning, risk management, and strategic asset optimisation. If CMMS keeps things running today, EAM maximises asset value over decades.
Here’s where most buyers miss a critical layer. Asset Information Management (AIM) bridges engineering design data with operational maintenance systems. AVEVA’s Asset Information Management suite creates a single source of truthSingle source of truth (SSOT) refers to the practice of structuring information models and associated data schema such that every data ele... connecting P&IDs (piping and instrumentation diagrams), equipment specifications, 3D models, and as-built documentation with operational systems. Without this bridge, maintenance teams often waste 15-30 minutes per work order searching for documentation that engineers maintain separately.
How do you know which level your facility needs? If you’re running a 50-person manufacturing facility with $5-20 million in assets, CMMS typically meets requirements. Budget approximately $150,000-$400,000 over 5 years, though costs vary by vendor and scope. Operating a refinery or petrochemical complex with $500 million or more in assets? You likely need EAM at a minimum. Budget $2-7 million over 5 years, with significant variation based on complexity and integration requirements.
Why Industrial Maintenance Software Implementations Fail
That high failure rate reflects real organisations that spent millions on software, only to end up with systems their technicians refuse to use 18 months later. The problems almost never start with the software itself. They start planning 6-12 months earlier.
The Data Foundation Problem
Your implementation will only be as good as your data. Industry experience suggests that the majority of industrial organisations have inadequate data when they start. Successful implementation requires equipment data mapped to functional locations, complete asset hierarchies (typically 4-6 levels deep), spare parts linked to specific assets, preventive maintenance schedules based on OEM recommendations, and documented job cards listing required parts, tools, and safety requirements. If your maintenance team stores tribal knowledge in the heads of experienced technicians rather than documented systems, you’re likely not ready for software. You may need 3-6 months of data cleanup costing $100,000-350,000 or more, depending on facility size and data condition.
Honest assessment from implementation experience: We’ve seen implementations fail six months in because nobody wanted to do the unglamorous work of walking down thousands of equipment items and building accurate asset hierarchies. The software worked fine. The foundation was garbage.
Integration Architecture Challenges
Your EAM needs to communicate with your ERP (SAP, Oracle, Microsoft Dynamics), pull data from SCADA systems (the sensor network that monitors your plant in real time), and connect to engineering databases. Getting these systems to communicate proves complex and expensive. Integration costs are routinely underestimated, often significantly. That “easy API connection” demonstrated in sales meetings often becomes a 4-6 month project costing $150,000-400,000 when you implement it with your specific ERP version and data model.
The Change Management Gap
Your technicians have done things a certain way for years or decades. Organisations that succeed communicate benefits 3-4 months before go-live, invest substantially in comprehensive training (often 40-80 hours per user role), and have clear success metrics at 90 days, 6 months, and 12 months. Organisations that fail provide minimal training and wonder why adoption stalls at low levels.
Selection Criteria That Actually Matter for Deployment Success
Forget the 47-feature comparison matrices. Every enterprise-grade platform handles work orders, preventive maintenance, and inventory. What separates successful implementations from failures has almost nothing to do with features.
Integration Architecture Requirements
Before evaluating vendors, spend 2-3 weeks mapping integration requirements with IT:
ERP connectivity: If you’re running SAP (common among large North American industrial companies), SAP Plant Maintenance delivers maintenance functionality connecting directly with procurement, finance, and operations. That native integration can save substantial custom development costs, but only if you’re actually running SAP S/4HANA rather than legacy versions.
SCADA integration: Predictive maintenance relies on condition-monitoring data from connected sensors, including temperature, vibration, and pressure. For electrical systems, power quality monitoring provides additional fault detection capability by tracking voltage anomalies, harmonics, and power factor deviations.
If your platform can’t ingest real-time data from major vendors like Honeywell, Emerson, ABB, or Rockwell systems, you’re stuck with calendar-based maintenance, whether equipment needs service or not. This can result in significant unnecessary maintenance costs annually.
Engineering systems: Can technicians access P&IDs and 3D models from within the maintenance interface? Or are they switching between multiple applications, potentially wasting 15-30 minutes per complex work order?
Vendor Ecosystem Evaluation
The software vendor matters less than you think. The implementation partner matters more than you realise.
IBM Maximo, one of the most widely deployed enterprise asset management platforms with thousands of installations globally, is notoriously complex to implement. Implementation typically requires 18-24 months and consultants billing $150-250 per hour in North American markets. The platform is capable. The question is whether you have access to implementation partners who know your industry. Qualified implementation partners for specialised industries may be limited and often booked months in advance.
Ask vendors for 3-5 customer references at similar organisations. Then actually call those references: How long did implementation really take? What was the true total cost, including change orders? What does support look like during off-hours when production is down?
An unpopular but honest observation: A mid-market CMMS like Fiix or UpKeep (typically $50,000-200,000 over 5 years) implemented well will often outperform an enterprise EAM (typically $2-5 million) implemented poorly.
Organisational Readiness Assessment
Is your organisation actually ready to implement? This assessment takes 2-4 weeks and can save you from a costly mistake.
Signs you’re ready:
- Leadership is committed to a dedicated budget beyond licensing and realistic timeline flexibility
- Most equipment is documented with functional location and basic nameplate data
- Maintenance team supports the change (survey them to assess support levels)
- Dedicated resources specifically for implementation coordination
Signs you may not be ready (consider waiting 6-12 months):
- Initiative driven by IT or corporate, with minimal maintenance supervision input
- Significant uncertainty about the total asset count
- Previous software implementations are still generating complaints years later
- Timeline driven by fiscal deadlines rather than realistic planning
Be honest about organisational readiness. Implementing before it is ready can waste significant investment and damage trust in technology projects for years.
Leading Industrial Maintenance Platforms: Honest Assessment
We have opinions developed from implementing these systems across hundreds of facilities since 1985.
Enterprise-Grade Platforms
IBM Maximo remains the default for mega-enterprises managing hundreds of thousands of assets. Total cost of ownership typically runs $4-7 million over five years for large deployments, though costs vary significantly. Implementation takes 18-30 months with substantial role-specific training requirements. According to industry analyses, many organisations use only a fraction of their available capabilities, with field technician adoption often well below that of mobile-first platforms. If you’re not managing extremely large asset portfolios with strict regulatory requirements, you may not need this level of platform.
SAP Plant Maintenance makes sense if you’re deep in the SAP ecosystem, specifically S/4HANA with SAP-trained IT staff. SAP customers often report a meaningful reduction in integration costs versus best-of-breed EAM. The downside: if you’re not already on SAP, total investment for S/4HANA plus SAP PM configuration can reach $5-15 million over 2-4 years. Verify current pricing and implementation estimates directly with SAP.
AVEVA takes a different approach. Rather than competing as CMMS/EAM, AVEVA’s strength is Asset Information Management, creating a connected data backbone spanning engineering, maintenance, and operations. For organisations where the real problem is connecting engineering data with operational reality, AVEVA addresses gaps that pure CMMS platforms don’t. Vista Projects, an integrated engineeringThe process of integrated engineering involves multiple engineering disciplines working in conjunction with other project disciplines to e... and system integration firm established in 1985, specialises in implementing AVEVA Asset Information Management solutions that bridge engineering design and operational maintenance.
Infor EAM offers industry-specific capabilities with strengths in manufacturing, utilities, and capital-intensive operations. Pricing typically runs $75-150 per user monthly for cloud deployment, with implementation costs varying by scope. A solid platform is often overlooked in favour of higher-profile options. Verify current pricing directly with Infor.
Mid-Market CMMS Solutions
Platforms like Fiix, UpKeep, Limble, and MaintainX can be implemented in weeks rather than months, require less training, and cost dramatically less. Pricing varies by vendor and tier, so verify current rates directly. These platforms have improved dramatically in recent years, with some achieving strong adoption among technicians quickly compared to enterprise alternatives.
These platforms may be appropriate when: You operate single or a few sites with moderate asset values, have standard integration requirements, primarily need to digitise work orders, and have limited IT support for ongoing administration.
These platforms may be insufficient when you need sophisticated lifecycle management across very large asset portfolios, require complex engineering system integration, need strict regulatory compliance capabilities, or run continuous operations where system downtime has major financial consequences.
The Integration Challenge: Connecting Engineering Data with Operations
Here’s what CMMS comparison articles miss: maintenance software only manages operational data. It doesn’t include your P&IDs, equipment specifications from the engineering phase, or 3D models that help technicians locate equipment in complex facilities.
Engineering has one set of systems (SmartPlant, AVEVA Engineering, AutoCAD). Operations has another (process historians, DCS interfaces). Maintenance has a third. The handoff between them, particularly engineering to operations during project completion, is where critical information often falls through the cracks. Industry experience consistently shows that poor data handoff between project phases undermines EAM effectiveness.
AVEVA Asset Information Management addresses this by creating a single source of truth spanning the entire asset lifecycle. Organisations that solve this problem often report meaningful efficiency gains. Published case studies show results, including Maire Tecnimont achieving 20% cost savings by adopting an information management approach from project inception, and Bruce Power improving walkdown efficiency by 30% while saving over 1,000 hours in data retrieval. Individual results vary significantly based on facility conditions and implementation quality.
How Much Does Industrial Maintenance Software Really Cost?
Those per-user monthly pricing pages tell you almost nothing useful. Here’s what organisations typically spend, though your costs will vary based on scope, complexity, and vendor negotiations:
| Cost Category | Typical % of Total | Mid-Market Estimate | Enterprise Estimate |
| License Fees | 20-30% | $50,000-150,000/5yr | $500,000-1,500,000/5yr |
| Implementation | 40-60% | $50,000-150,000 | $1,000,000-2,500,000 |
| Data Migration | 10-15% | $100,000-200,000 | $300,000-750,000 |
| Integration | 10-20% | $60,000-150,000 | $300,000-600,000 |
| Training | 5-10% | $25,000-75,000 | $100,000-250,000 |
| Approximate 5-Year Total | 100% | $200,000-450,000 | $2,500,000-5,000,000 |
These figures represent typical ranges observed across implementations. Your actual costs may differ significantly. Obtain detailed quotes from vendors and implementation partners for accurate budgeting.
What’s the realistic ROI timeline? Expect 18-36 months to a positive return for well-executed implementations. Key drivers typically include reducing reactive maintenance (emergency repairs often cost 3-5x as much as planned work, according to U.S. Department of Energy research), improving technician productivity, and reducing spare parts inventory. Be sceptical of promises for rapid ROI without detailed supporting analysis.
For a detailed framework on calculating predictive maintenance ROI and building the financial case for these investments, see our guide to predictive maintenance cost savings.
What’s the Difference Between CMMS and EAM Software?
A Computerised Maintenance Management System (CMMS) focuses on day-to-day maintenance operations, including work order tracking, preventive maintenance scheduling, and spare parts inventory. Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) software extends beyond maintenance to encompass the complete asset lifecycle, including capital planning, risk management, and strategic optimisation across equipment lifespans of 20-40 years.
| Capability | CMMS | EAM | Asset Information Mgmt |
| Work Order Management | Full | Full | Not the primary function |
| Preventive Maintenance | Full | Full | Not the primary function |
| Spare Parts Inventory | Full | Full | Not the primary function |
| Asset Lifecycle Planning | Limited | Full | Engineering focus |
| Capital Planning | Not included | Full | Not the primary function |
| Engineering Data Integration | Not included | Limited | Primary strength |
| Typical 5-Year Cost Range | $150K-400K | $2M-5M | $500K-2M |
How do you choose? Choose CMMS if your primary goal is operational efficiency. Choose EAM if you manage very large asset portfolios and need to support major capital decisions with data. Verify current capabilities and pricing directly with vendors, as features and costs evolve.
When Should Your Facility Transition to Modern Maintenance Software?
Signs you’ve outgrown spreadsheets:
- Maintenance history exists primarily in people’s heads
- You can’t quickly answer questions about equipment failure patterns
- PM completion rates fall below acceptable levels
- Parts inventory status is unclear until emergencies occur
- Compliance audits require extensive scrambling
Readiness indicators (look for most of these):
- Most equipment is documented with location and nameplate data
- Leadership committed to a realistic timeline with appropriate contingency
- Maintenance supervision actively supports the change
- Budget available beyond just licensing costs
- The organisation has recovered from previous technology implementation challenges
If ready, start with a pilot area rather than enterprise-wide deployment. Pick a single production line or equipment class. Implement over several months, demonstrate value, then expand. Phased approaches typically show better success rates than attempting everything simultaneously.
The Bottom Line
Selecting industrial maintenance management software isn’t primarily a technology decision. It’s an organisational transformation requiring 12-30 months to execute properly. Success depends far more on implementation quality than feature checkboxes. Match your selection to integration architecture, data readiness, and organisational capacity for change.
Before evaluating vendors, invest several weeks in preparation: document your asset hierarchy (or estimate the effort required to create one), audit data quality, map integration requirements to IT, and honestly evaluate organisational readiness. The right preparation means the difference between implementations that struggle and those that genuinely transform operations.
The information in this guide represents general industry experience and published research. Software capabilities, pricing, regulations, and market conditions change frequently. Verify all specifications, pricing, and compliance requirements directly with vendors and appropriate professionals before making purchasing decisions. Individual implementation results vary significantly based on organisational readiness, data quality, and execution. Certifications and licensure requirements vary by jurisdiction.
Vista Projects has spent over 35 years implementing asset information management and maintenance systems across petrochemical facilities, mining operations, and energy infrastructure throughout North America and internationally. As an AVEVA Partner specialising in Asset Information Management, we help industrial organisations bridge engineering design and operational maintenance. Vista Projects operates under the regulatory oversight of the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Alberta (APEGA), with engineering services in other Canadian provinces subject to their respective provincial regulatory bodies. Contact us at info@vistaprojects.com to discuss your maintenance software strategy.