The full form of CMMS is Computerised Maintenance Management System, spelled Computerized in American English. It names software that records an organisation's equipment, schedules its preventive maintenance, manages repair work orders and spare parts, and keeps the maintenance history of each asset.
Spellings and variants of the full form
The four words are stable, but the spelling and the last word vary between vendors, tenders and job adverts. All of the following refer to the same category of software.
- Computerised Maintenance Management System: the UK and international spelling, common in GCC tender documents.
- Computerized Maintenance Management System: the American spelling, used by most US vendors and software directories.
- Computerised Maintenance Management Software: the same thing, with the last word describing the product rather than the system.
- Computer Maintenance Management System: a looser variant seen in job adverts. It means the same, although it is not the established form.
- CMMS system: technically repeats the word system, but it is widely used and understood.
Where the term came from
The first computerised maintenance systems appeared in the 1960s and 1970s, running on mainframes at large manufacturers, utilities and military organisations. Technicians recorded their work on paper or punch cards, and the computer's main job was to produce lists of preventive tasks that were due.
Minicomputers and then personal computers brought the software within reach of mid-sized plants and maintenance departments through the 1980s, and CMMS settled in as the usual name for the category. Client-server systems followed in the 1990s, then web and cloud platforms, and from the 2010s mobile apps that let technicians receive and close work orders at the asset.
The name has not changed through any of this. A modern cloud CMMS with offline mobile apps and sensor integrations still carries a name chosen when maintenance software meant a printout from a mainframe.
Related acronyms you will meet alongside CMMS
- EAM: Enterprise Asset Management. Overlaps heavily with CMMS but adds the financial and lifecycle view of assets, such as capital planning, depreciation and disposal.
- CAFM: Computer-Aided Facility Management. Takes in the CMMS maintenance core and adds space, soft services, contractor SLAs and compliance across a building portfolio.
- IWMS: Integrated Workplace Management System. Broader again, extending into real estate, leases and capital projects.
- PM and PPM: preventive maintenance and planned preventive maintenance, the scheduled work a CMMS generates.
- WO: work order, the record of a single maintenance job from request to closure.
- MTTR and MTBF: mean time to repair and mean time between failures, the two reliability measures most CMMS reports start with.
- RCM: reliability-centred maintenance, a method for choosing the right maintenance strategy for each asset.
The full form is only the starting point
Knowing what the letters stand for tells you which category of software you are looking at. It does not tell you what changes for a maintenance team once a CMMS is running, or how to compare one product with another.
Those questions are covered elsewhere in this glossary. The CMMS entry sets out the scope of the category and where it stops, CMMS meaning looks at what the system changes day to day for planners, technicians and storekeepers, and CMMS software covers who buys it and what to check before choosing one.
Common questions
What is the full form of CMMS in maintenance?
Computerised Maintenance Management System. In a maintenance context the acronym always refers to software for managing assets, preventive maintenance schedules, work orders and spare parts.
Is it CMMS or CMMS system?
Strictly, CMMS already ends in System, so CMMS system repeats a word. Both forms are common in tenders and job adverts, and they mean exactly the same thing.
What does CMMS stand for in a job advert?
In roles such as CMMS coordinator, CMMS administrator or CMMS planner, it still means Computerised Maintenance Management System. The job is usually to keep asset data accurate, raise and schedule work orders, maintain preventive maintenance plans and produce maintenance reports.
What is the difference between the full forms of CMMS and CAFM?
CMMS is Computerised Maintenance Management System and CAFM is Computer-Aided Facility Management. The names reflect the scope: a CMMS manages the maintenance of equipment, while CAFM manages the wider operation of buildings, including space, soft services and contractor performance.