Generic CMMS evaluation criteria like ease of use and customer support produce generic outcomes — every vendor scores well on these in demos. The 12 criteria that reveal real differentiation: mobile experience quality assessed by having a maintenance technician (not the evaluator) complete three work orders on a demo system; PM compliance in practice assessed by calling reference customers and asking their actual PM compliance percentage before and after implementation; offline capability confirmed by turning off WiFi during the demo and testing what still works; integration depth confirmed by requesting the actual API documentation and having your IT team assess completeness; implementation timeline validated against three reference customers of comparable size; data quality tools assessed by asking how the system handles duplicate assets, inconsistent naming, and legacy data import; training approach compared across vendors since some provide live training and others deliver only recorded content; support response time guaranteed in the SLA and confirmed by testing the support channel before contract signing; price escalation cap confirmed in the contract, not just quoted; data portability confirmed by requesting a sample data export during the evaluation; vendor financial stability assessed by researching ownership structure and funding; and product roadmap alignment confirmed by a live presentation of the 12-month roadmap from the product team, not the sales team.
Create a weighted decision matrix with four columns: criterion, weight (total weights sum to 100), vendor A score (1-5), and vendor B score (1-5), with weighted score calculated automatically. Assign weights based on your operational priorities. Suggested weights for a manufacturing maintenance operation with multi-site requirements: mobile experience 15%, PM automation 15%, multi-site management 12%, ERP integration 10%, implementation quality 10%, support quality 8%, data portability 7%, pricing transparency 7%, offline capability 6%, training quality 5%, vendor stability 3%, roadmap alignment 2%. For single-site manufacturers, redistribute multi-site weight to mobile experience and PM automation. For pharma or food manufacturers, add a compliance validation weight of 10% and reduce mobile and PM weights proportionally. The decision matrix should be completed independently by each evaluation committee member before the group discussion — independent scoring followed by a calibration discussion produces better outcomes than group scoring, which tends toward consensus around the loudest voice rather than the best-supported assessment.
Ask these questions in every CMMS demo to surface capability gaps vendors do not voluntarily show. Turn off the demo WiFi — what still works? This reveals the offline capability vendors describe as available but rarely demonstrate. Show me a work order completed by a technician who has never used the system before — hand the demo to a maintenance technician in the room and time how long a first work order takes without guidance. Show me how PM compliance is reported across five sites — multi-site PM visibility is frequently limited to single-site views with manual consolidation in reports. Show me what happens when a technician marks a PM complete without filling in the required fields — form validation enforcement reveals whether compliance is enforceable or advisory. Show me the API documentation for creating a work order from an external system — real API documentation depth reveals integration maturity. Show me a customer reference in our industry who implemented in the last 18 months — recency matters because products change significantly. These six questions take 20 minutes in the demo and surface more useful differentiation than two hours of vendor-led feature walkthroughs.
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