Integrated OEE+CMMS demos follow a script: the sales engineer shows OEE dashboards, then shows maintenance work orders, then says the two are connected. What they rarely demonstrate is how that connection behaves under real conditions — when a sensor fires an alert for a recurring failure pattern, when a PM work order closes and OEE improves on the affected line, when you need to report maintenance cost alongside OEE availability for a specific asset over 12 months. These transitions between OEE and CMMS function reveal whether the integration is native (seamless) or API-connected (visible seams and latency). The 30 questions below are organized into five categories: OEE monitoring depth, CMMS execution capability, integration quality, management reporting, and implementation realism. Ask them in every demo and score vendor responses 1 to 3. Platforms with high scores on integration quality questions but low scores on either OEE or CMMS depth are claiming integration to compensate for functional weakness — the integration benefit evaporates if either underlying function is inadequate.
OEE monitoring depth (8 questions): Show me live OEE data updating in real time on the screen — what is the refresh latency? Disconnect the demo sensor connection — what happens to the OEE display and how long before we know connectivity was lost? Show me how OEE is calculated when a machine runs at reduced speed — is speed loss captured automatically or manually entered? Show me OEE for 6 machines side by side for the last 30 days. How does the system distinguish planned maintenance downtime from unplanned downtime in the OEE calculation? Show me the operator interface for entering a downtime reason — how long does it take? Show me MTBF trend for a specific machine over 12 months. Can I create a custom OEE loss category for a reason specific to my process? CMMS execution capability (8 questions): Create a work order for a machine on the OEE screen right now — how many clicks? Show me a PM schedule auto-generating a work order for next Tuesday. Show me a technician completing a work order with required fields on mobile — what happens if they try to close it with fields empty? Show me the spare parts reservation when a PM work order is generated. Show me the purchase order created from a reorder point alert. Show me PM compliance for the last 12 weeks by asset class. How does the system handle a contractor work order differently from an internal technician work order? Show me the calibration record for a measuring device with its next due date.
Integration quality (8 questions): Create a CMMS work order directly from a current OEE downtime event on the screen — how long does it take and what context does the work order include? Show me the asset record that appears in both the OEE dashboard and the CMMS work order — are they the same record? Show me a management report combining OEE availability trend with PM compliance trend for the same assets. Show me what happens to OEE data if the CMMS server experiences downtime. How does the system handle an asset that appears in OEE with one name and was imported to CMMS with a slightly different name? Show me the API response for an OEE event — what CMMS data is included in the same call? Show me a root cause analysis report linking a recurring OEE availability pattern to maintenance work order history on the same asset. When was the last time an OEE-CMMS integration improvement was shipped — what did it add? Management reporting (3 questions): Show me a combined OEE and maintenance cost dashboard without any custom development. Show me how I export 12 months of combined OEE and CMMS data for external analysis. Show me a site-comparison report showing both OEE and maintenance KPIs for 5 sites simultaneously. Implementation realism (3 questions): Show me a reference customer in my industry who uses both OEE and CMMS functions actively — can I call them today? What is your realistic go-live timeline for our site count and asset volume? What is the most common reason implementations at our scale take longer than the quoted timeline?
Login
Blog
