1. CWorks CMMS transforms maintenance
management around the globe
Overview “Our CMMS solution is very fast to implement and
Country or Region: Malaysia
Industry: Information Technology
that is our edge. In this day and age, people are just
fed up with long implementation cycles and huge
Customer Profile
CWorks Systems Bhd has made its mark
investments.”
as one of the most popular CMMS Abdul Rani Achmed Abdullah, CEO, CWorks Systems Bhd
providers in the world. Its CWorks‟ CMMS
solution has been downloaded over half
a million times by users in over 100
countries. Since it was established in 2001, CWorks Systems Bhd has
become one of the most popular computerized maintenance
Business Situation
CWorks‟ goal was develop a CMMS management systems (CMMS) providers in the world. As the
application that was easy to implement founders of CWorks were practitioners in the maintenance
and affordable, enabling more
organizations around the world to industry, they were keen to develop a CMMS software that was
computerize the management of their easy to implement and affordable so that more organizations,
maintenance functions.
especially small and medium enterprises, could deploy it. The
Solution simplicity and user-friendliness of CWorks‟ CMMS allows
The CMMS solution was initially
developed using Visual Basic for organizations to easily and quickly computerize the
Applications running on Microsoft management of their maintenance functions. The time saved on
Access. It was subsequently upgraded to
run on Microsoft SQL Server and other preventive maintenance and spares management through has
database platforms. resulted in real cost savings for CWorks users in over 100
Benefits countries. CWorks CMMS also allows for easy identification of
repetitive faults and trends that assist maintenance personnel in
 Speedy implementation
 Slashes maintenance costs their efforts to maximize equipment uptime and reduce
 Increases asset availability breakdowns.
 CMMS without a planner
 Increases repeat customers
 Support for better decision making
 More effective dashboards
 Reduced reporting costs

2. “With CWorks, your Situation and medium enterprises, could deploy it,”
Relatively low profile in Malaysia, CWorks says CWorks CEO and co-founder Abdul
maintenance strategy Systems Bhd has succeeded in the cut- Rani Achmed Abdullah.
can now move from throat Internet software arena where many
startups have failed. Since its establishment “CWorks‟ CMMS is the sensible approach to
reactive to proactive in 2001 as a provider of computerized maintenance management not only for its
and your percentage maintenance management systems
(CMMS), the Serdang-based company has
affordability but because it is designed and
implemented by experienced practitioners
planned versus steadily made its mark as one of the most who understand the processes and costs
popular CMMS providers in the world. associated with asset maintenance,
unplanned jobs should operational effectiveness, and the need for
increase.” Its free CWorks‟ CMMS has been continuous improvement,” adds Abdul
downloaded over half a million times by Rani.
Abdul Rani Achmed Abdullah, CEO, CWorks users in over 100 countries, with the
Systems Bhd majority of users from the United States. It He says CWorks saw early on that at the
also has over 2,000 paid user sites around top end of the market, computerized
the world. In the extremely competitive maintenance management systems were
CMMS software space, CWorks has beaten the domain of the entrenched Enterprise
the odds and is consistently found at the Resource Planning (ERP) solution providers.
top list of search engines for CMMS or Typically for these providers, the CMMS
maintenance systems. The company‟s out- component was a module of their ERP
of-the-box marketing and Internet-based system and this meant that deploying a
strategy has given it an edge in the CMMS module often took a long time and
competitive global CMMS industry. was very costly.
Recognizing the potential in matured Abdul Rani and his partners saw that
markets such as the United States, Canada companies, especially in the SME sector,
and Europe, CWorks established a wanted just a streamlined CMMS that could
subsidiary in Buffalo, New York in 2005. A be quickly deployed without much fuss and
Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) status costly investment.
company listed on Malaysia‟s ACE Market,
CWorks also has a presence in Melbourne, Solution
Australia, as well as a chain of partners in CWorks then embarked on developing a
the United Kingdom, Canada, Mexico, CMMS solution which had all the required
Egypt, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Iran and the features and which could be easily installed
Philippines. by users without handholding by CWorks.
“We wanted to develop an application that
CWorks was founded by a group of you can just download and start up quickly
maintenance and information technology because the earlier solutions were really
(IT) practitioners with long years of part of a huge ERP system that was
experience in maintenance and IT in both complex and often required many months
local and multinational organizations. “The to deploy,” explains Abdul Rani.
founders of CWorks were practitioners in
the maintenance industry, and we basically “Since we were involved in the maintenance
decided to develop a CMMS software that business before we founded CWorks, we
was easy to implement and affordable so had in-depth understanding of the actual
that more organizations, especially small

3. “However by processes, and managed to take away a lot Abdul Rani says CWorks users are mainly
of the unnecessary features that people from English speaking countries with the
deploying CWorks want in the typical CMMS software. In other majority from North America, UK and
CMMS, users have words, we give them what they need and Australia. “We are also getting a lot of
not necessarily what they want,” says Abdul interest from the Middle East with users
discovered that the Rani. from Dubai, the United Arab Emirates (UAE)
answer is not in and Saudi Arabia. In that sense, we are not
The CWorks team also suggested building a Malaysian business, we are in the Internet
increasing people but the new CMMS solution on the Microsoft business and our footprint is global.”
in improving time Access database because it was “the
simplest database to work on” and also
management through because it was very widely used, being part
Benefits
Speedy implementation
good planning and of the ubiquitous Microsoft Office suite.
The out-of-the-box feature of CWorks
efficient use of scarce “So that‟s what we did, we implemented
CMMS, its simplicity and user-friendliness
enables users to get the solution up and
manpower.” the CMMS solution on Microsoft Access
running in double quick time, allowing
and developed the application using Visual
organizations to easily and quickly
Abdul Rani Achmed Abdullah, CEO, CWorks Basic for Applications (VBA),” he adds. In
computerize the management of their
Systems Bhd the intervening years, CWorks upgraded
maintenance functions.
the software to enable it to run on
Microsoft SQL Server as well as other
CWorks CMMS can typically be
database platforms to cater to clients‟
implemented within two weeks in
differing requirements.
comparison with other features-heavy
systems or those which are part of an ERP
CWorks CMMS is designed for enterprises
system which can often take months or
from all tiers, from small, mid to large
even years to be deployed. “Our CMMS
organizations, in managing their asset and
solution is very fast to implement and that
equipment maintenance needs. The
is our edge,” says Abdul Rani, adding that
application can be deployed on premise as
increasingly very large corporations such as
a standalone solution or as an off premise
national airlines and giant Internet
Web-based „anywhere and anytime‟
companies are opting for CWorks CMMS
solution. It allows users to easily record
rather than other cumbersome CMMS
details of the organization‟s assets and
alternatives.
resources as well as the maintenance tasks
assigned. It also automates tasks such as
“In this day and age, people are just fed up
preventive maintenance, time and meter-
with long implementation cycles and huge
based scheduling; spares holding and
investments. They rather pay RM1 and get
enables re-order and purchase tracking.
RM10 worth of benefits than pay RM100
and get RM20 benefit,” he adds. By helping
CWorks CMMS also provides reports on
organizations to quickly computerize the
plant and facility management to improved
management of their maintenance
planning, checking and monitoring. With
operations, CWorks allows them to enjoy
the wide range of reports available, users
the resulting benefits such as improved
are able to provide proper justification for
productivity, lower costs of operations,
budgets and resources.
increased asset availability and reductions
in spare parts inventory.

4. Slashes maintenance costs identified though the trend reports,”
As maintenance is one of the largest explains Abdul Rani.
operating costs in plants and buildings
today, controlling these costs can help save “With CWorks, your maintenance strategy
substantial funds for a company‟s can now move from reactive to proactive
operations. “The dilemma faced by many and your percentage planned versus
companies, especially the small and unplanned jobs should increase,” he adds.
medium-sized ones, is not that they don‟t And through regular and effective
want to save costs but they barely have preventive maintenance, the effective
sufficient people to keep the plant or lifetime of an organisation‟s assets and
building going, let alone find ways to equipment can be prolonged, he adds.
improve maintenance,” says Abdul Rani.
With the availability of an effective CMMS
However by deploying CWorks CMMS, system like CWorks, stock holding also
users have discovered that the answer is becomes more predictable. This means that
not in increasing people but in improving spare parts can be linked to equipment,
time management through good planning thus ensuring obsolete parts are readily
and efficient use of scarce manpower. For identified. Regular stock review ability
example, labor cost is reduced through cuts provides efficient spare parts management
in overtime due to breakdowns, and and ensures that parts are readily available,
efficient maintenance scheduling. Improved says Abdul Rani.
tracking and management of spare parts
will reduce non-productive time in CMMS without a planner
searching for right parts and waiting for One of the key ingredients to the
parts while use of human resources can be popularity of CWorks‟ CMMS is that it not
monitored as maintenance staff‟s activities only allows small and mid-sized
are recorded and logged into the CWorks organizations to quickly implement a
system. computerized maintenance management
system, the system is also user-friendly
The time saved on preventive maintenance enough to be deployed without the need
and spares management through the for an IT staff or a full-time planning
CWorks system has resulted in real cost engineer.
savings for the thousands of CWorks users
in over 100 countries. In the case of ice cream maker Coast
Mountain Dairy, which has a small plant in
Increases asset availability Chilliwack, British Columbia, it was not large
CWorks CMMS allows for easy enough to employ an IT staff to develop its
identification of repetitive faults and trends own CMMS solution nor did it have the
that assist maintenance personnel in their capacity to employ a full-time planning
continuous efforts to maximize equipment engineer/technical planner. The 12,000 sq ft
uptime and reduce breakdowns. As the plant only had three maintenance trades
system generates an array of maintenance staff including a supervisor.
reports and statistics, a wealth of data
including on equipment breakdowns are The ice cream maker chose CWorks‟ CMMS
captured. “This means that areas where as its capabilities fit its plant maintenance
preventive maintenance is required will be needs and limited budget. More
self evident, and corrective actions can be importantly, it could operate the CWorks

5. CMMS system without the need for All these have changed with CWorks CMMS
planners, and both skilled and unskilled as work requests are now entered directly
operators have no problem inputting data on the computer. The ease of entering
into the system. information into the database enables
managers to see a full cost and repair
Software for ancient castle history for every piece of equipment. High-
If you think CWorks‟ SMMS solution is used cost and inefficient equipment are
only for relatively modern buildings or highlighted for continuous improvement,
structures, you will be dead wrong. The while the system shows where maintenance
Malaysian company‟s CMMS software is time is consumed. The wealth of data
used at Leeds Castle, an English medieval captured by CWorks CMMS ensures the
castle in Kent dating back to the 12th preventive maintenance done for the castle
century. is highly effective.
Currently used as a conference and tourist The experience at Leeds Castle, and
centre, Leeds Castle has a maintenance thousands of other sites around the world,
staff of 10 tradesmen — two working inside illustrates that even for a small staff with no
the castle and eight managing the rest of dedicated planner, the right CMMS like
the 500-acre estate. Before CWorks, its CWorks can prove to be an invaluable tool
facilities management system was as to transform maintenance operations and
antiquated as the castle itself with contribute positively to the bottom line.
preventive maintenance being a pure
paper-based system with no tracking or
accountability.

6. For More Information Windows Server 2008, SQL
For more information about Microsoft Server 2008, and Visual Studio
products and services, call the Microsoft 2008
Sales Information Center at (800) 426- Windows Server 2008, SQL Server 2008,
9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft and Visual Studio 2008 provide a secure
Canada Information Centre at (877) 568- and trusted foundation for creating and
2495. Customers who are deaf or hard- running your most demanding applications.
of-hearing can reach Microsoft text Combined, the products offer advanced
telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) security technology, developer support for
892-5234 in the United States or (905) the latest platforms, improved
568-9641 in Canada. Outside the 50 management and Web tools, flexible
United States and Canada, please contact virtualization technology to optimize your
your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access infrastructure, and access to relevant
information using the World Wide Web, information throughout your organization.
go to: www.microsoft.com
For more information about Windows
For more information about CWorks Server 2008, go to:
Systems Bhd, call (603) 8656 9041 or visit www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008
the Web site at: www.cworks.com.my
For more information about SQL Server
2008, go to:
www.microsoft.com/sql/2008/default.mspx
For more information about Visual Studio
2008, go to:
www.microsoft.com/vstudio.
Software and Services  Technologies
 Microsoft Servers − Microsoft .NET Framework
− Microsoft SQL Server 2008
 Microsoft Visual Studio
Document published August 2010