A paper logbook by the electrical cabinet, a shared spreadsheet nobody updates, or simply the memory of the most experienced technician — this is how robot maintenance is managed in many industrial plants. The outcome is predictable: reactive interventions, costs that are hard to justify to management, and a fault history that disappears every time a member of the maintenance team moves on.
Implementing a CMMS (Computerised Maintenance Management System) is not an investment reserved for large factories. Even with a fleet of two or three robots, having a centralised system makes the difference between reactive and planned maintenance. This article explains how to do it in practice.
What a robot-oriented CMMS brings to the plant floor
A CMMS is not a document repository — it is a decision-making engine. Applied to industrial robots, it delivers three immediate advantages:
- Lifecycle visibility: each robot has its own record, with model, serial number, accumulated hours and a full intervention history. When a maintenance technician leaves, the knowledge stays.
- Automated alerts: preventive maintenance plans are set up once and the system generates work orders automatically, triggered by operating hours or calendar dates.
- Per-asset cost control: labour, spare parts and downtime are attributed to each robot, making it straightforward to identify which units consume the most resources and to take objective repair-or-replace decisions.
What data to load from day one
The quality of a CMMS depends on the data entered. For industrial robots, the minimum asset record should include:
- Brand, model and generation (e.g. ABB IRB 6700, KUKA KR QUANTEC, FANUC M-20iD).
- Serial number of the arm and serial number of the controller.
- Manufacturing date and commissioning date in the plant.
- Operating hours at the time of initial data entry, if the controller logs them.
- Current application (welding, handling, painting, etc.) and work shift pattern.
- Last maintenance performed and consumables replaced.
Everything does not need to be perfect from day one, but the most critical fields — serial number, hours and last maintenance — must be reliable.
How to define maintenance plans by model
Each manufacturer sets its own service intervals, and different generations may have different specifications. In the CMMS it is worth creating maintenance plan templates by robot family, so that registering a new unit simply means assigning the right template.
A typical template for a mid-payload six-axis robot would include at least three service levels: a short-term visual and functional inspection, a mid-term lubrication and consumables check, and a long-term in-depth review covering gearboxes, batteries and calibration.
For guidance on the cadence of these service levels, see our article on how often industrial robot maintenance should be carried out, which covers practical criteria based on operating hours and application type.
Key performance indicators to track
A CMMS without KPIs is just an archive. The most useful metrics for a robot fleet are:
- MTBF (Mean Time Between Failures): average time between breakdowns per robot. Helps detect deteriorating units before they cause a serious stoppage.
- MTTR (Mean Time To Repair): average repair time. If it rises, it may indicate a lack of spare parts in stock or a need for technical training.
- Preventive compliance rate: percentage of preventive maintenance work orders closed on time.
- Maintenance cost per productive hour: relates total robot expenditure to actual output, enabling comparison across the fleet.
Integration with the controller alarm log
Modern ABB, KUKA and FANUC controllers log alarms, hour counters and maintenance alerts internally. Some plants export this data automatically to the CMMS via OPC-UA or similar industrial communication protocols; others do it manually after each intervention.
Automatic integration is the ideal scenario, but it is not a prerequisite for getting started. The essential step is that the technician closing a work order in the CMMS also records the active alarm status at that point in time. Over time, this creates a valuable correlation between symptoms and corrective actions.
The role of external service providers in the CMMS
When an intervention is carried out by an external service provider — whether a planned inspection or an emergency repair — the job report should be incorporated into the robot's CMMS record with the same level of detail as an in-house intervention. Parts replaced, labour hours and technical observations must all be logged.
Our preventive maintenance service always includes a structured technical report designed to be integrated into the customer's CMMS, regardless of which platform they use.
Where to start if you are starting from scratch
The biggest obstacle to implementing a CMMS is usually inertia — the "we've always done it this way" mindset. The practical recommendation is to start with the most critical robot on the line: load its full record, define its maintenance plan and close the first work orders. Once the maintenance team sees that the system works and makes their job easier rather than harder, extending it to the rest of the fleet becomes much more straightforward.
If you have robots from different manufacturers — a common mix of ABB, KUKA and FANUC on the same plant floor — a unified CMMS is the only practical way to manage that diversity without losing track. Our specialist services for ABB robots, KUKA robots and FANUC robots can support you through the transition.