Put simply, a PPM system helps manage any task that is carried out periodically. Decisions on tasks, priorities, responsibilities and frequencies can be extremely time consuming. Even once decisions are made there is still a need to ensure that over the course of a year labour is effectively deployed with a minimum of travelling between locations.

Easy FM - the complete CMMS and Facilities Management Software offers the facility to set these parameters from a single screen. A central library of generic data gives maintenance tasks and frequencies for most common plant and systems, accessed by a selector list. For instance, when setting up PPM for a belt drive pump select from the on-screen pick-list. Recommendations are displayed, which can be edited if required to suit the individual pump. Memos can be added, such as to indicate any special tools or equipment required to carry out the task. This feature in itself avoids hours of wasted time. Once the maintenance start date has been entered into Easy FM, the work is planned and each task is scheduled for a specific week and allocated a unique job number.

Just three mouse clicks prints clearly written weekly job sheets for all scheduled tasks . Notes can be added regarding use of spares. Easy FM records times taken, dates of services and personnel details, thus providing you with a detailed and accessible plant history.

Every aspect of performance for an individual building or a complete estate may be summarised into clear reports. These have been developed in consultation with Easy FM's users to provide the ideal management tool.

Every asset manager needs to keep track of the repair state of buildings, preparation and distribution of reports, urgent problems, matters of lower priority, task scheduling and personnel allocation.

Easy FM - the complete CMMS solution allows the user to compile a planned set of inspections for building fabric and a log of all faults found on those inspections. In common with all Easy FM's features this is achieved by use of selection lists and with a minimum of typing. Easy FM is pre-loaded with recommended inspection strategies for many different types of building - these can be accepted or edited. All that is required is to attach one of the strategies to each of the buildings and Easy FM will automatically set up an inspection routine. As the inspections are completed, they can be signed off and any faults found can be logged.

Easy FM's unique 'fault tree' guides you from a general fault to a very specific diagnosis in a few mouse clicks. The fault report is allocated a priority, which can be immediately made into a job sheet or held until the resources are available to deal with the repair.

With these features and Easy FM's wide range of reports, a paperless record can be compiled demonstrating the condition of your estate.

At EDL Systems we are often surprised by the number of clients who have no centralised record of the physical layout of their estate. If an estate has evolved over many years one building may have had several changes of use and is sometimes given different names by staff, as well as building reference numbers on site plans no longer in use. It is vital to have one master list showing the correct names of buildings and the floors and rooms within them.

Easy FM - the complete CMMS and Facilities Management Solution offers a structured database that enables collation of this information and includes a facility to record details of keys used to enter specific areas. The database can be interrogated for types of rooms and lists of rooms can be printed. This information is used via the Helpdesk and PPM modules in order that fault locations are precisely located.

The Doors/Locks module can be linked to your site plans to show the exact location of a particular room by a location map on screen. This map can be annotated to show location of faults or building repairs.

Data regarding buildings or rooms can be easily amended should a building use change. At last, information on your estate will be, quite literally, at your fingertips.

You know that your plant and buildings are working well and that breakdowns are attended promptly, but can you prove it? Are there weak areas of performance that need to be identified? Can you set quantifiable targets and work towards them?

Whether you are a member of an in-house maintenance team or a facilities management company with a wide range of clients, you will understand the importance of quantifying your work and measuring service levels. In the age of the Service Level Agreement whoever pays for your services needs to know that you are providing value for money.

Easy FM is preloaded with a wide range of reports that have been developed in consultation with our clients. These 'off-the-peg' reports may be extensively customised to deal with a particular building, time period, trade or type of equipment, with easy-to-use selector lists that define the report parameters. EDL will adjust the cosmetic appearance of the reports to your requirements - for example so that they appear in the form of a letter or feature your company's logo.

In recognition of the growing importance of SLAs and the reports needed to demonstrate compliance, EDL canvas client opinion and ideas. As the reporting software is integral to Easy FM, reports can be prepared based on any data held within the program.

Before any management software can be put to work data about your particular organisation needs to be entered into the system. This data is made up of lists: staff, their trades, your suppliers, names of buildings, locations within them, and so on. EDL recognise that this is a daunting task and that most facilities management software falls at the first hurdle. Lists are usually held on different screens and accessed via a maze of menus and sub-menus. Advice is rarely given regarding which lists are mandatory, or indeed which lists are available. Even when the lists are filled with data, it is likely to require regular amendment as new staff are recruited and as building names change.

Easy FM puts an end to this complex and time-consuming setup stage. The System Setup module within Easy FM is essentially a 'list of lists', allowing each list to be viewed and/or selected by one single click. Items on that list are easily added, deleted or edited and the data is used to generate the many selector lists contained in Easy FM. Using this facility provides complete control over items within the lists. Many lists are 'seeded' with generic information that means you can put Easy FM to work immediately and edit the lists as you gain experience in using the software.

Budgetary control is an essential element of every managerial role. How much money have you spent, what are you due to spend, and what remains in your budget. At the time of purchase prices must be checked before a commitment is made. Once an order has been placed, delivery acceptance systems must be implemented and payments cleared. This process is arduous enough without a system that insists on completion of an order every time someone needs a pack of nails!

At EDL, in consultation with many experienced facilities managers, we researched the process of setting budgets and making purchases. Our conclusion was that this process needed to be made as trouble free as possible by streamlining into a number of logical steps that would take the user through the process of deciding what to buy, from whom and at what price, through to clearing the suppliers invoice. The result is Easy FM's procurement module, which links all purchases to budgets and adds the value of the purchase to your stock.

This module can also be used to track expenditure against individual jobs. For example, if the hourly rate of each trade is held within the system then the time expended on small repairs or PPM can be converted to a cost and deducted from a budget.

The equipment in your stores is a valuable asset. Without a thorough breakdown of 'what and where' your staff will waste time looking for spares, and orders may be placed for items already in stock. To avoid these problems stores must be audited for quantity, value and location of items. Once complete, all new equipment must be recorded and a log kept of any parts drawn by your team.

Easy FM enables your existing stock to be audited efficiently. Once values per item have been set up, EasyFM will total the value of your stock, and alter it with each transaction. Recommended maximum and minimum stock levels can be set to make re-ordering and stock taking a simple process.

The Stock module is fully integrated with other modules in Easy FM allowing information on stock levels, cost, and equipment location to be viewed at a glance . For example, if a part is drawn to facilitate a small repair, the value of that item is automatically added to the cost of the repair, giving a final accurate breakdown of expenditure on that task.

Tools are mobile assets and therefore create their own specific problems in terms of tracking their location or completing an inventory. Some tools will be held in stores and only brought out when in use, whereas others will be on site in tradesmen's toolboxes. Maintaining an inventory of tools, adding new purchases and removing any condemned items, is an essential task. In addition, the manager will need to know the location of tools in use and to whom those tools are allocated.

Easy FM gives access to a tools database that can be customised to be as general or as specific as desired. For example, 'drills' can be a classification in its own right, or can be sub-classified as '12mm drills'. This functionality offers greater search capability because it enables the user to look initially for general type and then specific item - an indispensable feature for quick searching. EasyFM is pre-loaded with a large database of common tools that will make setting up the tool inventory simple. Once set up, changes to the database takes seconds, providing you with an accurate inventory of every tool on site.

How many organisations create a mountain of paperwork over the years simply to support the activity of recording hours worked by staff? Companies that still use handwritten timesheets that take up valuable filing space, find that they provide little more than an information summary - even after tedious analysis of raw data. This process is not only time-consuming, but carries the risk of a minor arithmetical error remaining un-noticed until one of your staff complains that, according to your records, he has minus 4 days leave left.

Easy FM - the complete CMMS and Facilities Management Solution will record this information by use of on-screen timesheets that can be programmed with the normal working hours for each trade, allowing any overtime or absence to be noted. All hours worked can be logged against specific projects (as described in the 'Procurements' web page) and Easy FM can cross relate the information into a wide range of reports.

…And if you need the reassurance that only paper records can bring, Easy FM will print off blank time sheets.