No single source of truth
Managers walk the floor each morning asking what broke overnight, then re-key it into spreadsheets.
One login for the whole maintenance teamWorks on any phone or screenEach plant’s data kept separate
All areasEvery maintenance area in one system
- Incidents
- Maintenance
- PM Forms
- Spare parts
- Purchasing
- Contractors
- HR & Time
- Training
- Emergency
- Projects & Chat
- Reports & AI
Pick an area to read what it does.
Executive summary
One system for the whole maintenance department
SPANNER CMMS is the maintenance part of SPANNER. It runs everything a plant’s maintenance department does: breakdown alerts and repairs, preventive maintenance and work orders, the spare-parts stores, buying parts and services, contractors, and the team’s hours, leave and training, in one real-time system.
It was built on the factory floor, for the factory floor. An operator raises a machine-down alert from a phone in seconds. A technician is notified instantly, locks into the job, and documents the repair as they work, with the parts coming out of the stores. A supervisor signs off with one tap, and the downtime goes straight into MTTR, MTBF and availability on the maintenance dashboard.
SPANNER CMMS is a fraction of SPANNER ERP: when the plant is ready, production, quality, sales and financials can be added to the same records, from the same login.
Example · Filler 3One breakdown, start to finish
- T1 · Alert raised from the lineK. Morgan, operator
- T2 · Technician respondingD. Campbell, 3 minutes later
- T3 · Repair report submittedWorn star wheel replaced from stock
- T4 · Supervisor confirmsDowntime, MTTR and MTBF update
Downtime, straight into MTTR and MTBF24 min
4
modules: maintenance, HR, spare parts and purchasing
100%
of breakdowns documented live
5
report formats: CSV, Excel, Word, PDF and PowerPoint
The problem
What a paper-run maintenance department costs
Most maintenance departments coordinate their day through paper, radios and spreadsheets. The cost shows up everywhere.
Slow, invisible response
Breakdowns are reported by shouting or radio; nobody can measure how long response actually takes.
Paperwork that goes missing
Handwritten forms are incomplete, illegible, or never filed, and there is no audit trail of when things happened.
Manual, error-prone reporting
Downtime, MTTR and PM compliance are rebuilt by hand in Excel, often with formulas nobody else can verify.
PMs nobody can track
Preventive maintenance lives on a whiteboard, so nobody can say which PMs were missed last month.
Stock nobody can trust
Parts turn out to be missing in the middle of a breakdown, and the stock sheet never matches the shelf.
Purchases with no paper trail
Parts are requested by phone or message, and nobody can say what was ordered, from whom, or what actually arrived.
Contractors chased by phone
Nobody knows whether a contractor’s job is on track until someone phones them, and their work leaves no record.
Hours and leave on paper
Clock cards, overtime and leave requests are handwritten and re-keyed for payroll, and expired certificates turn up in audits.
SPANNER CMMS replaces all of that with one connected, real-time system that the whole maintenance team works from.
Why SPANNER
Built for the floor, and everything connects
Built for the floor, not adapted to it
Generic maintenance software is office software pointed at a factory. SPANNER is the opposite: every screen is designed to be usable standing at a machine, on a phone, with dirty hands, in a noisy room.
- Speed where it matters. An operator can raise an alert in under fifteen seconds; a technician goes from notification to “responding” in one tap.
- Accountability by design. A four-timestamp incident lifecycle, automatic responder identity, and a job lock make documentation automatic rather than optional.
- Real-time everywhere. Status changes and alerts appear instantly for every connected user, with no refreshing and no chasing.
Everything maintenance needs, in one system
SPANNER CMMS spans the work that normally needs a CMMS, a stores system, a purchasing tool, and an HR and time system, under one login, with one set of users and permissions, and one shared record.
- Everything connects. A resolved incident updates MTTR and MTBF, a work order takes its parts from the stores, and an order from a quote fills in from the quote. Data is entered once.
- Grow into the ERP. SPANNER CMMS is a fraction of SPANNER ERP: add production, quality, sales or financials later and keep every record.
Easy from the first shift
Each person opens SPANNER to their own work, finds anything from one search box, and never misses a stopped machine.
- My work. Technicians and operators start on their own list: alerts first, then what is overdue, due today, in progress and due later this week.
- One search for everything. Ctrl+K opens any page, record, action or how-to guide, understands plant words such as “breakdown”, and passes any question to the Spanner assistant.
- Breakdowns on every screen. A stopped machine shows across the top of the app until someone responds or acknowledges it, while comments wait quietly in the inbox.
- One main button, with Undo. An incident shows its next step as one large button; responding and confirming act at once, with a minute to undo.
- Built for gloves and phones. A Floor setting enlarges text and controls on shop-floor tablets, and the phone bar carries what each role uses most.
At a glance
SPANNER CMMS, module by module
SPANNER CMMS brings together the modules a maintenance department needs. Access to each is controlled per role and per user.
My work & search
A start page for each technician and operator, one search box across the plant, and breakdown alerts on every screen.
Read moreIncidents & Alerts
Real-time machine-down alerts, responder lock, four-stage lifecycle, and automatic downtime capture.
Read moreMaintenance
Assets and machines, work orders, PM schedules, improvements (kaizen), service certifications, and manuals.
Read morePM Forms
Build or upload checklist forms, fill them on any device, sign off, and keep a downloadable record.
Read moreSpare parts
Maintenance stores across warehouses, reorder points, a full stock ledger, and a dashboard.
Read morePurchasing
Requisitions, orders filled in from vendor quotes, receiving, suppliers, and a spend dashboard.
Read moreContractors
Contractor jobs, a weekly email with an update link, and ratings.
Read moreHR
Employee records, leave and approvals, and employee scheduling.
Read moreTime Clock
QR-based clock in/out, automatic overtime, timesheets, and payroll-ready reports.
Read moreTraining
Training records, skill ratings, a training library, and review sign-off for the maintenance team.
Read moreEmergency
Response protocols, live checklists, contacts, muster check-ins, and after-action reports.
Read moreProjects & Tasks
Projects with sections, assignable tasks, priorities, due dates, and board views.
Read moreChat
Built-in team messaging.
Read moreReports & Documents
Reports in CSV, Excel, Word, PDF and PowerPoint, with an in-app document viewer.
Read moreAI
In-app guidance from the Spanner assistant, and live writing checks.
Read morePricing & packages
Pick your plant size and see the SPANNER CMMS estimate as you go.
Build my estimateCapabilities in detail
What each area does in practice
Each area below describes what SPANNER CMMS does on the floor and in the stores.
Incident & Alert Management
The signature workflow. When a machine goes down, the issue moves through a tracked, timestamped lifecycle that coordinates up to four people without a single radio call.
- Raise an alert in seconds. Pick the area and machine, describe the issue, submit, and every technician and manager is notified instantly.
- Responder lock. A technician taps “I’m responding”; their name is broadcast so two techs never show up to the same job.
- Breakdown banner. The newest open alert shows across the top of every screen for technicians, team leaders and managers until someone responds or acknowledges it.
- Automatic downtime. The clock starts when the alert is raised and stops when the repair is submitted, measured to the second.
- Supervisor sign-off. The supervisor reviews the repair report and confirms resolution as a quality gate before the record closes.
- Timed T1–T4 timeline. Every step shows who took it and when, with response, repair and downtime worked out between them.
- Undo instead of “are you sure?” Responding and confirming take effect at once, with a minute to undo; only deleting a record asks first.
- Complete audit trail. Who raised it, who responded, response time, root cause, action taken, category, and downtime, all searchable and exportable.
The signature 15-second workflow
An operator raises a machine-down alert from a phone in seconds. Every technician is notified instantly; one taps “I’m responding” and locks the job. Downtime is timed and flows straight into MTTR, MTBF and availability, and a supervisor signs off with one tap: no radios, no paper, no lost time.
Maintenance Management
Everything that keeps equipment running, organized by asset and machine.
- Assets & machines. A registry of areas and machines, with specs, ideal run rates, and full incident history per machine.
- Work orders. Planned and corrective work with real per-company work-order numbers, parts, and multiple assignees.
- PM schedules. Recurring preventative-maintenance schedules by frequency (daily through annual) with compliance tracking.
- Improvements (kaizen). Capture improvement ideas with purpose, expected results, and parts, and track them to completion.
- Manuals & certifications. Attach machine manuals and view them in-app; track service and calibration certifications.
- KPIs per asset. Issues, downtime, MTTR, and MTBF computed over each asset’s full history, with boardroom-ready reports.
- Needs attention & trends. The Overview lists open alerts, reports to confirm, overdue PMs, late work orders, and low stock in one place, and each maintenance figure shows its change against the previous period with a daily trend line.
Preventative Maintenance (PM) Forms
Replace the clipboard. Turn any maintenance checklist into a digital form technicians complete on a phone or tablet.
- Build or upload. Create a form in a visual editor, or upload an existing Word document and SPANNER turns it into a fillable form.
- Fill anywhere. Technicians complete forms on any device; entries are timestamped and attributed automatically.
- Sign-off & records. Managers review and sign completed forms; every submission is filtered by schedule, sortable, and downloadable.
- Schedule-aware. Forms and records are organized by frequency so daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly work is easy to find.
Spare Parts & Stores
Know exactly which parts the maintenance stores hold, where they are, and what they are worth.
- Maintenance stores. Spare parts and consumables for the maintenance department, across several warehouses and locations.
- Reorder points. Each part carries its reorder point, and low and out-of-stock parts are flagged on the Overview and the dashboard.
- Parts on the job. Parts used on a work order come out of stock.
- Stock ledger. Every receipt, issue, and adjustment is recorded for a complete audit trail.
- Perpetual valuation. Moving-average costing keeps the value of the stores accurate on every movement.
- Inventory dashboard. Items, stock value, low and out-of-stock counts and what was received in any period, with the highest-value and lowest-stock parts.
Purchasing for Maintenance
From the request for a part to its receipt, with the vendor’s own quote behind every order.
- Orders from quotes. Upload a photo or PDF of the vendor’s quote and SPANNER fills in the order, numbered by the quote, or type your own number.
- Requisitions. The team requests what it needs; a manager approves, and the request becomes an order.
- Receiving. Receive against orders, in full or in parts, so stock and open orders stay in step.
- Suppliers & scorecard. Supplier records tied to orders and parts, and a scorecard for each vendor.
- Purchasing dashboard. What maintenance spent by month, open and overdue orders, the largest orders, and the top vendors.
Contractor Management
Outside work followed like your own team’s, without phoning round.
- Contractor list. Each contractor with their contact, phone and email.
- Jobs on your task lists. A task or project job can name the contractor doing it, beside your own team’s work.
- Weekly email. When switched on, each contractor with open jobs gets one email a week listing them.
- Updates from a link. A link in that email lets the contractor post progress, delays, work done, parts needed and an expected finish; the job’s owner is told, and the task itself is never changed by it.
- Ratings. Rate each finished job for time and quality, and see every contractor’s record.
HR, Time & Attendance
The people side of operations, connected to the work.
- Employee records & leave. Maintain employees and approve leave requests with live balances.
- Employee scheduling. Build and search shift schedules with month grouping and date filters.
- QR time clock. Employees clock in and out from their own phones by scanning a signed QR code, with a check that they are on site and one punch per day enforced.
- Automatic overtime. Hours past the daily and weekly thresholds become overtime entries with a four-stage sign-off.
- Payroll-ready reports. Timesheets and overtime export in every format, filtered by employee and period.
Training
Keep the maintenance team’s skills current and provable.
- Training records. Per-department training with skill ratings and clear competency labels.
- Training library. Reference documents attached per asset and area.
- Review & sign-off. Managers review employees against a checklist, leave per-employee comments, and record completion.
Emergency Management
Be ready for the moments that matter, with real procedures and a live record.
- Response protocols. Ready-to-run protocols including first aid, fire, and spill response, drawn from recognized standards.
- Live activations. Activate a protocol and work a step-by-step checklist in real time.
- Contacts & muster. One-tap emergency contacts and muster-point check-ins to account for people.
- After-action reports. Completed activations become reportable records with scope and resolution notes.
Projects, Tasks & Chat
Coordinate planned work and conversations without leaving the platform.
- Projects. Group work into projects with sections, leads, and completion tracking; download detailed reports.
- Tasks. Assignable tasks with priorities, due dates, comments, and overdue flags, organized by department.
- Team chat. Built-in messaging so coordination stays in one place.
Reporting, Documents & AI
Get information out as easily as you put it in.
- Reports everywhere. Every module produces downloadable reports in CSV, Excel, Word, and PDF, with PowerPoint decks where it counts.
- Document management. Upload, organize, and view documents in-app, including manuals and attachments across modules.
- Spanner AI assistant. An in-app guide that answers how-to questions and helps users find the right screen.
- Live writing checks. Spelling and grammar are checked as users type, across the app.
Access
Roles and access control
SPANNER CMMS is role-aware from top to bottom. Each role sees a tailored interface and a defined set of permissions; managers can fine-tune access per person.
Master
Full, unrestricted access across every module: owner-level control and lockout insurance.
Manager
Configures the system, manages users and equipment, approves requisitions, and exports any report.
Supervisor
Oversees shifts, confirms incident resolutions, creates tasks, and reviews metrics across areas.
Team Leader
Raises alerts, creates and tracks team tasks, and monitors their line.
Machine Operator
Raises alerts, confirms resolutions, and views dashboards.
Maintenance Tech
Responds to alerts, documents repairs, and completes PM forms and tasks.
Viewer
Read-only access to the areas a manager grants.
Granular permissions
Editable permission matrix
Managers grant or remove specific abilities (raise alerts, respond to them, create tasks, export reports) per role.
Per-user overrides
Any individual can be given or denied a capability without changing their whole role.
Central enforcement
Every action is checked on the server, so the rules hold no matter how a request is made.
Trust
Security, architecture and reliability
Each plant’s data stays its own, every action is checked on the server, and the whole plant sees changes as they happen.
Strict multi-tenant isolation
Each company’s data is separated at the database level; one customer can never see another’s information.
Role-based access control everywhere
Every endpoint enforces roles and permissions; there are no unprotected actions.
Secure credentials & sessions
Passwords are hashed with industry-standard bcrypt, sessions use secure cookies, and sign-in is rate-limited.
Audit logging
Sensitive actions are recorded for accountability.
Real-time updates
Live connections push changes to every user instantly, so the whole plant stays in sync.
Works like an app on any device
Installs to a phone or tablet home screen as a Progressive Web App, with push notifications.
Modern, proven foundation
Built on a current web stack (Next.js and PostgreSQL) on enterprise cloud infrastructure with scaling and backups.
Getting started
Deployment and onboarding
Nothing to install on your servers
SPANNER is delivered as a cloud service; users simply sign in from a browser.
Guided setup
A setup wizard walks a new company through areas, machines, shifts, and inviting the team by email.
Grow into the ERP
Start with maintenance, and add production, quality, sales or financials when you are ready, on the same records.
Fast for frontline staff
Invited users set a password, get a role-specific welcome, and are ready to work, with no training project required.
Outcomes
The business case
Maintenance departments that move from paper and spreadsheets to SPANNER CMMS see the change in concrete terms.
BreakdownsBefore SPANNER: Response time nobody can measureWith SPANNER: Measured in seconds, for every incident
BreakdownsBefore SPANNER: Downtime estimated after the factWith SPANNER: Downtime captured to the second
BreakdownsBefore SPANNER: ~60% of incidents documentedWith SPANNER: 100% documented as work happens
MaintenanceBefore SPANNER: PMs tracked on a whiteboardWith SPANNER: PM schedules with monthly compliance
MaintenanceBefore SPANNER: Machine history scattered across notebooksWith SPANNER: Each asset's full history on one page, opened from its QR tag
Spare partsBefore SPANNER: Parts missing when a machine is downWith SPANNER: Live stock across warehouses, with low stock flagged
PurchasingBefore SPANNER: Purchases agreed by phoneWith SPANNER: Requisitions, purchase orders and goods receipts on record
PurchasingBefore SPANNER: Quotes retyped into ordersWith SPANNER: Orders filled in from the vendor’s quote
ContractorsBefore SPANNER: Contractor progress chased by phoneWith SPANNER: Contractors post updates from their weekly email
PeopleBefore SPANNER: Overtime added up by handWith SPANNER: Overtime worked out from the clock, then signed off
PeopleBefore SPANNER: Leave on paper slipsWith SPANNER: Leave requested in the app and approved by two people
SafetyBefore SPANNER: Emergency plans in a binderWith SPANNER: Live protocols, checklists and muster check-ins
Whole teamBefore SPANNER: Paper forms in a trayWith SPANNER: Searchable, exportable digital records
Whole teamBefore SPANNER: Verbal, lost work delegationWith SPANNER: Tracked, prioritized task boards
Whole teamBefore SPANNER: Separate tools for maintenance, stores and buyingWith SPANNER: One system, one login, one record
Technicians spend their time fixing machines instead of filling out paperwork, and the maintenance manager gets a complete, trustworthy picture of the department in real time.
See SPANNER CMMS on your own maintenance team
SPANNER CMMS is live and ready to demonstrate against your real maintenance work, from the breakdown on the floor to the part on the shelf and the order that replaced it.