---
title: "Do 80% of CMMS Implementations Fail? Tracing the Number"
slug: cmms-implementation-failure-rate
url: /topics/articles/cmms-implementation-failure-rate/index.md
publishedAt: "2026-10-19T19:17:45"
updatedAt: "2026-10-19T19:17:45"
excerpt: "The public sources reviewed for this article don’t establish that 80% of computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) implementations fail. The figure appears in trade articles, a publisher’s book listing, and vendor websites, but the pages don’t identify the research needed to check it. Put 80% in a budget presentation, and you’re telling management four of […]"
authors:
  - "Ricky Smith, CMRP, CMRT"
---

# Do 80% of CMMS Implementations Fail? Tracing the Number

By [Ricky Smith, CMRP, CMRT](/authors/ricky-smith/index.md)

The public sources reviewed for this article don't establish that 80% of computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) implementations fail. The figure appears in trade articles, a publisher's book listing, and vendor websites, but the pages don't identify the research needed to check it.

Put 80% in a budget presentation, and you're telling management four of every five projects fail. Before using that number to estimate rollout risk, ask which projects were counted, when they were assessed, and what went wrong.

## Where the 80% figure appears

### The listing for a 2006 book

McGraw Hill's current listing for Kishan Bagadia's Computerized Maintenance Management Systems Made Easy gives the book's publication date as June 27, 2006. Its description claims that 60% to 80% of programs fail because of poor planning.

The listing doesn't name a study, give a sample size, or explain how failure was counted. The 2006 date belongs to the book; it doesn't establish when the website adopted that wording. The full book wasn't examined for this article.

“Before an 80% failure rate goes into a budget presentation, ask to see the study.”

A consultant may have seen enough troubled rollouts to warn clients about poor planning. To estimate risk across the industry, a reader still needs to know how many projects were examined, which kinds of organizations they covered, and how they were selected.

### An explicit 80% claim in 2008

An early dated example appears in Kris Bagadia's Getting More from a CMMS, published by FacilitiesNet on June 1, 2008. He stated that 80% of implementations fail, defining failure as technicians never using the application or starting to use it and then stopping.

A rollout could cost twice its approved budget and still succeed under a definition based on continued use. The article doesn't name a study or report how many implementations were followed, for how long, or how they were chosen.

### The 60% to 80% estimate in 2012

Bagadia used a 60% to 80% estimate in CMMS Technology Advances Rapidly, published by FacilitiesNet on May 7, 2012. He attributed the range to "various studies," without naming them.

He described organizations that bought a system and never used it, along with others that gave up after a few months when expectations weren't met.

## Later versions of the claim

An eMaint page with a July 23, 2018 timestamp credits unnamed experts with an estimate of up to 80%. It defines failure as falling short of expectations and provides no study population, measurement period, or research link for the figure.

![Four Meanings of CMMS Failure](https://cms.reliamag.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/1-Four-Meanings-of-CMMS-Failure.png)

A plant could be disappointed with payback while technicians still use the system on every shift. To apply the eMaint figure, you'd need to know what those expectations were and how the experts decided they'd been missed.

Accruent's implementation guide, dated March 1, 2022, cites Software Advice for an approximately 80% to 90% failure rate. Its link goes to Software Advice's homepage, leaving readers without the supporting research.

“A plant can keep using its CMMS for years and still miss its original payback target.”

FreeMaint's page dated July 20, 2026 attributes a 60% to 80% range to Gartner and describes failure as missing the expected return on investment. The page offers no report title, document identifier, or research link, so the Gartner attribution couldn't be verified for this article.

## What counts as failure

Before accepting a failure rate, ask what happened to the projects in the sample. An implementation could fall into any of these four categories:

* Abandonment: the organization never puts the CMMS into use, or stops using it.
* Missed rollout targets: the project finishes late, runs over budget, or leaves agreed work unfinished.
* Missed business targets: benefits fall below the business case within the period set for review.
* Limited use: the organization uses only some of the software's available functions.

Consider a plant that launches six weeks late, then uses its CMMS for years to plan work and improve equipment history. It missed the deadline and may still have met the plant's operating goals.

Or consider a plant whose corporate ERP already handles purchase orders. The maintenance team leaves the CMMS purchasing module unused because duplicating that process would create extra work. A feature-use score could mark the team down for a sensible decision.

A rollout might run over budget, miss its savings target, and eventually be abandoned. Add those three outcomes together without checking the project records, and you'd count the same implementation three times.

If work orders are live while inventory records and integrations are still being prepared, part of the rollout remains unfinished. Judge progress against what the team agreed to deliver by the review date.

Suppose a site misses its six-month target, fixes its data, and reaches the target at twelve months. The study should record the shortfall and the recovery with their dates. A permanent failure label would hide what happened during those next six months.

## What survey respondents reported

The Plant Maintenance Resource Center published response counts from two voluntary website surveys. Its June to August 2000 survey received 87 valid responses, with 78 ratings on the implementation-success question. Seventeen respondents chose poor.

The May to July 2004 survey received 105 valid responses. Eighty-five people rated implementation success across five categories, shown below.

Thirteen of those 85 respondents chose poor, or 15.3% (calculated from the published counts). The question didn't define poor as abandonment or failure to earn a financial return.

Both surveys asked volunteers to rate their own implementations more than two decades ago. The surveys don't show whether today's buyers would give similar ratings.

“Thirteen people chose ‘poor.’ That doesn't tell us how many abandoned their CMMS.”

The survey gives readers something to check: a question, a set of answer choices, and the number choosing each one. A claim that four out of five implementations fail ought to come with at least that much detail.

### What the 88% savings figure tells us

In a May 2017 press release, Maintenance Connection described a survey of 1,000 maintenance professionals. It said 88% of facilities with a substantially rolled out CMMS reported significant cost savings.

The release gives no subgroup size or definition of a substantial rollout. It doesn't establish that the remaining 12% had failed implementations, or that either percentage applies to all CMMS projects.

A financial review also has to account for software, setup, training, and ongoing support costs. A facility could report lower maintenance costs and still take longer than expected to recover what it spent on the CMMS.

## What to ask before using a failure rate

A failure study should follow a defined set of projects for a stated period. Before using its result in your business case, check whether the projects resemble yours: a single-site replacement and a rollout across 40 plants have very different coordination demands.

Ask whoever supplied the percentage for these details:

* Projects counted: how many implementations, in which industries and locations, and how the researchers selected them.
* Definition of failure: what qualified, who judged it, and whether the criteria were set before the results were assessed.
* Review dates: when implementation began, when outcomes were checked, and how unfinished projects were handled.
* Missing projects: cancellations, abandoned systems, nonrespondents, and exclusions, plus an explanation of how each affected the totals.

A survey of current customers may overlook organizations that abandoned the product. A consultant surveying only clients who requested rescue help would start with a group already in trouble. Ask how the sample was assembled before extending the result to other plants.

Check what each result represents, too. Researchers could count companies, plants, software installations, or rollout phases, producing different totals from the same work.

Imagine one corporate project covering ten plants, with two sites missing their agreed targets at the review date. A rule requiring every site to meet its targets could record one unsuccessful project out of one. Counting plants would record two shortfalls out of ten.

That's a reported failure rate of either 100% or 20%, depending on what the researchers count. A reader needs that counting rule to make sense of either result.

## How to judge the rollout in your plant

### Write the acceptance criteria before launch

Write down what the CMMS must help your team do, who owns each result, and when you'll review it. A pilot plan should give technicians, planners, and managers a clear way to show that the work is getting done.

![CMMS rollout readiness checklist](https://cms.reliamag.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/2-CMMS-rollout-readiness-checklist.png)

For a pilot, you might hold reviews at 30, 60, and 90 days, using targets agreed for your operation. Possible checks include:

* Work records: sample completed jobs for the correct asset, usable labor entries, and a description of the work performed.
* Planning and scheduling: have planners identify ready work, check parts requirements, and issue a weekly schedule the crew can execute.
* Preventive maintenance: compare tasks due with tasks completed within the agreed window, and review overdue critical work individually.
* Use across shifts: ask technicians to find their assets, receive assignments, and close work where the job happens.

Record the starting figures before changing the process, and keep the definitions consistent through the pilot. If a dashboard improves, check the job records behind it. Changing a counting rule can improve the score without improving the work.

### Check the work behind the dashboard

Sample jobs from the original request through planning, execution, and closeout. Have the people responsible for each step show you how they complete it, including technicians from every shift. Note where they need a spreadsheet, a phone call, or someone else's help to finish an ordinary task.

Suppose 90% of preventive work orders show as complete. Check whether the work was performed, whether exceptions were recorded, and whether due dates were moved after tasks became overdue.

“Ask the technician what was done, then compare that answer with the work order.”

For financial results, agree with finance on what counts as savings and record the implementation costs. If downtime falls, check what else changed during the rollout, such as equipment, staffing, or production volume.

Give unresolved problems an owner and a due date. A technician who can't find an asset needs a fix they can use on the next shift; a planner facing duplicate records needs someone to clean up the data. Review those fixes alongside the project targets.

The published 80% claims still leave the original study and its calculation unidentified. If that number appears in your implementation plan, ask whoever supplied it to add the source. Give the same space to your acceptance criteria, review dates, and the people responsible for meeting them.

## Sources

Sources checked October 19, 2026.

**1. **McGraw Hill. Computerized Maintenance Management Systems Made Easy, Kishan Bagadia. Publisher listing; book published June 27, 2006.
[https://www.mheducation.com/highered/mhp/product/computerized-maintenance-management-systems-made-easy.html](https://www.mheducation.com/highered/mhp/product/computerized-maintenance-management-systems-made-easy.html)

**2. **Bagadia, Kris. Getting More from a CMMS. FacilitiesNet, June 1, 2008.
[https://www.facilitiesnet.com/software/article/Getting-More-from-a-CMMS--8929](https://www.facilitiesnet.com/software/article/Getting-More-from-a-CMMS--8929)

**3. **Bagadia, Kris. CMMS Technology Advances Rapidly. FacilitiesNet, May 7, 2012.
[https://www.facilitiesnet.com/software/article/CMMS-Technology-Advances-Rapidly--13218](https://www.facilitiesnet.com/software/article/CMMS-Technology-Advances-Rapidly--13218)

**4. **eMaint. What Makes CMMS Implementations Successful? Page timestamp July 23, 2018.
[https://emaint.eu/works/cmms-implementation-success/?portfolioCats=680](https://emaint.eu/works/cmms-implementation-success/?portfolioCats=680)

**5. **Accruent. CMMS Implementation Guide: Strategy, Steps & Best Practices. Page dated March 1, 2022.
[https://www.accruent.com/resources/blog-posts/how-successfully-implement-cmms](https://www.accruent.com/resources/blog-posts/how-successfully-implement-cmms)

**6. **Mehrez, Melek. Why Your CMMS Failed. FreeMaint, page dated July 20, 2026.
[https://freemaint.com/blog/cmms-failure-not-the-software](https://freemaint.com/blog/cmms-failure-not-the-software)

**7. **Plant Maintenance Resource Center. CMMS Implementation Survey Results, 2000. Voluntary website survey, June to August 2000.
[https://plant-maintenance.com/articles/CMMS_survey_2000.shtml](https://plant-maintenance.com/articles/CMMS_survey_2000.shtml)

**8. **Plant Maintenance Resource Center. CMMS Implementation Survey Results, 2004. Voluntary website survey, May to July 2004.
[https://plant-maintenance.com/articles/CMMS_survey_2004.shtml](https://plant-maintenance.com/articles/CMMS_survey_2004.shtml)

**9. **Maintenance Connection. Maintenance Connection Releases Groundbreaking Report on CMMS ROI. Company press release, May 16, 2017.
[https://www.prweb.com/releases/maintenance_connection_releases_groundbreaking_report_on_cmms_roi/prweb14339298.htm](https://www.prweb.com/releases/maintenance_connection_releases_groundbreaking_report_on_cmms_roi/prweb14339298.htm)