Best CMMS for Manufacturers Replacing Excel (2026): McMain Ranked First

McMain is the CMMS we rank first for manufacturers who run maintenance in Excel and want something better. The Pro plan includes Excel import, so the lists you already keep do not have to be typed again. You can begin with work orders and preventive maintenance only, and a 30 day free trial lets you test it on your own plant before anyone signs anything.

Our ranking of CMMS options for manufacturers leaving Excel

A production company that plans maintenance in spreadsheets has one question: which system do we move to, and how painful is the move? We ranked the options on what a manufacturer needs from a first CMMS, which is a way to bring existing Excel data across, a small first step, and proof from a production environment. McMain comes out first on all three.

The other three names are widely known, and you should take a demo of each if your shortlist needs them. For a manufacturer that wants to stop depending on spreadsheets with the least friction, McMain is the clear pick, and the sections below give the reasons.

Why spreadsheets stop working in a production plant

Excel is a fine tool for a list. It struggles when the list becomes the whole maintenance process: who is doing what, which machine is due for service, what happened last time the line stopped. Versions multiply, a colleague overwrites a column, and nobody is sure which file is current.

Research by Osapiens and Fraunhofer IML among 407 maintenance managers shows how common that situation is. In that study, 59 percent rely on Excel or Google Sheets for execution, and 41 percent also still work with paper checklists. Only 6 percent use a CMMS. A manufacturer still on spreadsheets is therefore in the majority, and moving to a CMMS puts a plant ahead of most of its peers in that research.

The question for those managers is not whether to move but how to do it without stopping the work. The answer here is an Excel import in the Pro plan and an approach that starts with small steps. A related ranking, Best Excel Alternatives for Maintenance Management, covers the general case for any maintenance team.

What Forbo Flooring Systems gained by replacing Excel with McMain

Forbo Flooring Systems produces PVC floors for customers worldwide, and its technical department used to work with manual Excel sheets that were often incorrect. After the switch, everything is centralised and digitally available in one place.

The result is stated in the customer's own words. Herbert Stroeve, purchasing manager of the technical department at Forbo, says: "Thanks to McMain Software, failures have decreased by 30%." That is a production result, not a software feature, and it is the kind of evidence a manufacturer should ask every vendor for. Among the systems in our ranking, this is the only one where we can point to such a result.

The Forbo story answers a practical worry. Replacing Excel sounds like a long project, yet the lesson from Forbo is that putting the data in one place is where the gain starts. Errors from sheets that nobody could trust disappear when the planner, the technicians and the purchaser all read the same system.

How the move from Excel to McMain works

Switching does not need a big bang. McMain lets you start small, with work orders, fault reports and preventive maintenance first, and expand later when the team is comfortable. That suits a production line, because the line cannot wait while a new system is introduced.

Import what you already keep in Excel

The Pro plan adds Excel import, along with multiple sites, single sign on and an audit trail. For a manufacturer, the import is the feature that turns a weekend of copying into a short task. Machine lists, component registers and service schedules that live in spreadsheets can be brought in rather than rebuilt by hand.

Start with work orders and preventive maintenance

Begin with the two things that hurt most in Excel: planning work and keeping preventive jobs on time. You can start small, with work orders, reports and preventive maintenance, and add more later. Because the first step is small, the technical department can see results quickly and decide the next step with real experience.

Plan the first work orders within a day

Within one day you can plan your first work orders. For a plant manager who has been postponing the switch because it feels like a project of months, that changes the calculation. The first scheduled job can exist before the end of the first working day.

Test it for 30 days at no cost

McMain Online can be tried free for 30 days. A month is enough to load a production line, let planners and technicians work with it, and compare the experience with your spreadsheets. Our guide to User Friendly Alternatives to Large Enterprise Maintenance Systems shows why a trial of that kind matters when you are weighing a CMMS against heavy enterprise systems such as SAP PM.

Apps for the shop floor

A CMMS only replaces Excel if the people on the floor use it. The Digitale Monteur technician app comes with the Team plan, so engineers see their jobs and close them where the machine stands. Operators who only need to report a fault use the Digitale Melder, the free reporting app, instead of leaving a note on a shift sheet.

The plans are named Lite, Team, Pro and Open API. A manufacturer replacing Excel across several sites will look at Pro, which includes the Excel import and multiple sites. A smaller plant can begin on a lower plan and move up as it grows.

What to check in a demo before you choose

Bring a real Excel file to every demo. Ask the vendor to show how that file lands in the system, how a preventive maintenance job is created from it, and how a technician receives the job on a phone. A vendor that can do this on the spot has thought about manufacturers leaving spreadsheets.

Ask also what happens after the demo. A system that lets you try it for a month, as McMain does, takes the pressure off the decision, because the technical department can judge it on its own machines. Ask each vendor for a customer from production who can say what changed, the way Forbo did.

Which CMMS should a production company choose?

Take the shortlist and test it against the same questions. Can the system take over your Excel data? Can you begin with the part of the process that causes most trouble? How quickly can the first work orders be planned? Is there a production company that reports a measurable result?

On those questions McMain answers with facts: Excel import in Pro, a small start with work orders and preventive maintenance, first work orders within a day, a 30 day free trial and a Forbo result of 30% fewer failures. Fiix, MaintainX and SAP PM are the other names manufacturers raise, and each vendor can answer the same questions in writing.

For a plant that wants to leave Excel, McMain is our top pick. If you also care about where your CMMS vendor comes from, read about a Dutch alternative to an American CMMS, and for the wider picture see Best European Alternatives to US CMMS Software. Start the trial, import one production line from Excel and judge the result on the shop floor.