Learn how CMMS software helps cafés and beverage teams track every asset, service, part and warranty – cutting downtime and repair costs.
Your espresso machine is like the lead actor in your café’s show. When it’s performing, the crowd gives applause (and orders more). When it goes on strike … well, cups go cold, customers look annoyed, and profits slip. That’s why it’s not enough to buy a solid machine, plug it in and hope for the best. You need a system to track your assets, manage their maintenance, and keep warranty coverage in sight – not buried in a drawer somewhere.
Here’s where CMMS (Computerized Maintenance Management System) software comes in. In this post I’ll walk you through why you need to track coffee-machine assets and warranties, how a CMMS does it, and how you can get started with minimal fuss. Grab a coffee, get comfy, let’s dive in!
CMMS is a fancy acronym. It stands for Computerized Maintenance Management System – basically, software that helps you track, schedule, manage and report on maintenance of physical assets. In the coffee world (or beverage business broadly) that means everything from your espresso machine, grinders, brewers, chillers, to water filtration systems.
Here’s what a CMMS does for you:
In short: instead of relying on sticky notes, spreadsheets or “someone in the back knows what to do”, you have a system. For a café or chain, especially multiple locations, that makes all the difference.
Okay, you might be thinking: “Can’t I just fix things when they break?” Sure you can. But in the coffee business, waiting for a breakdown is not great. Here’s why:
Espresso machines and other coffee-equipment live in a high-stress zone: heat, steam, pressure, constant use, and those tiny but inevitable buildups of scale (from water minerals) and coffee oils. For example, one guide notes that in commercial espresso machines, neglecting maintenance leads to inconsistent shots, weird flavors and shortened equipment lifespan. (teacoffeelovers.com)
If your machine is offline, you can’t serve. One industry source estimated that a commercial coffee machine’s downtime costs about $150 per day when you factor in lost transactions and service disruption. (vixxo.com)
Another broader piece on food & beverage downtime points out that when a filler or bottling line goes down, losses of $500–$1,200 an hour are realistic. (AOP Technologies)
You get the idea: “interruptions” aren’t minor in this world.
Coffee isn’t just a drink – it’s an experience. If you’re running a café, bar, chain, or supplying coffee machines as part of a service, you’re up against customer expectations: same great flavor, same performance, always on. A machine that’s dirty, under-performing or frequently breaking doesn’t just cost you repair bills – it costs you trust.
Another guide puts commercial espresso machine lifespan at between 5–15 years, depending on care. (Pro Coffee Gear) If you treat it like a disposable, you’ll pay that many times over.
So yes: instead of just reacting when something craps out, you benefit massively by being proactive, tracking assets, following a plan, and staying one step ahead.
Let’s get specific. Here are common headaches – and how a CMMS (like Moqa) solves them.
You might have spreadsheets, post-it notes, invoices in a drawer, service logs in a folder. This is the spaghetti approach. A CMMS gives you one place where you record: asset name (eg “Espresso Machine 2-Group – Store A”), make/model, serial, location, install date, warranty start/end, supplier, service partner, history of tasks, photos, manuals.
That’s huge when you’re juggling multiple machines, sites, shifts and technicians.
These tasks often fall through the cracks. With a CMMS you set intervals, reminders, assign to someone, attach checklist, track completion. One espresso-machine guide calls this “develop a written maintenance schedule … assign specific tasks to daily, weekly, monthly and annual intervals.” (Bean and Brew Technologies)
You’ve got filters, gaskets, O-rings, cleaning tablets, steam-wand tips, group-head screens. If you run out, somebody’s doing repairs with whatever they find – not great. CMMS helps you manage inventory: min/max levels, reordering, vendor links, cost tracking. One food & beverage industry piece highlights how spare-parts inventory “ensures repairs can be completed quickly, minimizing downtime.” (granta-automation.co.uk)
Machine warranty? Service contract? Extended coverage? It’s easy to forget or misplace. A CMMS lets you track coverage start/end, alert when expiry is approaching, flag which assets are still under warranty, attach claim procedures, authorized service partners, past claims. That means better negotiating power, less risk of paying twice for what should be covered. Also, properly documented service history makes warranty claims more credible.
When something breaks, you want to fix it fast. With CMMS you scan the machine’s QR or ID label, open work order, attach photos, call vendor, assign technician, track time, parts used, cost, downtime hours. For multi-site chains, you can set SLA (Service Level Agreement) timers: eg “Technician on site within 4 hours”, “Repair completed within 24 h”. This keeps baristas brewing, not scrambling.
Now, before you jump into maintenance planning, let’s make sure you’re actually tracking the right information. You don’t need an MBA in asset management – just the essentials that keep your coffee machines (and your sanity) in check.
Here’s a short list of what matters most:
If you want to be extra organized, add water quality readings, calibration dates, or part replacements. But really, don’t overthink it. The goal is to simplify – not create a monster spreadsheet.
Moqa handles all this quietly in the background. Scan a QR tag, and voilà – you see everything you need to know about your machine right there. It’s like having a personal memory chip for your espresso setup.
Alright, you’ve seen the need and the framework. Now let’s walk through how to build your program – with minimal drama.
Start by listing all coffee-equipment assets: espresso machines, grinders, brewers, chillers, water filters. For each asset, gather make/model/serial/install date/state of use. If you have 20 sites, this might take a day or two; if you have one café, maybe an afternoon. The point: you’re making real, visible data.
From the audit you’ll realize that each machine has similar tasks. Build a set of standard PM procedures:
Sources for these tasks? Guides like the “Equipment Maintenance Schedule” from Barista Magazine lay them out. (Barista Magazine) You can attach your own checklist to each PM task in Moqa.
In Moqa you can link a checklist document or build a template directly. For example: “Daily – Backflush machine: remove portafilter, insert blind basket, run cleaning tabs, flush, wipe group head, record pressure reading.” The idea: when barista/technician logs into their mobile device, they open the job, tick off tasks, attach photo, mark as complete.
Make sure the system reminds you: eg “Machine #4 – PM overdue by 2 days”. If still incomplete after a set window, escalate to supervisor. This keeps things from slipping.
Even the best software is only as good as the people using it. Show your team how to open a work order, scan the asset, attach photo, log a part change. Keep it simple and friendly – no jargon. The easier you make it, the more likely they’ll stick to it.
Here’s where you get brownie points: look at completion rates (how many PMs done vs due), number of reactive repairs, downtime hours, parts spend, warranty claims recovered. Use this to identify problem assets or sites. For example: “Store B’s machine has 30% overdue PMs – let’s send extra training there.”
If you run a chain or multiple locations, Moqa lets you aggregate data: “All 10 machines across 5 sites – total 45 downtime hours this quarter, parts cost $X, average MTBF (Mean Time Between Failures) is Y hours.” That gives you visibility at the regional or brand level.
Here’s something people often ignore: warranties. You buy an espresso machine, you assume “if something goes wrong I’m covered”. But in practice, without documentation and tracking, you lose leverage. And that means you pay twice.
The bottom line: warranties aren’t passive. They work harder for you if you actively track them – and CMMS makes that realistic.
Let’s talk parts. Because even if you schedule everything perfectly and track everything beautifully, if you can’t get the right gasket, filter or O-ring when you need it – you still get stuck.
Here are some quick wins:
By tightening parts and inventory management you cut repair delay, reduce downtime, keep machines in service – and make baristas happy.
Let’s put this into familiar situations. No jargon, just real vibes.
You run a cozy café with one 2-group espresso machine. You decide to use Moqa. You tag your machine “Café HQ-Esp2G”, input make/model/serial/install date. You build PM tasks: daily backflush, weekly deep clean, monthly descale. You link the checklist. You set alert for warranty expiry 60 days ahead. Becomes part of your morning routine: barista finishes shift, checks tasks, ticks them off. Result: you’ve gone from “we’ll fix it when it breaks” to “we’ll prevent break”. The machine stays running, drinks stay flowing, and you avoid panic in peak hour.
You manage 20 outlets across a city. Each has an espresso machine (and some have extras). You roll out Moqa across all sites. Now you get dashboard: Store A has 90% PM completion, Store B only 60%. You find Store B barista training is weak – you intervene. You track downtime hours: in 6 months your total downtime dropped 30 % vs last year. You recover warranty claims – one big part failure at Store G was covered because you had history and proof. You do aggregated reporting for regional manager: “Top 5 stores’ machines cost $X in parts, bottom 5 cost $2X – we’re investigating usage variation”. It becomes a performance metric, not just housekeeping.
You have a roastery, a café inside it, and a training lab. Assets include high-end machines, grinders, water filters. Here, you treat assets differently: the machine in training lab has higher usage (trainees messing up shots), you log that usage (shot counts maybe) and schedule more frequent PMs. You track calibration logs for group head pressure because trainings include brew analysis. You separate asset classes: “retail café zone” vs “training lab zone”. Warranty tracking: because machines are used for training they have higher wear – you negotiate extended coverage or special parts kits. Moqa helps you keep all that complexity clear.
If you’re shopping (and you should, even if you go with Moqa) these are the features you want to insist on – because they map exactly to the problems we’ve talked about.
If your CMMS checks those boxes, you’re in good shape.
Alright – we’ve covered a lot. Here’s the bottom line: Your coffee machines aren’t just appliances. They’re revenue generators, brand ambassadors, and customer-experience hubs. When they’re down, you lose more than one cup – you lose trust, momentum, maybe a regular visitor.
By using a CMMS like Moqa (tailored for beverage equipment), you move from reactive panic to proactive control. You track assets, schedule service, manage parts, monitor warranty coverage, analyze performance – and all of that builds up to fewer breakdowns, happier baristas, smoother operations, and better margins.
If you’re ready to stop firefighting machines and start managing them like the critical assets they are: go ahead and try Moqa. Let’s keep your machines in service, your shots perfect, and your customers returning.
Ready to get started? Sign up for a free trial of Moqa today and take your café equipment operations to the next level.
Good question. It depends on usage, water quality, environment, but generally: daily cleaning and purging, weekly deeper clean, monthly descaling if water is hard, 6-monthly gasket/O-ring checks, annual full service with calibration. Guides support these intervals. (Barista Life)
You’ll want: machine serial/model, install date, proof of usage/maintenance (service logs, PM completions), parts replaced, photos of fault, vendor/technician stamp. A CMMS helps you collect these automatically.
Yes – one of the major perks. You build recurring tasks (daily/weekly) in the system, assign to a user or role, and the system sends reminders or shows overdue items. That keeps small tasks from slipping into “big problem” territory.
Not really. Even if you have one machine, one site: start simple. Use the asset record, schedule daily/weekly tasks, track warranty. As you grow, you won’t have to rebuild from scratch. Plus, the culture of preventive maintenance starts early and sets you apart.
Make sure they can handle the features above (mobile, multi-site, warranty, parts). Ask for beverage-industry use cases. Get a demo with your machine model, sample PM template, inventory module. And check how easy it is to import your asset list (CSV) and scale up.
You likely pay more – in parts, labor, downtime, customer dissatisfaction. Machine lifespan shortens. Warranty claims may be denied for lack of maintenance records. One guide says equipment downtime in food & beverage often costs much more than just basic repairs. (AOP Technologies)
Absolutely. Hard water causes scale build-up, which affects heating elements, flow, pressure, and can void warranty. Using quality filters, tracking water hardness, descaling regularly – part of the maintenance plan.
Yes. If you run out of filters, gaskets or cleaning tablets, repairs get delayed. That delay causes downtime which costs money and frustrates staff. A CMMS part-inventory module helps you avoid that.
Key metrics: PM compliance rate (% of PMs done vs due), Reactive vs Preventive ratio (how many fixes vs scheduled maintenance), Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF), downtime hours per machine/site, cost per machine (parts + labor), warranty claims recovered, parts stock-outs. These tell you whether your maintenance program is paying off.
Start small: pick one machine or one site, set up asset, schedule tasks, train staff. Show wins (fewer breakdowns, fewer urgent calls). Then scale to more machines/sites. Use clear communication: “This tool helps us stay up, reduce firefights, make your job easier.” Simple.
