A preventive maintenance schedule is a plan to do maintenance after a specific duration, such as time or usage.
For example, a vehicle’s user manual has a schedule for maintenance, such as oil changes every 3 months or 3,000 miles. In this example, the manual has both a time-based PM (3 months) and a usage-based PM (3,000 miles). For maintenance teams, this would be done at an equipment level for production-critical assets.
The focus of maintenance shifts from reacting to problems to continuous improvement through performance analysis and other methods. PM enables this through providing planning, scheduling, coordination, and reliability.
Real-world client successes from implementing preventive maintenance include:
Reducing downtime 85% in six months
Maintaining a 99.8% uptime rate
Achieving a 100% compliance on SLAs
Designing and launching a preventive maintenance program requires time and effort. You’ll have to develop procedures, schedule training, and communicate with your team. According to Life Cycle Engineering, every hour of effective planning saves three hours in labor time, or an equivalent savings in materials and production downtime.