A preventive maintenance (PM) plan refers to a program that helps organizations perform and manage maintenance activities on physical assets. PM plans can be organization-wide or can be specific to individual assets, it all depends on your specific needs.
That being said, there are some general best practices to follow when building a preventive maintenance plan. Stick to these steps for success:
Identify Necessary Team Members
Getting the right parties on board from the start is crucial to ensure everything goes smoothly. Make sure to include all necessary parties in the planning process including top management, technicians, maintenance managers and any other staff who should have input on how assets are maintained. Each person might not need to be included in every single step, but identifying which steps which party should be privy to is an important step in and of itself.
Make an Asset List
This list can help you determine which assets need to go into this preventive plan. For example, if you have an asset you know you’ll be replacing this year, it probably doesn’t need to go into a long-term PM plan. If you only have the budget to perform consistent routine maintenance on 10 out of 20 assets, include the 10 most important. Make a list of all assets you have, making sure to include all relevant asset profile information for each, such as make and model, category, purchase cost, serial number and a basic description.
Prioritize Your Assets
Deciding which assets are most important will help you budget and prioritize them in a maintenance plan. Using the economic value of individual assets is the best surefire way to prioritize assets, but you can also use metrics like the likelihood of failure, impact of failure or other industry benchmarks.
Set Goals
Armed with your most important assets, you can begin to set goals for the PM plan. Are you trying to extend asset lifespan? Reduce downtime? Cut down unexpected failures? Improve some other maintenance metrics? Having a solid goal in mind for your PM plan will help ensure you stay focused and organized.
Identify Best Practices For Each Asset
Read up on the owner’s manuals, do some research and collaborate with technicians to determine the best plan of attack for each individual asset to get the most out of a PM plan. Warranty conditions, MTBF statistics, recommended maintenance schedules and similar information will help you decide what kind of maintenance needs to be performed at what time interval on each asset to make the most of a proactive repair circuit.
Identify Depreciation Modes
Assets depreciate in different ways, so identifying how each one is likely going to fail can help you make accurate predictions and plans. This article breaks down the different kinds of depreciation methods to help you get an idea, and you can use a FMEA (failure modes and effective analysis) tool to identify which method individual assets will likely follow.
Create a Maintenance Schedule
These best practices should prepare you to craft a long-term schedule going out a year for each asset. Some assets may only need to be serviced once in this time period, others may need it weekly — that’s why identifying asset-specific maintenance is vital. Once you’ve made a long-term (annual) plan for the biggest maintenance tasks, you can start making monthly and weekly schedules and assigning those tasks to technicians. Don’t be afraid to adjust this schedule as you go and learn.
Stick To It
Holding your technicians accountable for the work they’ve been assigned, making sure all employees understand their role in the maintenance plan and ensuring that management has realistic expectations are all crucial steps to creating and maintaining a PM plan. Don’t forget the human element of maintenance — it’s the most important!
To streamline the PM planning process, get in touch with FacilityONE today to start your free demo of a CMMS system that will revolutionize your maintenance process from day one.
