Effective Maintenance Workflow Automation

TABLE OF CONTENTS

01 Understanding Planned Maintenance ................................................................. 2

02 Employing Preventive Maintenance Workflows ................................................... 7

03 Creating a Preventive Maintenance Program .................................................... 18

04 Creating Preventive Maintenance Workflows ................................................... 28

05 Writing Efficient Work Orders ........................................................................... 31

06 Maintenance Workflow Automation and CMMS ................................................ 35

07 MaintainX and Your Maintenance Workflows ................................................... 42

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01
Understanding Planned Maintenance
Planned maintenance is a maintenance approach focused on minimizing equipment
downtime and returning to uptime as soon as possible after a breakdown. It’s a basic
form of preventive maintenance carried out “according to plan.” Planned maintenance
involves knowing ahead of time the spare parts, tools, services, and maintenance tasks
that technicians will need to solve problems.
Dealing with unplanned breakdowns that cause operations to grind to a halt is stressful,
expensive, and time-consuming. For this reason, facilities often plan, document, and
schedule their maintenance activities. Every asset wears out at some point. However,
leaders can keep equipment efficiently running as long as possible with planned
maintenance. The easiest way to execute effective scheduled maintenance work is with
a Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS).
However, 44 percent of organizations still rely on paper records to plan their
maintenance activities. Until recently, CMMS platforms were thought to be expensive,
complicated, and risky investments. The good news is that modern, cloud-based
solutions have removed these barriers to entry. Organizations of all sizes—with workers
with varying technical skill levels—can now execute planned maintenance programs
with downloadable mobile apps that support importing asset lists, creating work orders,
and team instant messaging.

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Planned maintenance falls into two categories:
Preventive Maintenance: Planned preventive maintenance aims to put in place a
maintenance schedule that takes care of problems before they occur. For instance,
manufacturers often recommend servicing vehicles every 5,000 miles. This scheduled
maintenance task helps vehicles run smoothly; procrastinate car upkeep for too long,
and it may stall at a dangerous or inconvenient time.
Planned Unscheduled Maintenance: This approach entails undertaking maintenance
activities after a failure has already occurred, although a recovery plan is in place to deal
with these eventualities. Once again, the goal is to return equipment back to operation
as soon as possible, without jeopardizing safety. Planned unscheduled maintenance
helps minimize maintenance costs by avoiding last-minute rush orders for replacement
parts. For example, a vehicle owner may purchase a spare battery in case the current
one dies.

Planned Maintenance Advantages

Advantages of planned maintenance include:
• Decreases Downtime: Planned maintenance enables teams to resolve issues
before they result in failure. Even when a failure occurs, technicians can “follow
the plan” to get equipment up and running quickly.
• Increases Asset Life Span: Regularly serviced equipment lasts longer.
• Reduces Maintenance Costs: Planned maintenance programs allow teams to
handle breakdowns efficiently without having to spend extra capital on the
expedited delivery of replacement parts or outsourced maintenance services.
• Improves Workplace Safety: Assets operating in optimal conditions ensure those
in close proximity are safe. Planned maintenance minimizes the risk of disaster.
• Enhances Company Culture: Frequent unexpected downtime can interfere with
employee morale, increase stress, and leads to dissatisfaction. Facilities that
minimize downtime foster greater contentment for all.
With that said, scheduled maintenance does have disadvantages. The biggest drawback
is that unnecessary tasks may sometimes be completed. If the equipment being
inspected does not need upkeep, the servicing technician will have wasted time that
could have been diverted to a more urgent work order. Inefficiently run preventive
maintenance programs can increase maintenance costs over the long run.

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Scheduling Maintenance Tasks
Proactive maintenance is an essential part of maximizing equipment usefulness,
reliability, and value. However, organizations are often unsure of how to create a
sustainable planned maintenance process. Take the following steps to build a
functional planned maintenance plan for each asset, starting with the most important:
• Identify equipment failure modes and create a work order: Outline the scope of
work to be completed. Gather information on the asset in question, its failure
modes, and any other related data that might be useful during maintenance.
• Inspect the asset and its surroundings: Outline the details of the maintenance
tasks to be performed in the event of failure. Ask yourself questions like: What
tools will I need? Which replacement parts must be available? Are there any work
environment factors that could affect maintenance?
• Prescribe a work process: Document the maintenance process for the asset
step-by-step, including additional other standard operating procedures outlining
safety precautions, shutdown procedures, and other important information.
• Create priority levels: Once you have several recurring work orders scheduled,
prioritization becomes essential. Always handle tasks that return facilities to
optimal operations levels ASAP.
• Schedule your planned maintenance program: Finally, assign your maintenance
tasks to the appropriate technicians. Once again, a user-friendly CMMS app can
simplify the process tenfold.
Different companies have different types of assets and maintenance needs. It is
difficult to pinpoint all the specific items to put on a planned maintenance program.
However, these are the most common items included in a planned maintenance
schedule:
• Filters: This includes water filters, filtration parts, grease and baffle hood filters,
HVAC filters, and office air filters.
• Belts: Conveyor belts and belts on other equipment should be inspected regularly
and changed when they show signs of wear and tear.
• Instruments Recalibration: Recalibrate delicate instruments after a given number
of uses.
• Vehicle Maintenance: Tire rotation, oil changes, state inspections, and cleaning
are some of the maintenance tasks you will need to carry out regularly if you
manage a fleet of vehicles.
• Compressors: Frequently inspect your compressors to ensure they have no
cracks or wear and tear. Faulty compressors can be a safety hazard.

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 • HVAC Maintenance: HVAC systems should be inspected and cleaned regularly to
ensure proper airflow and energy efficiency.
• Light Fixtures: Dust can gather on lighting fixtures and reduce the amount of
light reaching production areas. They need to be dusted frequently and burnt-out
bulbs replaced.
The list of assets you can add to a planned maintenance program is endless. These are
just a few to get you started. Having a CMMS can help you set up an efficient
maintenance schedule.

Benefits of Planned Maintenance Systems

Ask any operational manager or business owner if they would like their expensive
equipment to last longer and breakdown less frequently— the answer is always a
resounding “Yes.” Obvious and not-so-obvious benefits of scheduled PM include:
• Decreases Downtime: The most obvious benefit of preventive maintenance is
that it allows technicians to resolve issues before they result in failure.
• Increases Asset Life Span: When it comes to complex machinery, regular upkeep
prolongs the need for asset replacements.
• Reduces Maintenance Costs: Planned maintenance programs allow teams to
handle breakdowns efficiently without spending extra capital on the expedited
delivery of replacement parts or outsourced maintenance services.
• Improves Workplace Safety: Assets operating in optimal condition ensure those
nearby are safe. Equipment hazards are most common in manufacturing and
industrial settings.
• Enhances Company Culture: Frequent unexpected downtime dampens employee
morale, increases stress, and causes frustration. Facilities that minimize
downtime foster greater contentment for all.
As mentioned, scheduled maintenance does have drawbacks, especially the potential
for inspecting assets that do not need upkeep. No maintenance manager wants his
techs to waste time on low-priority projects, especially when they could be reducing the
risk of expensive setbacks. Inefficient preventive maintenance programs increase
maintenance costs over the long run.

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Unplanned Unscheduled Maintenance
Finally, despite a maintenance team’s best attempts, it will sometimes find itself putting
out fires—figuratively and hopefully not literally. Known as unplanned maintenance, this
type of work is often the result of unanticipated equipment failure. Unplanned
maintenance can be expensive, dangerous, and time-consuming. For this reason,
organizations should thoroughly examine the failure modes of each asset.

Conclusion
Planned maintenance is an ideal strategy for companies wanting to minimize
maintenance costs, boost profitability, and enhance safety. Combine the previously
described steps to build a planned maintenance program with a user-friendly CMMS
platform. You will wonder why you didn’t do it sooner!

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02
Employing Preventive Maintenance Workflows
Studies suggest companies can save an average of 12 to 18 percent in costs by
investing in preventive maintenance (PM). Facilities that are entirely reliant on reactive
maintenance can save even more. In other words, every dollar spent on preventive
maintenance will save nearly five dollars on expenses.
Yet, more than half of U.S. companies still exclusively practice reactive maintenance
primarily because, as our research suggests, leadership often assumes that:
• Reactive maintenance is more cost-effective than preventive maintenance and
• They do not have time for it.
Both assumptions are incorrect. Here you will learn how preventive maintenance saves
money, decreases downtime, and enhances safety for industries across the board. You
will also learn how to create a preventive maintenance plan, determine which type of PM
system is right for you, and evaluate CMMS.

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Preventive / Preventative Maintenance
Preventive Maintenance (PM) is planned maintenance that prolongs the lifespan of
company assets, equipment, and infrastructure. Also known as preventative
maintenance, PM includes adjustments, cleaning, lubrication, repairs, and
replacements. Preventive maintenance means fixing minor problems before they become
big ones! Organizations can obtain maximum asset value by slowing down excess
depreciation, deterioration, and malfunction.
As the term suggests, preventive maintenance (PM) involves taking preventive actions
to ensure pieces of equipment never come to an inconvenient and expensive halt. The
heart of every PM program is a recurring schedule based on manufacturers’
recommendations for upkeep, historical behavior of assets, and available resources.
The most widely recognized form of preventive maintenance involves automobiles.
Cars come with service recommendations for specific mileage points. Those who
diligently follow such recommendations add years to vehicle life spans.
For example, you change the oil before the engine catches fire. You replace the fan
belt before it snaps. Ignoring such recommended PM tasks increases the chances of
hazardous breakdowns that often cost more to fix than periodic oil changes, tune-ups,
and parts replacement.
Preventive maintenance is ideal for the following types of assets:
• Assets with a critical operational function
• Assets with high financial value
• Assets with preventable failure modes
• Assets with an increased likelihood of failure with use
• Assets with statutory requirements
No matter the industry, preventive maintenance always has three components. It is:
• Systematic
• Performed routinely
• Aimed at reducing or minimizing failures
These characteristics define the scope of all PM tasks. The goal of preventative
maintenance is always to minimize failures by detecting and fixing them before they
lead to costly downtime. Downtime is the amount of time a system, machine, or piece
of equipment is inoperable. Think of it as proactive maintenance. If you do not do it
routinely and on time, it will not be preventive in nature—it will be reactive.

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Condition monitoring is a critical component of any successful preventive maintenance
program. This is what makes PM different from other types of maintenance. For
example, bearings have a specific lifespan and need to be replaced after a specified
number of hours. You should check bearings regularly to ensure they do not need
replacement. This is preventive maintenance. If you want to improve asset reliability
while keeping maintenance costs down, you need preventive maintenance.
Preventive maintenance (PM) is a proactive approach to maintenance that aims to keep
an asset in good working order by fixing issues before failures occur. The practice
reduces unplanned downtimes by scheduling maintenance at regular intervals.
When performed consistently, PM can help organizations minimize expenses
associated with unplanned downtimes, reduce maintenance costs, and enhance
reliability. The U.S. Department of Energy estimates that PM can save facilities up to 18
percent in maintenance costs than reactive maintenance alone.

Common Preventive Maintenance

Preventive maintenance minimizes equipment downtime, improves asset lifespans, and
lowers maintenance costs. It is a simple, direct, and systematic way to improve asset
reliability.
The most common preventive maintenance tasks include:
• Inspections
• Cleaning
• Lubrication
• Adjustments
• Repairs
• Parts replacement
PM tasks are performed regularly to reduce the likelihood of failure throughout an
asset’s normal operating conditions. Operational and maintenance managers schedule
PM tasks according to manufacturer recommendations, average asset life cycles, or
historical behavior patterns.
Resources commonly needed to complete PM tasks include sensor devices, wrenches,
drills, scissors lifts, and lockout tagout devices.

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Types of Preventive Maintenance (PM)
Preventive maintenance tasks aim to reduce unplanned downtimes. Maintenance tasks
generally fall into four broad categories.

Periodic Maintenance
Periodic Maintenance includes preventive maintenance tasks performed at scheduled
intervals. They can be performed weekly, monthly, quarterly, or annually. For example,
you can change your engine oil every three months. Equipment manuals usually contain
the recommended maintenance schedules for an asset. Periodic maintenance also is
referred to as time-based maintenance.

Periodic Maintenance Workflow

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Meter-Based Maintenance
Meter-Based Maintenance, also known as performance-based maintenance,
maintenance scheduling is based on equipment usage variables. Such assets usually
have meters or counters to measure usage milestones. An example of meter-based
maintenance is changing the engine oil every 3,000 miles.
Meter-Based Maintenance Workflow

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Predictive Maintenance (PdM)
Predictive Maintenance (PdM) is an advanced form of PM that uses sensor devices and
data analysis tools to predict the optimal time when assets should receive maintenance
to prevent failure. The goal of PdM is to perform maintenance just before failure occurs
to eliminate the risk of under- or over-maintenance. An example of PdM is using
vibrational analysis on high-rotating machinery to detect imbalance, misalignment, or
bearing wear. Maintenance is performed when there is a fluctuation in machine
vibrations.
Predictive Maintenance Workflow

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Prescriptive Maintenance
Prescriptive maintenance is similar to PdM as they both rely on data to make
maintenance decisions. However, with prescriptive maintenance, machine-learning
software gathers and analyzes equipment conditions to recommend specific
maintenance actions. This helps to minimize operational risks. For example, sensors or
other artificial intelligence (AI) software will recommend adjusting the barometric
pressure in a processing tank in the event of a thunderstorm to avoid high pressure in
the tank.

Choose Which Type of Maintenance to Perform

However, preventive maintenance should not be performed on every asset. The costs of
performing PM should always be less than the cost of failure. For example, say the cost
of downtime for a particular asset is $500, and its PM cost is $800. In this instance, PM
would be a waste of time and money. The company could save $300 by running to
failure.
Conversely, the preventive maintenance of many assets will translate to financial
savings. Take hotels, for example. Check under the mattress in your next hotel room,
and you might discover some hidden PM instructions. Did you know hotel staff turn
mattresses each week to extend their lifespans? Surprisingly, this minor preventive
maintenance procedure results in millions of dollars in savings for hotels worldwide
each year.
Organizations that adopt an overall preventive maintenance philosophy seem to save
more money than those that do not. As reported in the Wall Street Journal, the cost of
unplanned downtime by industrial manufacturers may be more than $50 billion per year,
and the number one cause of downtime is aging equipment. Operator error and lack of
time were the other top reasons listed by maintenance personnel.
Predictive maintenance is capable of finding that sweet spot between traditional
preventive maintenance and reactive maintenance. Companies wanting to invest more
time in equipment data collection, analysis, and decision-making should pursue
predictive maintenance. However, a combination of periodic and meter-based
maintenance will get the job done just fine for most teams.

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The primary differences between traditional PM programs and predictive PM programs:
• Predictive maintenance is more complex, as It involves using data from experts,
equipment readers, past experiences, and IoT.
• Predictive maintenance has a higher setup cost and a higher variable cost, which
will incur higher upfront expenses than the others will.
• Periodic maintenance involves little or no risk, while predictive maintenance
involves a higher possibility of initial errors.
• Predictive maintenance reduces the probability of replacing a part prematurely as
opposed to periodic maintenance.
In summary, preventive maintenance is the best way to move forward for companies
wanting to increase equipment life without any risk and high fixed and variable cost.

Which Maintenance Process Is Best?

The simple answer is that one type of maintenance is no better than the others. Service
one asset more than is necessary, and you waste valuable time. Fail to service another
asset enough, and you waste resources associated with the cost of downtime! The key
to success is finding the right balance of preventive maintenance to planned
unscheduled maintenance for your unique organization.
This comes from consistently monitoring downtime patterns, time spent on repairs, the
cost of parts, and the cost of outsourced unplanned maintenance. A user-
friendly Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS) like MaintainX can
help maintenance managers translate such data into meaningful insights. Patterns
reveal which strategy is most cost-effective for assets over time.

Preventative Maintenance in Action

Unfortunately, putting preventive maintenance into action from scratch can be
intimidating. Depending on the number of assets within an organization, and the
number of workers available, regularly monitoring (and assigning) ALL recommended
maintenance procedures might seem impossible. For example, a small property
management team may have 200 assets requiring routine maintenance, whereas a
large manufacturing facility may have 20,000 assets. A well-conditioned manufacturing
team will likely already have a well-established routine that involves specific preventive
maintenance tasks, like replacing used “bearings” every few hours.

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However, employees may overlook guidelines for less routine maintenance without
foolproof reminders and accountability systems in place. The American National
Standards Institute (ANSI)’s guidelines provide a starting point for maintaining standard
equipment. However, most organizations will not be successful without some form
of Computerized Maintenance Management Systems (CMMS).
Unfortunately, many organizations reject existing CMMS solutions because of complex
interfaces, wonky functionality, and high price tags (more on that later). For this reason,
approximately half of the companies we come across do not actively practice any form
of preventive maintenance. Instead, they react to issues as they arise.
Unlike preventive maintenance, reactive maintenance means waiting for small
problems to become big problems—before doing anything about them. Often called the
“run to failure method,” this maintenance system lacks maintenance procedure
reminders between equipment failures. A reactive maintenance worker may never
inspect an asset until it breaks down or they happen to notice a particular part’s
malfunction.

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According to the Schneider Electric report, Predictive Maintenance Strategy for Building
Operations: A Better Approach, 55 percent of U.S. companies exclusively practice
reactive maintenance. Many companies find themselves so overwhelmed with reactive
maintenance that they cannot imagine finding the time to add preventive maintenance
operations into their schedules. Reactive maintenance is not cost-effective because the
inconsistent nature of asset downtime often results in unplanned expenses.
Unfortunately, many executives overlook a common problem with “run to failure”:
Operations departments do not just lose money on faulty equipment; they waste capital
on unanticipated expenses associated with lost productivity, overtime labor, and spare
part/storage purchasing.
Data shows that the cost of dealing with unexpected equipment failures is often up
to six times that of the cost of implementing PM systems.

Examples of Preventive Maintenance

Almost every industry and organization runs a preventive maintenance program. Real-
life examples of preventive maintenance include:

1. Lubricating Moving Parts

Friction can cause a machine to break down and disrupt production. The heat generated
from the friction can also result in a fire. Because machines are constantly running,
there are high chances of friction. Regularly lubricating the moving parts of the machine
can help to reduce friction and unplanned breakdowns.

2. Changing HVAC Filters

With time, HVAC filters back up and can result in the entire system breaking down.
Repairing or replacing broken-down HVAC systems is more costly than simply replacing
the filters every six months.

3. Refrigerator Maintenance
If you operate a restaurant, then a walk-in refrigerator is a critical asset to your
business. You cannot afford to have it breaking down. Preventive maintenance activities
on the refrigerator include checking the door seals for any leaks, defrosting built-up ice,
draining the drip pan, and cleaning the condenser coils regularly.

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Automate Preventive Maintenance
Regardless of your organization’s size, a preventive maintenance plan is key to
achieving both short-term and long-term maintenance goals. You do not have to
sacrifice features for simplicity—you can:
• Create reactive and preventive maintenance work orders.
• Assign recurring work orders to both teams and individuals.
• Monitor progress by maintenance category, priority level, downtime, etc.
• Analyze maintenance costs for greater efficiency and savings.
• Hold text conversations with team members in real-time.
CMMS can help you get the best out of your facility’s PM program.

Preventive Maintenance and CMMS

Computerized maintenance management systems (CMMS) organize O&M tasks,
including planning, scheduling, and tracking work orders. CMMS also can maintain
asset historical records, manage inventory, and monitor spending trends.
Although 39 percent of facilities still rely on paper records for maintenance
management, there are many benefits to adopting and integrating CMMS. A cloud-
based CMMS provides remote access, real-time maintenance data, automatic work
order tracking, and built-in inventory tracking.
The software also improves communication between maintenance managers and
technicians by enabling the sharing of real-time updates and maintenance reports.
Managers wishing to maximize CMMS can a) adopt a mobile CMMS that workers can
keep in their pockets and b) empower team members to become more autonomous in
using the technology.

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03
Creating a Preventive Maintenance Program
Effectively planned preventive maintenance (PM) programs deliver substantial
savings. Studies show preventive maintenance can save facilities as much as 18
percent in maintenance costs.
Scheduling routine maintenance based on usage or time triggers reduces the likelihood
of unplanned equipment failures that translate to emergency maintenance expenses.
The expenses of workers’ overtime, outsourced expertise, and expedited parts’
shipments can add up quickly. However, the most significant financial loss for industrial
businesses stems from missing production targets due to downtime.
The key to cutting costs, increasing reliability, and extending equipment life spans is
executing a consistent preventive maintenance (PM) program—on the right assets.
Manufacturers that primarily rely on reactive maintenance lose between $10,000 and
$250,000 for every hour of downtime. While downtime affects no two businesses
exactly alike, the outcome is always the same: lost company resources that you could
have better used elsewhere.

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While performing scheduled maintenance itself is not complicated, launching a program
from scratch can be challenging. Often, maintenance managers know what to do; they
just are not sure how to get started and in what order to do things.

1. Establish Clear Goals

The three most common obstacles organizations face when initiating preventive
maintenance (PM) programs are:
• Lack of available workforce, finances, and time
• Inefficient preventive maintenance management systems
• Uncertainty about which assets should receive PM first
The good news is you do not have to perform scheduled maintenance on every asset.
Pieces of equipment critical to production, quality, safety, and service delivery are prime
candidates for preventive maintenance programs. Leave everything else for reactive
maintenance, as usual.
Furthermore, you do not need a huge budget to develop an organized system that
supports consistent results. For these reasons, start the process by outlining clear
program goals. Examples of potential program goals include reduced equipment
downtime, improved work completion rates, maximized production time, and increased
asset reliability.
Ask your organization’s machine operators, maintenance technicians, and other key
stakeholders for their input early in the process. Their feedback will be integral to
establishing effective priorities, making future hires, outlining standard operating
procedures (SOPs), and setting your preventive maintenance program up for success.

2. Inventory Your Assets

Once you have everyone on board, take an inventory of the assets you want to include in
your preventive maintenance program. Tracking asset history regularly will play a
crucial role in your PM strategy.
Monitoring asset data will ensure your team does not perform too much preventive
maintenance on one asset at the expense of others. It will also reveal maintenance
spending patterns, worker inefficiencies, and optimal timeframes for asset
replacements as you fine-tune your program.

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Beyond the importance of maintaining detailed asset inventories for accounting
records, consistent record keeping can reveal opportunities to optimize spending
patterns.
As routine maintenance is performed, keep track of service dates, labor costs, parts
used, and current conditions. Also, note the asset’s criticality to production and safety.
Record the following data for each asset:
• Make/model
• Serial number
• Unit number/brass tag number
• Category (e.g., plumbing or HVAC)
• Location
• Specifications
• Department or team responsible for upkeep
• High-cost parts associated with the asset
Also, consider the asset’s current condition and its priority level in relation to
productivity and workplace safety. You can use a spreadsheet or a computerized
maintenance management system (CMMS) to catalog your asset entries. We
recommend adopting a user-friendly platform like MaintainX to maintain asset records,
cross-reference data, and glean cost-saving insights over time.
Create an inventory of your organization’s most crucial assets. This equipment should
receive preventive maintenance first. This exercise will help you avoid delaying
maintenance on certain assets, especially if using a floating PM schedule.

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3. Conduct Asset Hierarchy and Criticality Analysis
It is impossible to place all essential assets on initial PM programs. Stay realistic by
creating an asset hierarchy for your organization’s most critical assets.
Remember, most of your facility’s assets do not need to be scheduled for preventive
maintenance. Exclusively performing PM on extensive asset inventories is unrealistic
for most organizations. Additionally, performing PM on inexpensive, non-critical, and
easily repaired items is wasteful. One way to determine PM priorities is to conduct
a criticality analysis.

A criticality analysis is an exercise that involves ranking assets according to their risk
potential in several categories, including operational, financial, environmental, and
safety. This process is beneficial to organizations with several complex assets because
it removes personal bias from the equation.
Criticality analyses allow managers to rank, prioritize, and schedule PMs with
objectivity. Assets with higher criticality ratings receive top priority. Use the following
questions as a launchpad when evaluating asset criticality:
• Which assets are critical to production and safety?
• Which assets require regular maintenance?
• Which assets have high repair and replacement costs?
Prioritize assets that are critical to production, require regular maintenance, or have
high repair and replacement costs when making your preventive maintenance schedule.
Remember: it is more cost effective to place non-critical and older assets on reactive
maintenance programs because you may need to replace them sooner.
However, if you run or work at an SMB that just needs help with basic maintenance
prioritization, follow the steps below to gauge PM priority levels:
• List Top Assets: Write down your most important assets. To avoid overwhelm,
do not include more than 20 percent of all pieces of equipment. Prioritize assets
that significantly impact production, have high maintenance costs, require
regular maintenance, or pose safety hazards. As you begin to realize the return
on investment (ROI) of your assets, gradually add more assets to the PM
program.
• Rank Criticality by Financial Impact: Use a formula to determine the financial
impact of each asset. Equipment Criticality = Failure Frequency (per year) x Cost
Consequence ($) = Risk ($ per year). Here, the cost consequence includes the
cost of lost production plus repair costs.

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 • Rank Criticality by Safety, Environment, and Health Impact: Consult with your
team to determine which equipment breakdowns pose the greatest threat to
worker and customer safety. Rank those items from highest safety risk to lowest
safety risk. Reliable Plant published the following example of the health, safety,
and environmental impact risk of an asset:
• Assess Likelihood of Failure: Individual assets may pose several unique failure
events, each with entirely different associated risks. For this reason, reliability
consultants recommend only choosing the failure event that poses the greatest
likelihood of occurring for each asset. Rank your assets from greatest to least
likelihood of failure.
• Combine Findings: If you use a points system, add your individual RPN
categories to generate a total RPN for each asset. Then, divide the total RPN by
the total weighted points possible and multiply this number by 100. Finally,
analyze your findings to determine the assets most essential to your
organization’s goals.
Again, if you work at or run a small organization just getting started, do not feel
pressured to conduct an official criticality analysis.

4. Identify Ideal PM Intervals

Of course, preventive maintenance is not without a potential downside. Without proper
planning, you risk wasting precious resources on unnecessary inspections and repairs.
Over-maintaining assets can be just as wasteful as under-maintaining them! Avoid
overdoing it by identifying ideal PM ratios for your individual assets.
The three primary methods to determine PM intervals include:
• Consulting equipment manufacturer’s manuals for recommended maintenance
work instructions, schedules, and usage of critical spare parts
• Reviewing historical maintenance data for insights into past failure patterns
• Asking machine operators and technicians for their insights into asset behaviors

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5. Schedule Your Preventive Maintenance
At this stage, you are finally ready to schedule your preventive maintenance activities.
Word to the wise: do not try to tackle everything at once. We recommend creating a
long-term (yearly) maintenance schedule before breaking high-priority tasks down into a
short-term schedule (quarterly, monthly, weekly, and daily).
A PM schedule lays out when to perform maintenance activities on any given piece of
equipment. When developing your PM schedule, select a day and time for maintenance
that does not disrupt production. Base PM schedules on one of two metrics:
• Time: You can base your PM schedule on time and perform maintenance after a
set period. For example, your fleet of vehicles can undergo maintenance every
three months.
• Usage: For usage-based PM schedules, track usage metrics such as operating
hours and production cycles. Maintenance activities are then performed when
certain milestones are met. For example, schedule your fleet of vehicles for
maintenance every 1,000 miles instead of every three months.
PM schedules usually depend on a work order system. A work order is a document that
provides details about a maintenance task and outlines the process to complete the
task. A work order details the scope of the work, the expected timeline to complete the
work, who authorized the work order, and an assigned maintenance technician. Work
orders help you organize, assign, prioritize, track, and complete maintenance tasks
besides capturing asset maintenance history.

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A user-friendly Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS) like
MaintainX will make assigning, overseeing, and adjusting your PM program infinitely
easier. MaintainX’s desktop and mobile CMMS allows operational managers to create,
assign, and monitor recurring work orders; track historical asset data in the cloud;
communicate with team members via work order commenting, direct messaging, and
group messaging; manage inventory supplies with automated alerts; and glean cost-
savings opportunities from advanced reporting capabilities.

6. Train Your Team

Operator error accounts for up to 12 percent of unplanned downtimes. No matter how
carefully you plan your preventive maintenance program, it is likely to fail if you do not
onboard the workers responsible for maintaining your assets.
Organize training sessions for employees who work with the assets to be maintained.
Also, be sure to write work instructions in simple, easy-to-understand language. You
also should provide employees with additional learning resources for reference. Ensure
they understand when and how to perform scheduled maintenance.
Clear and fast communication is essential for an effective PM program. Your team
should always be able to communicate with each other efficiently and effectively. Poor
communication can lead to:
• Delayed maintenance timelines
• Overlapping work orders and activities
• Inappropriate prioritization of maintenance tasks
• Under- or over-maintenance
• Poor maintenance inventory management
• Prolonged downtimes
Approximately 96 percent of office executives claim poor communication is to blame
for workplace failures. Maintenance departments are no exception to everyday
communication woes.
According to McKinsey Global Institute, a connected workforce is more likely to post
better performance. Using a mobile CMMS with team chat will virtually eliminate
important project details falling through the cracks. MaintainX reduces time spent
clarifying details, improves access to maintenance records, and speeds up
troubleshooting between technicians and managers.

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7. Monitor Preventive Maintenance Program Success
with KPIs
Set SMART goals and key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure progress. SMART
is an acronym for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound.
Your maintenance goals should clearly outline what you are looking to accomplish,
when you are looking to achieve them, and the metrics you will use to measure success.
Your goals should be relevant to your company’s broader business goals.
Common KPIs to measure preventive maintenance plan effectiveness include:
• Planned Maintenance Percentage (PMP): How much time you spent on planned
maintenance compared to unplanned maintenance within a given period.
• Preventive Maintenance Compliance (PMC): How many scheduled PM tasks you
completed within a specific timeframe.
• Scheduled Maintenance Critical Percentage (SMCP): The impact of delayed
planned maintenance activities.
• Mean Time To Repair (MTTR): The average time it takes to repair and restore an
asset to full functionality.
• Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE): How efficient an asset is during
production by combining asset availability, performance, and production quality.
Monitor your chosen key performance indicators (KPIs), ask for team member
feedback, and make minor adjustments accordingly. Remember: you will never
eliminate all downtime.
Instead, focus on progress by determining how many PMs have been performed on
critical assets and how many times those assets have failed since the program began.
You can determine whether you should reduce or increase your PM activities based on
this data. If your team is not meeting its goals, conduct a root cause analysis to locate
inefficiencies and correct course.
Establish KPIs that align with your maintenance program goals. These metrics will help
determine whether your PM program is effective along the way. Consistently identifying
your maintenance program’s strengths and weaknesses is the only way to experience
steady progress and long-term success.

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8. Get Upper-Management Support
Finally, you will need the support of your company’s management to implement a PM
plan successfully. Convincing leadership to get on board, and increase O&M budgets,
can be a daunting task. Tips to help you to make the case for implementing a PM plan
include:
• Estimating Return on Investment (ROI): You need to convince the management
how the PM program will improve the company’s bottom line. Select a few
critical assets and demonstrate how shifting from corrective to preventive
maintenance will reduce maintenance costs and improve profits. For example, if
you experience three unplanned downtimes a year and the cost of restoring full
functionality each time is $500, a PM program could reduce the downtimes from
three to one and save $1000 in maintenance costs.
• Determining Maintenance Goals: Outline your long-term maintenance goals and
how they align with the overall organizational goals. Remember to cover the
challenges faced by the current (reactive) system and how a PM program would
overcome them.
For an effective PM program, you first need to understand your facility’s maintenance
goals and develop maintenance checklists that align with the goals.

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9. Use CMMS Software
Most effective PM programs have one thing in common: a Computerized Maintenance
Management System (CMMS) the entire team feels comfortable using. Maintenance
planners can create, implement, and track recurring work orders via user-friendly
dashboards.
Additionally, CMMS simplify, automate, organize, and optimize O&M. A whopping 58
percent of facilities rely on CMMS to manage their maintenance operations.
However, up to 80 percent of CMMS implementations fail. Reasons for CMMS failure
include:
• Exclusion of users from the selection process
• Complex CMMS software
• Resistance to technology adoption
• Poor implementation of CMMS
Using modern, cloud-based CMMS can help overcome these implementation
challenges. Unlike traditional on-premise systems, cloud CMMS is available over the
Internet and, therefore, easier to set up, access from anywhere, and manage the
database. Modern CMMS like MaintainX also offer regular updates and better database
security.

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04
Creating Preventive Maintenance Workflows
Launching a successful preventive maintenance program from scratch involves several
steps, including taking asset inventories, conducting criticality analysis, and determining
key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure success.
A preventive maintenance schedule is a plan for organizing company resources to
ensure maintenance tasks are performed according to specific time or usage triggers.
The primary goal of preventive maintenance is to keep assets in optimal working
condition.
Creating a preventive maintenance schedule involves coordinating materials,
equipment, and timeframes for completing tasks. It also entails determining who should
perform which tasks and how they should do it. Dedicated maintenance schedulers,
maintenance supervisors, and maintenance planners are the team members most often
responsible for developing PM schedules.

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With that said, do not confuse maintenance scheduling with maintenance
planning. Though the two processes support one another, they are not always
completed by the same individual. Maintenance planning focuses on what needs to be
done and how. Maintenance scheduling, on the other hand, details who will perform
recommended maintenance tasks and when.

Fixed vs. Floating Preventive Maintenance Workflows

Effective preventive maintenance schedules help facility managers efficiently allocate
maintenance resources, effectively maintain assets, and appropriately plan for the year
ahead.
When making a preventive maintenance schedule, you have two primary options: fixed
and floating PM scheduling.

1. Fixed PM Workflows
A fixed preventive maintenance schedule is a routine maintenance plan scheduled
according to specific equipment usage or time interval. Fixed PM schedules focus on
future planned tasks, regardless of whether previous tasks were completed or not.
For instance, tasks scheduled on Mondays are always performed on Mondays
regardless of whether your technician completed last week’s assigned task.
Maintenance schedulers may also base recurring PMs on specific usage intervals or
triggers.
EX: You schedule your fleet’s vehicles to undergo maintenance every 3,000 miles. Once
an odometer reaches 3,000, you create a work order for a routine oil change and
performance check. The vehicle’s next oil change will happen in another 3,000 miles. It
does not matter how long it takes your driver to reach the mileage. This is a fixed PM
schedule based on usage intervals.

2. Floating PM Workflows
A floating preventive maintenance schedule is a maintenance plan based on the timing
of previous PM tasks. Floating PM schedules are informed by an asset’s past usage or
maintenance history.
For instance, assume you have a 30-day PM schedule for a machine. You will assign the
asset’s next PM 30 days from the completion of the last PM activity. In other words, the
subsequent work order is not triggered until the previous work order is completed and

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closed. Floating PM schedules require greater diligence than fixed PM schedules for
tracking maintenance task completion.
EX: You schedule an HVAC system for maintenance every 100 hours of operation. You
delay maintenance until after the 120th hour. Therefore, your next work order is triggered
after 220 hours from the original PM. The system starts counting the 100 hours after the
previous work order is closed (at the 120th hour). If the HVAC system were on a fixed
schedule, it would still be triggered for maintenance after 200 hours.

Implementing Preventive Maintenance Workflows

The key to creating a successful preventive maintenance schedule is identifying the
correct maintenance interval for each asset. This allows you to maximize resources
while reducing the chance of unexpected breakdowns.

Final Tips for PM Workflow Success

Preventive maintenance scheduling is not rocket science. However, several challenges
can disrupt workflows, reduce schedule compliance, and create bottlenecks if not
proactively navigated. Some common factors that disrupt PM schedules are:
• Poor team communication
• Inefficient maintenance inventory management
• Misunderstandings with third-party contractors
• Miscommunication with suppliers
• Lack of in-house skills for specialized tasks
Taking the time to develop centralized communication systems, employee continuing
education programs, and clear standard operating procedures (SOPs) will set your team
up for success.

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05
Writing Efficient Work Orders
A work order is a document outlining instructions for a scheduled maintenance job,
including information about who should complete the task, the process involved, and
when the task needs to be completed. Operational managers assign work orders to
maintenance technicians in both paper and digital formats. According to Plant
Engineering’s 2019 Maintenance Report, approximately 58 percent of facilities rely
on computerized maintenance management systems (CMMS) to manage their work
orders, 45 percent use spreadsheets, and 39 percent of facilities still rely on paper
records.
The primary purpose of a work order is to provide precise details of scheduled
maintenance tasks. The documents also serve as official authorizations to service
equipment. Maintenance technicians often initiate work requests after identifying parts’
problems during routine inspections. Facility users, customers, and other stakeholders
can create a work request after noticing a problem at a facility.

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Upon receiving such a request, maintenance managers create a work order and assign
it to an available technician. The best ones provide detailed information on completing
the requested tasks; informational fields for estimating labor costs, replacement parts,
other relevant expenses; and historical data on asset maintenance.

Work Orders
Successful completion of maintenance tasks largely depends on how detailed work
orders are. Incomplete information can result in costly errors. A standard work order
should contain the following pieces of information:
• Location of asset needing work
• Description of asset
• Description of problem
• Scope of work to be completed
• List of needed tools and replacement parts
• List of safety procedures to be aware of on the job
• Details of person or department that requested it
• Date when it was created and submitted
• Projected date of completion
• Expected hours of work and actual number of hours used for completion
Work orders can also include checklists for completing the assigned tasks and urgency
priority levels. Managers can also attach standard operating procedures (SOPs), asset
maintenance histories, manuals, and images to help maintenance technicians complete
them more efficiently. Some organizations also include notes with observations, such
as the frequency of the problem and techniques for troubleshooting the given piece of
equipment. These notes help technicians complete work orders and managers review
them for verification after assignments.

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Maintenance Workflow Process
Work orders usually go through a 4-step process:

Step 1: Submitting Work Requests

Machine operators, equipment inspectors, or employees from other departments can all
submit work requests that managers turn into work orders. In residential organizations,
tenants often submit work and maintenance requests. Work requests are often a key
aspect of customer relationship management (CRM).
Maintenance novices may confuse work requests with work orders. However, there is a
distinct difference between the two terms. Work requests are simply a request for
maintenance on a given asset. Technically speaking, management can approve or deny
that request.
Alternatively, work orders are authorized assignments for maintenance to be
completed. Work requests become work orders after their submission and approval.
Either maintenance supervisors or maintenance planners approve work requests.
Factors they consider before approving appeals include:
• Available maintenance budget
• Severity of the reported issue
• Safety impact of the reported issue
• Planned maintenance activities already in place
• Asset age

Step 2: Creating Work Orders

Maintenance supervisors usually review work requests and, if approved, create a work
order. Not all work requests receive the necessary approval. Managers can deny work
requests if a reported problem has already been resolved or the task does not fall under
his or her department. If resources for the request’s completion are not available, the
manager can schedule the task as a “deferred maintenance activity.”

Step 3: Assigning Work Orders to Technicians

Maintenance technicians receive digital or analog instructions on when and how to do
the job. Organizations that use CMMS software automatically assign work orders to
technicians. Depending on the priority level, technicians complete the job immediately
or schedule it for later.

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Step 4: Closing Work Orders
Maintenance technicians should close the work order as soon as they have performed
the assigned tasks. Ask them to include the following details:
• Amount of time spent on task
• Replacement parts used
• Comments and images
• Completion notes, such as observations beyond assigned task
CMMS software automatically updates the maintenance log on the given asset after a
work order is closed. Maintenance supervisors can then review the completed ones and
decide on the next course of action.
Notably, work orders are either planned or unplanned. Emergency work orders are an
example of unplanned work orders. As mentioned above, they can be initiated within an
organization or externally by customers.

Conclusion
Work orders can help maintenance teams efficiently and effectively streamline their
activities. Well-planned task assignments increase the efficiency of PM strategies and
reduce the need for reactive maintenance. They enable maintenance personnel to
define roles, track tasks, document information, and make automated workflows
smoother. Furthermore, they are a great source of an asset’s maintenance history and
provide valuable insights for making maintenance decisions. Organizations that use
modern CMMS solutions for their work orders have better productivity KPIs than those
that still rely on paper records.

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06
Maintenance Workflow Automation and CMMS
CMMS (Computerized Maintenance Management System) is a centralized digital
platform that organizes a company’s maintenance operations, streamlines procedures,
eliminates paper stacks, enhances team communication, and supports cost-effective
managerial decision-making.
Most CMMS platforms include four primary elements:
• Operator Interfaces are the core of the CMMS experience. Essentially, they are
the smartphone and desktop screens that allow you to navigate features for
recording equipment information; creating, assigning, and tracking maintenance
tasks; monitoring inventory; messaging maintenance technicians, and tracking
asset history.
• Reporting Dashboards synthesize your collected information into KPI-driven
reports that can provide insight into process inefficiencies. For example, you
might generate a report comparing the time and cost spent repairing an asset in
2019 versus 2020 before making a capital purchase decision.
• Administrative Settings allow CMMS administrators to customize user-based
permissions for various team members. Users have the option to limit user
rights, create work order templates, and search filter specifications.
• Databases for modern online maintenance systems are typically “in the cloud.”
However, some older systems are still configured for in-house servers. The
advantage of cloud storage is unlimited scalability and accessibility.
Conducting due diligence when reviewing computerized maintenance management
systems is time well spent. The right platform can help reduce costs, increase
productivity, enhance compliance, and make daily tasks easier for everyone within a
department.

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Assess CMMS Software
1. Know what you need (and what you do not)
What works for one company may not work for another. Before shopping, write down all
of your maintenance, compliance, and asset management challenges. You can then
compare your requirement list against the features listed on CMMS provider websites
without being swayed by unnecessary capabilities. Do you need meter readings? Are
there regulatory compliance procedures that need to be integrated?
Effective work order management is the starting point for making informed decisions
about your assets and equipment. Management features that empower asset tracking
and reporting are fundamental. Maintenance history should be easily accessible to
monitor asset performance and uptime over time.
As previously mentioned, CMMS systems are used by several industries with various
needs. While an industry-specific solution may sometimes be the obvious best choice,
do not overlook versatile applications. For example, cloud-based software programs
often come with API integrations that allow users to share data with other management
systems. These CMMS solutions can be tailored to meet your needs.

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2. Prioritize programs with high user-adoption and usage rates
User Adoption is the measurement of how frequently, quickly, and efficiently technicians
use new software. User Adoption is also a component of Time to Value, which
addresses how fast an organization realizes the value gained.
Unfortunately, you will not typically find this information on CMMS provider websites.
However, you can request these statistics from sales reps during the evaluation
process. Here are some questions worth asking:
• What percentage of users within my industry stick with your app?
• How often do technicians complete work orders using the app?
• Do technicians and supervisors experience greater autonomy?
• How have MTTR and MTBR improved for your clients?
Do not be afraid to ask for industry-specific case studies or client contact information to
obtain the information you need. Furthermore, if possible, try the software for free
before making a purchase decision.

3. Consider mobile-first apps with chat functionality

Does your team work in a large-square-footage facility? Do your technicians regularly
leave headquarters for offsite work? Do they communicate with you through walkie-
talkies, text messages, and emails simultaneously?
Put simply, scatter-shot communication systems are not conducive to organizing
complicated instructions for individual work orders. MaintainX is the only maintenance
work order software that includes chat functionality. As reported in our 2019 Year-in-
Review survey, “work order commenting” was voted the app’s most popular feature.
Additionally, MaintainX is one of the few providers in the marketplace specifically
designed for mobile usage.

4. Choose meaningful data reporting

Choose a CMMS that not only compiles equipment data but also translates it into useful
and familiar industry metrics. Ashraf W. Labib, research scientist at the University of
Manchester Institute of Science and Technology, describes most off-the-shelf
software—especially computer-aided maintenance management solutions and
enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems— as “black holes greedy for data input that
seldom provide any output in terms of decision support.”
“This lack of decision support is a definite problem because the key to systematic and
effective maintenance is managerial decision-taking that is appropriate to the particular

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circumstance of the machine, plant, or organization,” Labib says. “This decision-making
process is all the more difficult if a CMMS can only offer an analysis of recorded data.”
For example, say you create a monthly recurring work order to change an oil filter. This
scheduled reminder is a good starting point if you are an SMB transitioning away from
reactive maintenance.
However, a more advanced maintenance department may need value data metrics that
illustrate how to fine-tune maintenance schedules beyond a manufacturer’s
recommendations. Organizations in this category should prioritize CMMS data
collection software that simplifies complex metrics into user-friendly charts, graphs,
and KPIs (e.g., MTBF, MTTR, and MTTF). Your reports should illustrate answers to
questions like:
• How much time did Carl spend on safety audits last month?
• What percentage of our preventive maintenance tasks did we complete?
• Should we continue maintaining our HVAC or purchase a new one?
• Are we understaffed or overstaffed (and inefficient)?
Ideally, CMMS should cross-reference work order data by assigned technician, asset
type, priority status, time to complete, and more to integrate into meaningful reports
that support sound decision-making.

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5. Know your projected ROI and key metrics
Calculate the expected ROI of your CMMS work order system. While it’s impossible to
have absolute certainty—with many unknown variables in the mix—you can make an
educated guess using an ROI model.
The projected value of your CMMS investment is the total expected reduction in
maintenance costs due to program implementation. You can calculate your ROI based
on a one-year, three-year, or five-year interval.
CMMS ROI = (CMMS Value – CMMS Cost)
CMMS Value is based on the following five categories of unnecessary costs:
1. Asset Life
Estimate the number of years the manufacturer expects asset life extension by
executing preventive maintenance.
Translate the longevity improvement into a dollar amount by comparing it against a
brand new asset’s purchase prices.
Repeat the process for every organizational asset.
Add your asset’s potential savings for a longevity grand total.
2. Downtime
Determine how often unscheduled downtime occurs per year.
Compare daily, weekly, and monthly revenue reports to determine how asset downtime
impacted revenue loss.
Calculate a total downtime loss for your chosen ROI parameter (e.g., one-year, three-
years, or five-years.
3. Parts / Inventory
Estimate how much time your organization has lost responding to emergency purchase
orders.
Estimate how much overstock inventory has cost your organization in terms of carrying
costs and obsolete parts.
Add the numbers for a total parts/inventory value.

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4. Labor Costs
Determine an average hourly labor amount wasted.
Estimate how much your organization spends on any overtime hours that can be
avoided.
5. Utilities
Acquire your annual utility costs.
Compare the amount with the expected yearly costs, assuming your assets are
operating at peak efficiency levels.

Once you have finished calculating your estimated value totals, evaluate your projected
platform costs. CMMS Costs vary by user number total, feature package, and vendor.
Modern platforms like MaintainX require zero to little training for mastery, while most
legacy programs necessitate paid training modules. Evaluate all potential CMMS fees
before plugging your total CMMS Cost into our formula:
Most MaintainX clients experience a first-year ROI ranging from 25 to 300 percent. Your
results will vary depending on your organization’s starting point, maintenance strategy,
and consistent use of the CMMS.

Run Your Workflow through CMMS

There are many reasons to adopt computerized maintenance management programs.
However, the primary motivating factor—for most companies—is to save money. CMMS
features allow operational managers to track maintenance activities, implement
advanced maintenance processes, automate workflows, and make cost-effective
decisions in a manner that is nearly impossible without digital organization.
Indirect maintenance costs lurk underneath the surface in the form of reduced asset life
cycles, high-energy costs, lost production, late deliveries, inefficient equipment
scheduling, and various wasted resources. Direct maintenance costs appear in the form
of labor, materials, contracts, and overhead expenses. CMMS services solve these
problems by making proactive maintenance a realistic, achievable, and stress-free goal.

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Features and Benefits of CMMS software
With CMMS, you can:
• Streamline Preventive Maintenance: Operational managers can create, assign,
and monitor work orders in one place.
• Organize Inventory Management: Maintenance teams can track the movement
of spare parts and reorder replacements, as needed.
• Reduce Downtime: Technicians can report asset failures on-site from the
convenience of their smartphones, reducing the length of equipment downtime.
• Improve Cost-Effectiveness: CMMS analytics provide management with
insightful information that allows for better decision-making.
• Enhance Communication: MaintainX is the only provider that offers CMMS
instant messaging within individual, group, and work-order chat threads.
Translation: Important information arrives in real-time and never falls through the
cracks.
• Increase Compliance: Digital audit trails allow managers to determine who
completed what task and when. Workers designate work orders as open, in
progress, or closed, so managers know the progress of assigned work orders.
• Simplify Bookkeeping: Accountants have easy access to asset information that
informs capital expenditure decisions and tax reporting.
• Improve Asset Management: CMMS allows managers to catalog and track
assets by location, category, serial number, date, and more.
• Support Condition-Based Monitoring: Advanced CMMS platforms sync with
sensor-technology to provide real-time insights into equipment wear, tear, and
potential failures.
Organizations exclusively practicing run-to-failure maintenance are not ideal candidates
for legacy CMMS systems. Ideally, an organized preventive maintenance strategy
should be in place before integrating work order software or EAM software. This is
because it takes time to track down manufacturers’ recommendations, evaluate past
asset history, create proper workflows and workflow management for large numbers of
assets, and train team members.

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07
MaintainX and Your Maintenance Workflows
CMMS users include business owners, facility and maintenance management, asset
planners, and maintenance personnel. Modern CMMS software is also useful for Safety
Managers, Quality Control Managers, Directors of Operations, Logistics Coordinators,
and more.
For small businesses (SMBs) to stay competitive in the global, and even local, market,
businesses must adopt technology that brings immediate efficiencies and impact.
Being a small business used to mean that robust software solutions were too expensive
or complicated. Now, solutions like CMMS software empower teams with revolutionary
tools that can grow with your business and business processes.
MaintainX CMMS maintenance software lets you build, for each asset, an infinite
number of calendar and/or meter-based preventive maintenance (PM) tasks. You can
provide a clear description of task procedures, instructions, and other essential details
within the PM task record.

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Within the CMMS, each PM is recorded and accessible in the future via Asset History.
Maintenance scheduled in advance helps from things falling behind. This data supports
your reporting insights about where operations need to improve.
According to the 2019 Plant Engineering Maintenance Survey, 45 and 39 percent of
facilities still rely on in-house spreadsheets and paper records, respectively, for
maintenance scheduling. Little do these organizations know just how much easier the
right CMMS can make maintenance scheduling. Modern, cloud-based CMMS platforms
are scalable, affordable, and user-friendly. The software allows you to automate both
long-term maintenance schedules and short-term schedules based on quarterly,
monthly, weekly, and daily tasks.
CMMS also allows you to capture minor maintenance activities that often fall through
the cracks and go unnoticed. This enables teams to maintain backlogs at manageable
levels. Additional features like inventory management, asset cross-referencing, work
order commenting, team chat, and advanced reporting make MaintainX a game-
changing tool for maintenance teams of all sizes.

Track Asset History

Every time a technician completes a work order on an asset, the work order is linked to
the asset’s history for reference. These completed work orders also help drive reporting
insights via the MaintainX dashboard to detail asset maintenance and cost history.
Cloud-based CMMS systems utilize sophisticated data encryption protocols along with
routine updates and maintenance. In addition, MaintainX performs frequent security and
penetration checks to ensure that client data is not compromised or otherwise
unavailable. MaintainX data is stored on encrypted Amazon Web servers because we
prioritize data security across the entire system.
Modern CMMS solutions like MaintainX offer parts inventory modules to track parts
usage across work orders. When a maintenance team is disorganized, it can be difficult
to find parts needed or even know if they are available on site. Our CMMS tracks parts’
usage and restock histories and even sends alerts to reorder when parts quantities are
running low.

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Increase Transparency and Accountability with MaintainX
MaintainX is the world’s first CMMS platform designed with real-time chat. Operational
managers, maintenance technicians, and key stakeholders can instant message one
another directly within the app’s work orders.
MaintainX is also one of the first programs designed specifically for smartphone usage
from day one. Comparatively, the majority of CMMS providers adapted their software
for mobile devices from complex desktop-based legacy systems. Translation: These
adapted CMMS programs are not always user friendly.

With robust CMMS reporting features, leaders can quickly determine, for example,
which policies are weak, which machines cause the most problems, and where there is
overspending. Tracking asset health efficiently allows management to fine-tune their
strategies toward reducing downtime, cutting costs, and increasing asset longevity.
Well-implemented CMMS enhances your understanding of assets and organization by
using the Reporting Dashboard feature to track key performance indicators (KPIs),
analyze trends, and generate reports for decision-makers. Maintenance managers can
identify concerns such as increasing costs, low efficiency, or frequent maintenance
using a CMMS to evaluate historical data and patterns.
MaintainX makes it easy to identify outliers in your organization. For example, through
reporting, you can quickly identify a forklift that requires 10x more maintenance than
any other in your fleet and adjust capital expenditures accordingly.
However, the most compelling draw for MaintainX is the abundance of features
included within the app’s freemium plan, making the software accessible for SMBs and
large corporations alike. Despite being a relatively new player in the work order software
space—founded in 2018—we’ve proudly garnered hundreds of positive reviews from
customers in both the Apple App and Google Play stores.

Noteworthy Features
• Generous Free Plan: Includes unlimited work orders, team messages,
assets/locations, and Web/mobile access; five work orders with photos per
month; two work orders with forms per month; and one month’s worth of
reporting analytics (decide if it’s useful enough to upgrade).
• Instant Messaging: Segment chat conversations by individuals, groups,
departments, topics, and more.

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 • Work Order Commenting: Chat with technicians directly within individual work
orders to troubleshoot in real-time.
• Photo Uploading: Upload (and mark-up) photos of equipment failures, parts
issues, or maintenance quandaries to better illustrate what is happening.
• User-Friendly Interface: The interface is sleek, quick, and easy to navigate
(designed specifically for smartphones, tablets, and desktops).
• PDF Uploading: Upload important PDFs, manufacturer’s guidelines, training
manuals, and company policies directly within individual work procedures.
• E-Signatures: Technicians can sign-off on completed jobs for additional
accountability and the app’s time stamp feature.

Conclusion
Modern computer-based management systems are sleek, intuitive, and affordable. With
MaintainX, you do not have to sacrifice features for simplicity—you can:
• Create reactive and preventive maintenance work orders.
• Assign recurring work orders to both teams and individuals.
• Monitor progress by maintenance category, priority level, downtime, etc.
• Analyze maintenance costs for greater efficiency and savings.
• Hold text conversations with team members in real-time.
Anyone with a smartphone can download the app and get started right away with our
basic plan, including unlimited work orders.

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