What is Scheduled Maintenance?
Scheduled Maintenance (also known as Preventive Maintenance) helps maintenance technicians avoid failures by fixing a piece of equipment before it breaks. Use data to plan your preventative maintenance scheduling. This ensures increased efficiency and reduces risks.
Scheduled maintenance examples show how it minimizes downtime and boosts operational efficiency for long-term success. Every piece of equipment, like HVAC systems or facility tools, needs routine care. Maintenance requires attention to every asset type
A maintenance management system CMMS helps manage maintenance schedules and improves workflow. CMMS tools help manage work orders, track preventive maintenance tasks, and support facilities management. Use CMMS to boost asset performance and drive cost savings through performance maintenance.
Preventive maintenance tasks begin with PMs. These are also called work orders. Manage work orders easily with CMMS software. Once your maintenance crew selects software to manage work orders (CMMS Software), you can decide whether your Preventive Schedule will be usage-based or time frame-based. What is routine maintenance? It’s like a health check for machines and teams—done regularly to avoid breakdowns.
Some issues are use-based. Others need time-based maintenance. Identify patterns to create better maintenance strategies.
Whether you use timed or metered scheduled maintenance scheduling, Good preventative maintenance scheduling reduces emergency repairs. MPulse helps ensure equipment stays reliable with less downtime.
Table of Contents
Scheduled Maintenance Categories
Time-Based Maintenance (TBM)
Implementing a scheduled maintenance program helps minimize downtime and ensures equipment reliability, making it a top maintenance schedule example across industries.
One of the simplest scheduled maintenance examples is time-based maintenance, also known as calendar-based maintenance. This method involves scheduling tasks like inspections, lubrication, or cleaning at regular intervals, based on a predefined maintenance schedule. It’s a classic example that answers the question, what is schedule maintenance in its most traditional form. By adhering to this schedule, organizations can proactively address potential issues before they lead to costly breakdowns.
This approach aligns more closely with the actual condition of the equipment, making it an integral part of a robust scheduled maintenance program. It’s ideal for identifying potential problems early and tackling them proactively through routine maintenance scheduling to avoid costly downtime. Are your physical assets showing signs of needed repairs, such as increased noise levels or longer startup times? A scheduled maintenance strategy can help you catch these issues before they become major disruptions. CBM answers a critical part of what is a maintenance schedule—by allowing you to act when it truly matters. It minimizes guesswork and ensures that physical assets don’t fall apart unexpectedly. Want to know what is schedule maintenance that works in real-world scenarios? CBM helps you avoid reactive repairs and optimize performance without wasting resources.
Predictive Maintenance (PdM)
Here’s where technology truly shines. As a top-tier scheduled maintenance example, predictive maintenance uses smart tools to monitor equipment and execute maintenance scheduling only when needed. This approach saves time, minimizes downtime, and enhances operational efficiency—a win-win! Predictive maintenance factors in lead time, processing time, latency, and performance testing, utilizing cutting-edge technology integrated with compatible CMMS software. To maximize its benefits, ensure your CMMS software is fully compatible with the predictive maintenance tools you’re using. If you’re still wondering what is a maintenance schedule that reduces both cost and downtime—this is it. Combine PdM with real-time insights and you’ve got a power-packed strategy.
RxM Powered by AI
Think of this as maintenance with a crystal ball. By incorporating AI, machine learning, and advanced analytics, this approach enhances your scheduled maintenance program and addresses key concerns related to what is a maintenance schedule. You might initially think, ‘That sounds expensive,’ but while costs can vary, this method often leads to significant savings by reducing downtime and preventing costly breakdowns—especially if it aligns well with your maintenance strategy.
Usage-Based RxM
This approach emphasizes asset usage rather than adhering to a fixed schedule, making it a valuable component of a scheduled maintenance strategy. For example, routine maintenance schedule for increased efficiency. Understanding your processing time is key to optimizing your maintenance schedule and achieving greater uptime through smarter maintenance scheduling.Still unsure what is schedule maintenance that aligns with evolving workloads? This strategy covers all bases.
Risk-Focused RxM
This approach combines elements of condition-based and predictive maintenance, making it a vital component of a comprehensive scheduled maintenance program. It helps redefine what is routine maintenance by shifting the focus from fixed intervals to strategic prioritization. By focusing on the criticality of assets, it ensures that high-risk equipment receives the extra attention it needs to minimize the likelihood of major failures. This proactive scheduled maintenance strategy prioritizes resources, helping reduce risk and offering one of the best scheduled maintenance examples in asset care. It is a top-tier strategy when asking what is scheduled maintenance with real risk-reduction benefits.With a scheduled maintenance program tailored to emphasize critical assets, organizations can enhance reliability, extend equipment lifespan, and reduce unplanned downtime.
Learn about CMMS Software that can lower costs for manufacturers.
Benefits of Implementing a Scheduled Maintenance Program
Now that the question “What is Scheduled Maintenance?” has been answered, explore how implementing a scheduled maintenance program supported by our software, can help you:
Simplify Maintenance
MPulse Software streamlines maintenance operations by automating reminders, generating schedules, and providing a centralized platform for tracking and managing scheduled maintenance tasks.
Proactive Approach
Shift from reactive to scheduled maintenance, allowing you to address issues before they become critical and impact your operations.
Increase Efficiency
By reducing unplanned downtime and optimizing asset performance, you can increase productivity and operational efficiency.
Data-Driven Decisions
Gain insights into asset performance, maintenance history, and trends through comprehensive reporting and analytics. Make informed decisions to improve maintenance strategies and resource allocation.
Scalable Solution
MPulse Software is scalable and adaptable, whether you have a small maintenance team or a large enterprise. You can customize the software to fit your unique requirements and grow with your business.
Creating a Scheduled Maintenance Schedule
When implementing planned measures, start by creating a scheduled maintenance program, which begins with establishing a maintenance schedule. Managing tasks, schedules, and processes can feel overwhelming, but the right CMMS software can make a significant difference. Choose software that integrates seamlessly with your preventive maintenance schedule.
Frequently Asked Questions About MPulse Software for Scheduled Maintenance
Why Do I Need Scheduled Maintenance?
Our scheduled maintenance program ensures an automatic schedule of PM tasks, simplifying adherence to manufacturer guidelines. These schedules and inspections help spot issues before they occur, minimizing costly disruptions. Maintenance intervals can be set based on time, operating hours, or part condition—triggering work orders just before inefficiencies or failures arise.
The program also ensures equipment is properly calibrated, lubricated, and maintained at the right time. Properly cared-for assets perform more efficiently, consume less energy, and fail less often—significantly extending their usable life. By establishing and consistently performing scheduled maintenance procedures, organizations can avoid serious problems caused by neglect and delay the need for costly repairs or replacements.
Learn how you can ensure your success with scheduled maintenance software.
What Scheduled Maintenence features are available in MPulse?
These eight features should be available in scheduled maintenance software…
- Asset Records store details about equipment, buildings, vehicles, or other assets—asset name, purchase date, purchase price, serial number, location, and other important details.
- Employee Records store information about your employees—names, contact information, certifications, etc.
- Inventory Records record details about spare parts and consumables you have on hand—type, model, serial number, manufacturer, supplier name, location name, item number, item state, unit of measure, etc.
- Work Orders link all the elements of repair and maintenance work in one place.
- Basic Inventory Management helps you keep up with the spare parts and consumables you have on hand.
- Basic Reporting tools help you create meaningful information from the data recorded for assets, employees, inventory, schedules, and work orders.
- Scheduling enables you to establish, monitor, and execute PM tasks (both time- and meter-based).
- Service Requesting is essential when you get repair requests from either internal departments or outside customers—allowing users to enter and initiate service requests, and then monitor the progress of the requests as your team completes repairs.
How much does PM Scheduling and Tracking software cost?
Software prices vary significantly depending on your needs and the size of your operations. Typically, you’ll pay for the base software and then the number of licenses you need. Advanced features also will add to the cost.
The software cost is more than just the price of the software itself. When you ask for a software quote, plan to include…
- Startup training
- Integration services
- Data migration from legacy systems
- Hosting
- Maintenance/support agreements
Calculate the five-year total cost of ownership of all these things to get an accurate comparison.
These price range estimates will tell you if their product is a good fit.
What’s the difference between Scheduled Maintenance vs. Predictive Maintenance?
Scheduled maintenance is triggered by time, meter, or event. This type of maintenance is based on average or expected life statistics (usually determined by the equipment manufacturer or vendor). The most common example is changing the oil in a car every X,000 miles or every X months.
Scheduled maintenance is one of the first steps to reduce run-to-failure maintenance in favor of a more proactive maintenance program. Additionally, CMMS excels at helping maintenance shops schedule preventive maintenance tasks, preventing failure and prolonging asset life cycles.
Predictive maintenance means different things to different people. Usually, maintenance professionals define it as gathering data on the actual condition of equipment to determine when maintenance is needed—sometimes called condition-based maintenance (CBM). CBM allows you to track meters and gauges on assets, and to trigger work orders at specific points. You can gather the data manually or automatically, and your CMMS software stores the data and alerts maintenance staff to take action.
For example, condition-monitoring tools and CMMS software can analyze how the asset is working—maybe by measuring operating temperature or oil viscosity, etc. This data helps spot signs of potential problems. Then CMMS software sends alerts before breakdowns occur.
Discover how simple predictive maintenance can boost PM effectiveness.
What’s the difference between Timed vs. Metered Scheduled Maintenance with CMMS Software?
Timed scheduled maintenance is simply based on the time between PM tasks—such as days, weeks, months, etc. A good example is inspections, which need to be performed at specific time intervals to help maintenance teams spot issues before they occur.
Metered PM scheduling measures usage using a specific meter, which triggers a PM task at the appropriate time. Meter readings track and measure the condition of equipment, machinery, vehicles, and other assets—such as mileage, usage time, production volume, pressure, flow rate, etc.
Over time these meter readings create historical data for the asset, which maintenance managers can use to determine if repairs were successful or if they should adjust the PM schedule based on performance.
Learn how to automate meter readings with MPulse DataLink.
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