Preventive Maintenance Planning

Preventive Maintenance (PM) Planning is an essential factor to optimize cost and extend equipment life.  Preventive maintenance can be better planned when it is separated into four disciplines:

  1. Plant or Manufacturing Support
  2. Exteriors, Interiors, Furniture, Security, Fire and Life Safety Systems
  3. Electrical Switchboards, Floor panels, and Devices
  4. Vendor Maintenance Services such as Elevators, Building Controls, Painting, etc.

Using this approach, your maintenance team can focus on the important aspects of each critical area to avoid generalizing services, which will lead to lower costs and more consistent service.

As an example, Painting is a common issue in a number of facilities.  Preventive maintenance engineers are usually not responsible for painting, but they may be asked to do touch-ups.  However, excessive touch-ups can leave a leopard look in the facility, so painters should be called in to re-paint instead.

These types of issues are common, and can be predicted with some level of accuracy, so they should be included in the Preventive Maintenance Plan to avoid inconsistent service.  To lower costs and increase service, tools such as Preventive Maintenance Software are often used to keep track of all PM frequencies, work instructions, and PM Inspections.

Inspecting your facility regularly can also improve PM performance:

– Public and Executive Areas – usually inspected weekly
– Building Exteriors – usually inspected annually
– Garages and Back Hallways – usually inspected semi-annually
– Occupied Areas of the Building – usually inspected quarterly

Creating and effectively using your Preventive Maintenance Plan will increase control, reduce costs, and improve service in your facilities.