Maintenance management: how to manage maintenance on an equipment fleet
Updated · Reviewed by Israel Margulies, founder and CEO of High Point GPS
Maintenance management is the work of deciding what maintenance each machine gets, getting it done on time with the right parts and people, and recording it so the next decision is better. For a fleet, that means a current asset list, schedules by hours, miles or dates, a single queue of work, and a weekly review of what slipped.
What maintenance management covers
Maintenance management runs as a loop: (1) list what you own, (2) decide how each machine is maintained, (3) plan and schedule the work, (4) do it, (5) record what was found and done, and (6) review the records and adjust the plan. Most shops do steps four and five every day and skip one, two and six, so the same failures keep coming back.
To manage maintenance well you do not need a large planning department. A shop lead with a clear asset list, a calendar of due work and an hour a week for review can run the full loop on a fleet of 30 or 40 machines.
Choose the mix of reactive, preventive and predictive work
Every fleet runs a mix. Reactive maintenance means fixing things when they break. Preventive maintenance services a machine on a fixed interval. Predictive or condition-based maintenance acts on measurements such as oil analysis results, vibration or telematics fault codes. The US Department of Energy’s O&M Best Practices Guide cites a study in which more than 55% of maintenance in an average facility was still reactive, while the top-performing facilities it describes ran under 10% reactive.
Manufacturing data from NIST points the same way. In its survey of US manufacturers, 45.7% of machinery maintenance was reactive on average, and the quarter of establishments that relied most on reactive work had 3.3 times more downtime than the quarter that relied on it least. Run-to-failure still has a place for cheap, non-critical items such as a work light. The decision should be deliberate, made per asset class, and written down.
Plan and schedule are two different jobs
Planning answers what the job needs: the steps, the parts, the tools, the hours and any safety steps such as lockout. Scheduling answers when and who: which day, which technician, and whether the machine can come off the job site. Mixing them up is how technicians end up standing at a machine waiting for a filter nobody ordered.
Plan PM jobs once and reuse the plan. A 500-hour service on a given excavator model has the same filters, fluids and checks every time. Attach the checklist and the parts list to the schedule, so the work order arrives complete. Schedule a week at a time, leave room for breakdowns, and fill that room with backlog when nothing breaks.
A weekly routine for the maintenance manager
A fleet maintenance manager’s week has a few fixed points. The version in the list suits a shop with a few technicians; move the days to fit yours.
Keep the routine short enough that you still do it in a bad week. Fifteen minutes on Friday spent on closed work orders improves your data more than a quarterly cleanup.
- Monday: review overdue and due-this-week PM, and confirm machines can be pulled from jobs
- Monday: check parts for every planned job and order what is missing
- Daily: triage new requests and failed operator checks, and set priorities
- Daily: walk the shop and clear jobs stuck on hold
- Friday: read a sample of closed work orders for missing codes, meters and notes
- Friday: look at the repeat failures list and pick one to investigate
A worked example of a Friday review
Take a hypothetical contractor with 35 machines and three technicians. On Friday the shop lead opens the list of work orders closed that week, 22 of them, and reads five at random. Two have no hour meter reading and one repair has no cause code. She sends those back to the technicians before they leave for the weekend, while the jobs are still fresh.
Next she looks at the repeat failures list. One skid steer has had its hydraulic quick coupler replaced twice in six weeks, and none of its sister units has. She opens a short investigation on that unit for Monday: check how the operator connects attachments and whether the couplers are capped when the attachment is off. Last, she checks next week’s PM list against parts on hand and finds that two 500-hour services are missing filters, so the order goes out Friday afternoon instead of Monday morning. The whole review takes about 40 minutes.
Inspections and records the rules require
Some maintenance management is set by regulation. For commercial motor vehicles, 49 CFR 396.3 requires carriers to systematically inspect, repair and maintain their vehicles and keep records of the work, including a way to show the nature and due date of each inspection and maintenance operation. For forklifts and other powered industrial trucks, OSHA 29 CFR 1910.178(q)(7) requires an examination before the truck is placed in service, at least daily, or after each shift where trucks run around the clock.
Build these into the same system as the rest of your work. A daily check that lives on paper in the cab and a PM program that lives in software will drift apart, and the failed check never reaches the shop.
Measure a few things and act on them
Pick four or five numbers and look at them every month. PM compliance shows whether you do the planned work on time. The share of planned versus reactive hours shows whether the mix is moving. Backlog in weeks shows whether the crew can keep up. Availability and MTBF per machine show which units are costing you work. Maintenance cost per hour or per mile shows when a machine is heading toward replacement.
Each month, write down one change you will make because of what the numbers showed, such as moving a PM interval, retraining operators on a check or putting a unit on the replacement list. If a number has gone three months without prompting a change, ask whether you still need it on the report.
Managing maintenance in FleetZap
FleetZap runs the loop in one place. The asset register holds every machine with criticality, location, warranty and meters. Preventive schedules open work orders by hours, miles or the calendar with their procedure attached, and the calendar and workload board show who has capacity. Requests come from QR labels and operator checks, and a failed check item opens a repair linked back to the inspection.
Technicians work jobs on their phones with steps, photos, parts and timers, and repairs close with problem, cause and remedy codes. Reports give you PM compliance, planned versus reactive work, backlog, MTBF, availability and cost by machine, and you can have them emailed daily, weekly or monthly with a CSV attached.
Key takeaways
- If overdue PM adds up to more than a week of technician hours, pause new PM schedules until the overdue list is under control.
- When the reactive share of hours hasn’t moved in two quarters, compare your PM task lists with the top cause codes before adding more PM.
- Load the 10 machines that generate the most work orders into the system first, fully, before entering the rest of the fleet.
- Rotate the Friday work order audit among senior technicians now and then, so the whole shop learns what a complete record looks like.
Sources
FleetZap Maintenance
Work orders, PM, parts, compliance, assets and KPIs. Explore FleetZap Maintenance.
Frequently asked questions
What is maintenance management?
Maintenance management is planning, scheduling, doing and recording maintenance on your equipment, then using those records to improve the plan. It includes deciding which machines get preventive, predictive or run-to-failure treatment, keeping parts and people ready, and tracking results such as downtime and cost. Most teams run it with a CMMS, though a small shop can start on paper.
How do you manage maintenance in a small shop?
Start with a complete list of machines and their meters, then set preventive schedules from the manufacturer’s manuals. Keep every request and job in one queue rather than texts and sticky notes. Review overdue work every Monday and closed jobs every Friday. Once more than one person shares the work, software with a phone app saves time on both ends.
What are the types of maintenance management?
The common types are reactive maintenance, where you fix things after they break, preventive maintenance on fixed intervals of time or use, predictive or condition-based maintenance that acts on measurements, and reliability-centered maintenance, which chooses among these per asset based on the consequence of failure. Most fleets use a mix, with preventive work as the base.
What does a maintenance manager do each week?
A maintenance manager reviews due and overdue preventive work, makes sure parts are ready for planned jobs, sets priorities on new requests and breakdowns, and keeps stuck jobs moving. At the end of the week they check the quality of closed work orders and look for repeat failures. Monthly, they review KPIs and adjust intervals or staffing.