Today the average time spent on scheduled maintenance is 19 hours per week. Companies are also outsourcing the job 87% of the time on account of the specific skills needed. During that downtime managers have two choices, either they can periodically shut down their equipment for maintenance or they can run it continuously. While this periodic maintenance is mandatory for safety-critical applications, planned maintenance is less expensive than unplanned. The alternative is to run the equipment continuously and only maintain the equipment at breakdown. While the latter can be very attractive for managers under revenue pressures: Unplanned downtime can be very costly, halting operations until the repairs are completed.
However, there is an alternative.
Today managers can create preventive maintenance checklists for monitoring their assets based on expected needs and past performance. Read on to learn about the six items to include in your preventative maintenance checklist.
Item 1: Recruiting the right maintenance staff
The task of equipment maintenance is a demanding job. In order to succeed in building a reliable preventative maintenance checklist, you will need to have all of your staff on the same page. Your first task is to consult all your employees and contractors that have a stake in maintenance. This expertise should include management, engineering, maintenance technicians, Inspection technician and any other staff that is competent in the operation of the equipment.
Item 2: Establish the maintenance goals
Your business is unique. Your maintenance goals should also be unique. What do you want to accomplish with your maintenance schedule? Do you want to maintain production and swap machines during downtime? Do you want to maximize output by inspecting all of your equipment at once? Do you intend to upgrade equipment during maintenance? Your goals are dependent on the scale and structure of your enterprise.
Item 3: Consolidate information on your assets
After you have established the goals for your staff, it is important to audit your equipment. While this might appear frivolous, industry is a dynamic environment. In a busy workplace, equipment will break down and be replaced. It is very likely that you aren’t fully aware of all of your assets. Your next task should be to document all of your assets. These items should include the model & serial number, maintenance guidelines, manuals and replacement parts. You should also document the expected downtimes of equipment, cost of parts, and the amount of expected downtime. Using these numbers, your staff should be able to calculate the average cost and duration of downtime.
Item 4: Select your assets
Once you have consolidated your assets, you should know which equipment to include in your checklist. This should include tools with high repair costs, critical infrastructure, and equipment in need of routine maintenance.
Item 5: Create your preventative maintenance checklist
You are now ready to create your checklist that at the moment should be preliminary. Write down the maintenance schedules for each separate piece of equipment. Then use this preliminary schedule to make a master schedule. This step is imperative because machinery is oftentimes codependent on the function of another machine in an industrial environment. With these needed inspections and downtimes in mind, you should be able to optimize your schedule.
Item 6: Adjust your schedule
After a few months, you should have a good understanding of the accuracy of your schedule. Are you achieving all of your production goals? Have you encountered any unexpected downtime for maintenance? You should expect to achieve a good ROI for the time it took to create the checklist. If that isn’t the case, you should be prepared to revise your schedule. Machine breakdowns should ideally be rare with an accurate maintenance schedule and checklist.
Conclusion
The construction of a preventative maintenance schedule is a serious commitment. You have to consult with all of your staff to set your priorities, audit your assets, prioritize critical assets and maintain your schedule. Nevertheless responsibilities do have their bonuses. Your efforts will improve the revenue and profitability of your enterprise.
You could choose an application prebuilt for preventative maintenance. At Field Eagle, we build award-winning inspection software for the collection and analysis of equipment. We have turnkey solutions for your inspection needs and you can get started today. Our software is dynamically customizable for almost any bit of hardware. Our consultants can also custom build specialized software for your needs. You can add features for training, sensors, data analytics and almost anything else that accelerates your business.
FAQs
A preventive maintenance checklist is a structured list of equipment inspections, servicing activities, safety steps, and recordkeeping requirements. Maintenance teams use it to complete recurring work consistently and identify developing problems before equipment fails.
A preventive maintenance checklist should include six core items:
– Equipment identification and maintenance history
– Safety and energy-isolation requirements
– Condition inspections and operating checks
– Cleaning, lubrication, adjustment, and calibration tasks
– Wear components, consumables, and replacement parts
– Maintenance intervals, assigned personnel, and completion records
The exact tasks should reflect the equipment manufacturer’s instructions, operating conditions, and applicable safety requirements.
Maintenance intervals should be based on manufacturer recommendations, operating hours or cycles, equipment criticality, environmental conditions, failure history, and inspection results. High-risk or heavily used equipment may require more frequent attention than assets operating under lighter or more stable conditions.
The employee must follow the applicable safety and hazardous-energy-control procedure before maintenance begins. Where unexpected startup or stored energy could cause injury, authorized workers must shut down the equipment, isolate its energy sources, apply the required lockout or tagout devices, and verify that the energy has been controlled.
Technicians should check the equipment’s operating condition, guards, controls, fluid levels, lubrication, fasteners, electrical connections, wear components, leaks, vibration, and unusual noise. The checklist should also require technicians to document defects and recommend follow-up actions.
A preventive maintenance checklist schedules tasks at predetermined intervals, while a predictive maintenance checklist uses condition data to determine when work is required. Preventive maintenance may be based on time, usage, or cycles. Predictive maintenance relies on measurements such as vibration, temperature, pressure, or equipment-performance trends.
A maintenance inventory list should contain replacement parts, consumables, lubricants, filters, tools, quantities, storage locations, reorder levels, and equipment compatibility. Linking inventory items to specific assets helps teams confirm that required materials are available before planned maintenance begins.
A preventive maintenance checklist helps technicians complete required tasks consistently and preserve evidence of the work performed. It reduces missed maintenance activities, improves equipment reliability, and provides a documented history that supports future maintenance planning.
