How can you tell if you’re doing a good job when you’re in charge of a department? You can’t optimize any business process unless you have the correct data to guide your decisions.
The same applies to maintenance. Maintenance KPIs (key performance indicators) and maintenance performance metrics are the answers to that question. Computerized maintenance management software (CMMS) is one of the most effective ways to track maintenance KPIs.
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Users can create baselines that measure and reveal opportunities for improvement using CMMS. 66% of teams say they use a CMMS to track their maintenance program.
In this article, we’ll cover the basics of maintenance KPIs and metrics to help you decide what’s important for your facility, including:
- What Are Maintenance KPIs?
- What Are Maintenance Metrics?
- Maintenance KPIs vs. Maintenance Metrics
- Which Maintenance KPIs and Metrics Should You Track in Your Facility?
- Choosing the Right Maintenance KPI Metrics to Measure
- Conclusion
What Are Maintenance KPIs?
Key performance indicators (KPIs) track a person’s, department’s, project’s or company’s progress over time and determine how and if they were successful in achieving their goals.
Maintenance KPIs track whether your company meets its maintenance objectives effectively, such as minimizing downtime and cutting expenses. They serve as standards that define your team’s current status compared to your desired outcomes.
Each facility is unique and may have different KPI targets. Some of the most common maintenance KPIs are based on:
- Efficiency
- Purchasing and expenses
- Safety and compliance
- Asset performance
- Downtime
- Work order management
- Inventory management
Maintenance KPIs vary depending on your company goals, business needs and objectives. They mostly use the SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely) framework to identify which KPIs to define.
A SMART strategy means:
- Specific — which means it should prioritize simple KPIs to help you avoid past mistakes.
- Measurable — so you can use quantitative methods to compare achievements to the plan.
- Attainable — because it is important to set goals within your team’s capacity.
- Realistic — taking current conditions into account rather than what is desirable.
- Timely — meaning they can be completed in the given timeframe.
What Are Maintenance Metrics?
Maintenance performance metrics give you information about how well your maintenance team and systems currently function. Managers can utilize performance metrics to compare daily maintenance efforts to their target numbers.
Knowing your stats makes it easy to identify your strengths, limitations and areas for progress. Metrics show how daily tasks affect the larger picture. They give you better visibility and control over your maintenance operations and practical solutions to increase performance.
Maintenance KPIs vs. Maintenance Metrics
You’ll often hear the terms maintenance KPIs and maintenance metrics used interchangeably. They are, however, quite different.
KPIs are quantitative in nature. They are numbers that link achieving certain targets to maintenance performance, whereas metrics link maintenance activity to maintenance performance. Simply, maintenance KPIs are a target number that your company must achieve, and maintenance metrics are the steps you’re taking to reach that target.
For instance, your target is to increase revenue by 25%. Downtime has a direct influence on revenue since the fewer machines running, the lesser the production output; and the lesser the revenue from sales. As a result, downtime is one of your maintenance KPIs. There are some quantitative factors like mean time to repair (MTTR) or planned maintenance percentage that affect downtime. These are the metrics you’ll use to keep track of your upkeep.
KPIs and Metrics to Track
Only you and your maintenance department can determine which enterprise asset management (EAM) KPIs are right for your company and align with its strategic goals. But first, let’s take a look at five common maintenance performance KPIs. We’ll go through them in-depth, along with some KPI maintenance calculations.
1. Maintenance Backlogs and Overtime
Maintenance backlogs are an accumulation of maintenance work that needs doing due to safety concerns or to avoid breakdowns. This KPI is critical because the longer work goes unfinished, the higher the chances of major and costly failures.
The goal is to keep backlogs under control both during routine operations and during crises.
When there are too many outstanding worker orders, it suggests the need to hire additional employees. No backlogs, on the other hand, could indicate an unduly large workforce that you could potentially reduce.
Managers can track overtime to see if their department is over-reliant on reactive maintenance. This could lead to technician burnout, excessively high maintenance expenses, costly downtime and lower productivity.
2. Equipment Downtime
One of the most accurate measures for assessing the impact of a maintenance program is the number of hours of unscheduled downtime. Unplanned downtimes are costly in asset-intensive industries like manufacturing. It doesn’t just count how often something fails; it also counts how long it takes to fix the problem. You should strive to achieve zero hours as far as possible.
Unscheduled Downtime % = Hours of Unscheduled Downtime / Total Period Measured (incl. Scheduled Downtime) x 100
Regularly tracking downtime is an important part of establishing a baseline for the efficiency of all maintenance department tasks.
Place all essential pieces of equipment on preventive maintenance (PM) schedules by following the manufacturer’s instructions to reduce downtime. Routine maintenance will not only cut down on costly breakdowns but will also extend asset life cycles.
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3. Asset Performance KPIs
You can track the effectiveness of your maintenance plans using asset performance indicators. The following are the most eye-opening stats to track:
Mean Time Between Failure
The mean time between failure, or MTBF, is the time it takes for an asset to fail. It keeps track of how long it takes for a failure to occur. Increasing the MTBF of essential equipment can help you enhance productivity and optimize your overall maintenance strategy.
It will help you avoid costly breakdowns when used in conjunction with other maintenance techniques such as failure codes and root cause analysis, as well as additional maintenance metrics such as mean time to repair (MTTR).
Divide the total number of operational hours in a period by the number of failures that occurred during that period to determine MTBF. The most common unit of measurement for MTBF is hours.
MTBF = Number of Operational Hours / Number of Failures
This information makes it easier to generate PMs, which improves dependability by addressing issues before equipment fails. If a failure occurs, having all of the data available assists you in increasing maintainability.
Mean Time To Repair
The mean time to repair is the average time it takes your maintenance crew to fix a broken-down asset. This metric measures the time it takes to diagnose, repair and recover from maintenance issues. MTTR is an excellent metric to expose inefficiencies in maintenance processes.
Calculate the MTTR formula by dividing the total unplanned maintenance time spent on an asset by the total number of failures experienced by that asset over a specific time period. The most frequent unit of measurement for mean repair time is hours.
MTTR = Total Maintenance Time / Number of Repairs
The mean time to repair is used as a benchmark for improving efficiency, reducing unnecessary downtime and increasing profits. Since long repair durations for mission-critical equipment result in product scrap, missed orders and strained business relationships, MTTR assists organizations in determining why maintenance is taking longer than expected and making better decisions to address the root causes.
Overall Equipment Effectiveness
Overall equipment effectiveness is a maintenance KPI that measures an asset’s productivity level. Asset availability, asset performance and production quality are three factors that determine how efficient an asset is during the manufacturing process. Each one can reveal a different aspect of an asset’s performance. It also identifies departmental waste and SOP improvement.
OEE = Availability x Performance x Quality
When an asset has a 100% OEE value, it signifies that every object it produces is defect-free (quality), it is producing as quickly as feasible (performance) and it has no unscheduled downtime (availability).
4. Operation KPIs
Facility managers should also monitor operational KPIs like planned maintenance percentage (PMP) and schedule compliance.
Planned Maintenance Percentage (PMP)
PMP measures the percentage of your overall maintenance time committed to planned maintenance. Higher PMPs indicate that your maintenance strategies are working and that your team isn’t unduly reliant on reactive maintenance.
PMP = Number of Planned Maintenance Hours / Total Maintenance Hours x 100
Schedule Compliance
Schedule compliance, also known as preventive maintenance compliance, is a KPI that measures the percentage of PM operations accomplished according to plan.
Schedule Compliance = Number of Completed PM Tasks / Number of Scheduled Tasks x 100
Higher schedule compliance indicates that PM planning and scheduling are effective.
5. Reactive Maintenance Work Hours
Reactive maintenance, often known as breakdown maintenance, refers to performing equipment repair after equipment failure. It is a statistic for maintenance work outside of the daily or weekly maintenance plan. You calculate it as a percentage of total maintenance labor hours.
Reactive Work % = Work Breaking into the Weekly Schedule / Total Maintenance Labor Hours x 100
You’ll have steady, predictable prices if you can schedule all of your maintenance activities. You’ll also have complete control over your assets and manufacturing runs. Failures occur suddenly in the reactive approach, and technicians lose valuable time seeking manuals, spare parts and special tools. Since operations are under pressure, the dollar cost continues to rise.
Choosing the Right KPIs and Metrics
We recommend you not track more than five maintenance KPIs at a time.
Staying lean will help you avoid data overload and promote small changes that lead to long-term progress.
Choose metrics that are relevant to your company’s goals, are easy to understand by you and your team, and can be utilized to improve how you work. Every metric must link to a specific maintenance KPI. Ask yourself questions such as:
- What specific changes would most benefit your department?
- What is your desired outcome?
- Why does this outcome matter?
- Which performance metrics could you use to measure progress?
- What management SOPs could you put in place to streamline tracking?
- Who is responsible for the business outcome?
You should get feedback from various stakeholders, such as technicians, operators and managers, to get a better idea of which business processes to measure and why.
Conclusion
Maintenance KPIs and metrics are inextricably linked, and sometimes it can be difficult to differentiate between them.
However, in the end, it doesn’t matter if you switch them. What matters is that the information you use to track them is accurate and reliable.
A maintenance department is a complicated environment where a single action can have multiple consequences. This means that without good data, getting to the bottom of the problem is often impossible. Maintenance KPIs and metrics can help you improve your operations and track your progress.
How do maintenance KPIs and metrics help you measure your facility’s performance? Let us know in the comments!