Maintenance Key Performance Indicators

(KPIs)
Maintenance key performance indicators (KPIs) are metrics that evaluate factors critical to an
organization’s success. A wide array of businesses tracks KPIs. However, in the maintenance world, these
metrics monitor performance against goals tied to things like machine failures, repair times, maintenance
backlogs, and costs.

One of the best ways to track maintenance KPIs is by using Computerized Maintenance Management
Software (CMMS). With CMMS, users can develop baselines that measure and expose opportunities for
improvement. Using CMMS can be the difference between organizations exceeding or falling short on
maintenance KPIs.

Maintenance KPIs vs Maintenance Performance Metrics

Simply put, maintenance KPIs track an organization’s success at meeting its goals. Are you cutting costs
and reducing downtime? KPIs offer the ground truth on your journey toward continuous improvement. As
the saying goes, “Measure What You Treasure.”

There are a few different categories of maintenance KPIs such as, leading and lagging indicators. A leading
indicator signals future events and includes metrics like Preventative Maintenance Compliance or Estimate
vs. Actual Performance. Lagging indicators include maintenance metrics like Mean Time Between Failure
(MTBF) and Mean Time to Repair (MTTR). The most comprehensive CMMS KPI tracking includes a mix
of both leading and lagging indicators.

Some common examples of maintenance KPIs include:

 Reducing Costs
 Reducing Failures
 Reducing Downtime
 Increasing Work Identification
 Increasing Work Planning
 More Effective Work Scheduling
 More Effective Work Execution

Maintenance performance metrics are another important factor to consider in meeting your goals. While
KPIs offer an objective measure of progress on your most important goals, keeping a close eye on
maintenance performance metrics will help you succeed. Maintenance performance metrics track the
employees, machines, operations, and inventory that influence whether you reach your goals.

CMMS offers an elite process for tracking maintenance performance metrics and transforming that KPI
data into meaningful reports and dashboards. As a result, organizations gain both quantitative and
qualitative insight. Quantitively, our system gives businesses the ability to see their performance compared
to their goals. Qualitatively, a business can see how their performance compares to current competitors in
the “world-class maintenance” category.

How to Implement Maintenance KPI Goals and eMaint

CMMS
Within eMaint CMMS, organizations can set and measure KPIs ranging from the productivity of an
individual to the overall performance against budget across an entire department. The information that
matters for maintenance goals is different for every company, so it’s important to use the top-down
planning method to understand how every aspect of the business affects reaching the goals set.

The CMMS organizes and presents the most relative and important information in a way that makes your
next action steps clear in one space. When you purchase the eMaint CMMS, you also gain a designated
customer success manager to help with setup and answering questions.

Below are a few examples showing how a company can leverage eMaint’s work management and reporting
tools to monitor and benchmark maintenance KPIs.

XTO Energy, a producer of natural gas in the United States, was looking for a CMMS because their former
hand-written system resulted in misplaced or unattended work requests. With eMaint, the company saw an
increase from 70% to 100% in work completion rates with no additional staffing. They also always gained
visibility of the work backlog.

Klein Plastics produces plastic products for manufacturers and major suppliers of automotive parts,
appliances, hand tools, and office furniture. After implementing eMaint, Klein Plastics saw benefits of the
system including a 20% increase in overall Equipment Effectiveness, and an improvement in consistency,
communication, and productivity.

Develop Maintenance KPIs with SMART Goals

It’s important to implement maintenance KPIs with intention. That’s why good CMMS uses S.M.A.R.T.
goals (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timely). These terms are important factors to consider
when ensuring goals are met.

So, ask yourself: “Are my maintenance goals S.M.A.R.T.?”

Now, look through the terms as they apply to maintenance KPIs.

Specific: What are the 5 W’s of the goal? (Who, What, When, Where, Why)

Measurable: What are the measurable and essential components of the goal?

Achievable: Have you or a competitor attained this goal in the past?

Realistic: Is reaching your goal practical in your current state?

Timely: Did you map out the time it will take to obtain your goal?

Important Examples of Maintenance KPI Metrics to

Benchmark and Track
A Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS) tracks and uses maintenance KPIs to
establish, benchmark, and monitor all parts of an organization’s goal. That’s why CMMS users experience
visible improvements in many areas, including:

 Maintenance Backlog
 Mean Time To Repair (MTTR)
 Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF)
 Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE)
 PM Compliance
 Planned Maintenance Percentage

Maintenance Backlog
Maintenance backlogs are an accumulation of maintenance work that shows what needs to be dealt with
based on safety issues or to prevent breakdowns. This KPI is important because the longer work is not
completed, the greater the risk of more serious and costly failures.

The goal is to control backlog during normal operations and in emergencies. Neglecting to track this
maintenance KPI creates a lack of visibility into the backlog. This can result in staffing challenges,
firefighting, and a lack of work prioritization.

Mean Time To Repair (MTTR)

Mean Time To Repair is a basic measure of the maintainability of repairable items. It represents how long a
piece of equipment is out of production, or the average time required to repair a failed component or
device.

MTTR Calculation = Sum of Downtime Periods ÷ Number of Downtime Periods = MTTR

MTTR can have a significant impact on the bottom line of an organization and can mean missed orders and
missing business objectives. By tracking and monitoring this data, organizations can get a better
understanding of necessary staffing, inventory management, and repair vs. replace decisions based on data.
It also introduces a method to understand how well an organization responds to repairs and equipment
problems.

Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF)

Mean Time Between Failures is the elapsed time between failures of a system during operation. For critical
pieces of equipment, MTBF is an important way to discern the performance of an asset.

MTBF Calculation = Sum of (Start of Downtime – Start of Uptime)

Number of Failures

MTBF is an important way to quantify the reliability of an asset and predict future performance.
Organizations can optimize their preventative maintenance schedules by carefully tracking this KPI and
associated performance metrics like downtime, uptime, and the number of failures. Organizations can
leverage MTBF to determine preventive maintenance tasks such as rate of inspections or introduce
preventive actions such as lubrication, greasing, and calibrations. This can help to avoid unexpected
failures and reduce the risk of performing unneeded maintenance on a piece of equipment.
Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE)
Overall Equipment Effectiveness evaluates how effectively a piece of equipment is utilized. The OEE
calculation is based on the three OEE Factors:

 Availability = Run Time / Planned Production Time

 Performance = (Ideal Cycle Time × Total Count) / Run Time
 Quality = Good Count / Total Count

To discover the total OEE for a particular piece of equipment:

OEE = Availability x Performance x Quality

OEE provides an informed, data-driven picture of how effectively your maintenance processes are running
based on critical factors such as availability, performance, and quality of equipment. With a CMMS, it is
easy to track improvements over time.
Preventive Maintenance (PM) Compliance
Preventive Maintenance is work that is performed on a piece of equipment on a predetermined
schedulebased on elapsed time or usage — to lessen the likelihood of it failing. Preventive maintenance is
performed while the equipment is still operational so that it does not break down unexpectedly. PM
Compliance is the percentage of scheduled preventive work orders that are completed with a predetermined
time.

A good rule of thumb for PM Compliance is the 10% rule. This means that PM tasks should be completed
within 10% of the scheduled maintenance interval. Monthly PMs should be completed within 3 days of the
due date. These measurements can give organizations a more nuanced understanding of whether or not a
PM program is effective.

Organizations can create reports based on compliance to offer data-driven proof of this effectiveness. They
can also create and a line of sight into issues impacting your maintenance program.

Planned Maintenance Percentage

Planned Maintenance Percentage is the percentage of maintenance hours spent on planned maintenance
activities versus unplanned. This percentage can be found by dividing the scheduled maintenance labor
hours into the total maintenance hours during a particular period.
“World-class maintenance” suggests that 90% of maintenance should be planned. However, an 80%
planned to 20% unplanned ratio is still considered beneficial compared to the typical average of 55% or
less. Planned Maintenance Percentages can be easily tracked with an effective CMMS.