Two books, one shelf

Fix the System vs the Maintenance Planning and Scheduling Handbook: which to read first

Doc Palmer's handbook and Fix the System side by side: scope, format, who each is for, how they fit together, and which one to open first for the problem in front of you.

By Ivan Getov, author of Fix the System · Updated November 4, 2026

Short answer: read Doc Palmer's Maintenance Planning and Scheduling Handbook if your job is planning, or if you are building a planning function and want the full reference. Read Fix the System if you manage the maintenance department and the same problems keep coming back after you fix them: jobs that are not ready, schedules that break, failures that return. They do different jobs, and many maintenance managers will end up with both: Fix the System for the system around the planner, Palmer for depth on planning itself.

Disclosure. I wrote Fix the System. Palmer's handbook is one of the books it builds on, so this page is about which to open first, not which is better.

The two books side by side: scope, length, format and who each is for.
How they fit together.
Which to read first for six common situations.

Side by side

	Maintenance Planning and Scheduling Handbook	Fix the System
Author	Richard D. (Doc) Palmer	Ivan Getov
Latest edition	4th edition, McGraw Hill, 2019	1st edition, 2026
Length	960 pages	358 pages (paperback)
Kind of book	Reference handbook	Field manual with ten problem playbooks
Question it answers	How do we plan and schedule maintenance work well?	Why do the same maintenance problems keep coming back, and which routine fixes each one?
Scope	Planning and scheduling principles, labor-hour estimates, job plan detail, weekly and daily schedules, kitting, reactive work, the CMMS, KPIs, shutdowns	The whole cycle (identify, plan, schedule, execute, close out and learn), emergencies and break-in work, contractors, then playbooks for PM compliance, repeat failures, backlog, reactive work, schedule compliance, inspections, spares, condition monitoring, downtime and MTTR
Written for	Planners and the people who set up and manage planning	Maintenance managers and reliability leaders, with planners and supervisors
Free companion material	See the publisher page	50 worksheets, checklists and one-pagers, free online with no email
Where it stops	Root cause analysis, PM strategy and supervisor leadership are outside its main scope	Less depth on planning than Palmer; new, so few reader reviews yet; no equipment-specific instructions

Edition and page counts checked on the publisher page and library records in November 2026. Palmer's handbook at McGraw Hill ↗

How the two books fit together

Palmer's handbook goes deep on one part of the maintenance cycle: getting work planned and scheduled. Its contents give planning principles and scheduling principles their own chapters, and it covers estimating, job plan detail, weekly and daily scheduling, kitting and the CMMS.

Fix the System works one level up. It treats planning and scheduling as two of five stages, between identifying the work and executing and closing it out, and asks where the handoffs between them fail. It uses Palmer's work directly: the Chapter 1 wrench time benchmarks measure a shop against a tier table first developed by Palmer.

Where they overlap, Chapters 6 (Plan) and 7 (Schedule), Palmer goes further. Where Fix the System goes further is the rest of the cycle and the problems that outlive a good schedule: work requests that never reach the CMMS, close-outs that teach nobody anything, and the ten playbooks for PM compliance, repeat failures, backlog growth, reactive work and the rest.

Which to read first

Your situation	Read first	Why
You are a planner, or about to become one	Palmer	It is the planner's reference, and most planning benchmarks you will be measured against come from it.
You are setting up planning and scheduling from nothing	Palmer	Then Fix the System Chapters 6 and 7 for how the planner's week connects to intake, execution and close-out.
You manage the department and the schedule still breaks	Fix the System	Chapters 7 and 19 trace missed commitments to causes such as break-in work, materials, access and scope estimates. Hand Palmer to the planner.
PM compliance, backlog or repeat failures are the problem	Fix the System	These have their own playbooks (Chapters 15 to 17). Palmer approaches them from the planning side.
You need the case for adding planners	Palmer	Fix the System's own wrench time benchmarks come from Palmer's tier table. Go to the source.
You have an hour a week to read	Fix the System	Start with the chapter for the problem in front of you; keep Palmer on the shelf to look things up.

Try both before you buy

For Palmer, the publisher page lists the full contents. For Fix the System, read the sample chapter or use the free worksheets from the chapters that overlap with Palmer:

Job plan template and kitting checklist (Chapter 6).
Weekly scheduling meeting agenda and frozen-zone policy (Chapter 7).
Schedule compliance tracker (Chapter 19).
Weekly maintenance schedule builder, a free tool on this site.

Questions readers ask

Is Fix the System a replacement for Palmer's handbook?

No. A planner still needs Palmer's depth. Fix the System is for the manager who owns the whole cycle the planner works inside.

Is there a newer edition of the Maintenance Planning and Scheduling Handbook?

The 4th edition, published by McGraw Hill in 2019, is the latest we could find as of November 2026.

Which book is shorter?

Fix the System runs 358 pages in paperback and is organized so you can start at the chapter for your problem. Palmer's handbook runs 960 pages and works best as a reference you return to.

What other maintenance books are worth reading?

See the best maintenance management books, picked by problem: twelve books with who each is for and where each stops, including Nyman and Levitt and Chris Diprose on planning.