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PM Compliance and Planned Maintenance Percentage
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PM compliance tells you if the PMs got done. Planned maintenance percentage tells you what the crew did instead.
PM compliance (also called preventive maintenance compliance) is the share of PMs that came due and were done inside their window. Planned maintenance percentage is the share of all maintenance hours that went to planned work. Read them together. When PM compliance falls, reactive work rises, and the planned share falls with it.
- Both formulas, with a calculator.
- The targets from Fix the System.
- Why a 71% PM compliance number can still be too high.
- How to raise PM compliance, and the PM Triage Worksheet below, printable as a PDF.
The PM compliance formula
PM compliance % = PMs done inside their compliance window ÷ PMs due in the period × 100
Count work orders, not hours. A PM done after its window closed is late, not compliant, even if it was closed the same week. Write the window down for each frequency before you measure, or the number will be argued every Monday. Many plants use 10% of the interval: a quarterly PM counts if it is done within about nine days of its due date.
The planned maintenance percentage formula
Planned maintenance % = planned maintenance hours ÷ all maintenance hours × 100
Planned work is work that was on the schedule before the week started: PMs, predictive tasks and planned corrective jobs. Everything else is reactive. Use hours, not work order counts. A ten-hour breakdown and a half-hour adjustment count as one work order each, but only the hours show where the crew's week went. Reactive work % is the rest: 100 minus the planned share.
PM compliance and planned maintenance calculator
PM compliance
- PM compliance
- 80%
- Band
- Action
Planned maintenance percentage
- Planned maintenance
- 64%
- Reactive work
- 36%
The numbers stay in your browser. Nothing is sent or saved.
Worked example: one month at a fictional plant
Original fictional scenario. The numbers are made up to show the arithmetic.
120 PMs came due in the month. 96 were done inside their window. 11 were done late. 7 were deferred. 6 were closed in the CMMS, but a spot check found the work had not been done.
The CMMS counted 113 closed PMs out of 120 and reported 94%. The honest number is 96 ÷ 120 = 80%, which is below the 85% line.
The same month, the crew logged 1,000 maintenance hours. 640 of them were on the schedule before the month started. Planned maintenance percentage: 640 ÷ 1,000 = 64%. Reactive work: 36%.
PM compliance and planned maintenance targets
| KPI | Formula | World class | Target | Run the playbook when |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PM compliance | PMs done inside their window ÷ PMs due | 95% or more | 90% | Below 85% for two periods |
| Planned maintenance percentage | Planned maintenance hours ÷ all maintenance hours | 85% to 90% planned | 80% or more (reactive 20% or less) | Reactive above 40% of hours for two periods (Ch18) |
PM compliance bands are from Fix the System, Chapters 4 and 15. The planned work bands come from Chapters 4 and 18 and match the KPI Cascade. Move in steps. In the book, plants that tried to jump from 71% to 95% in one quarter were back in the mid-70s by month six.
From the book: one PM on pump P-119
Story from Fix the System, Chapter 15.
Ray, a maintenance manager, walked one routine PM from start to finish. Planned labor: 45 minutes. At the tool crib there was no kit, because the part number on the work order matched nothing in stock. The right bearing turned up in the wrong bin. It was close, not exact, so engineering approved a substitute and a lower torque. At the pump, Eddie, the technician, set his wrench to 30 ft-lb, not the 45 in the procedure. Eleven years on that pump had taught him that 45 cracks the housing. Nobody had ever written that down.
The PM took three hours and eighteen minutes, 4.4 times the plan, and was still closed as compliant. Ray's plant reported 71% PM compliance. "That number is lying to me," he said. "The real number is worse, because half the PMs we close are like this one."
When he pulled twelve months of PM history, 14% of closed PMs had been closed without the work being done.
How to raise PM compliance
Overtime and pressure on the crew give a bump for a month, then the number falls back. In most plants the causes are parts, procedures and protection of the PM window. Chapter 15 installs the fix in this order:
- Walk three PMs on the floor, one each on an A, B and C asset, and write down every delay as it happens.
- Triage the overdue list with the PM Triage Worksheet below: classify every overdue PM by asset criticality and clear the A-class list first.
- Kit 48 hours early. No PM goes to the floor without its kit staged at the crib. The PM Kitting Checklist sets the rule.
- Protect the window. Break-in work cannot displace a PM due in the next 48 hours unless it is a real safety or regulatory issue. The Frozen Zone Policy is the template.
- Rewrite the five worst procedures and put what your Eddie knows into the text. The maintenance SOP template drafts a first version to edit with the technician.
- Report weekly by craft group and technician, on one page, every Monday.
Ray's arc in the book: 71% at day 0, 74% at day 30, 86% at day 60, 91% at day 90, then held between 91% and 93%. Reactive work fell from 38% to 29% over the same quarter.
How to raise planned maintenance percentage
Reactive work is a local number. In Chapter 18, Ray's plant was at 22% reactive overall, which looked healthy, while the packaging line ran at 47%. Measure the planned share by zone or line, then classify every incoming work order for two weeks with the four-question intake rubric. It splits "reactive" into true emergencies, preventable failures and pseudo-emergencies, and the Reactive Work Audit Sheet tallies the hours. Attack the largest bucket, one per quarter. On the packaging line in the book, planned labor rose from 53% to 82% in six months with the same crew and the same budget.
PM compliance vs planned maintenance percentage vs schedule compliance
| KPI | The question it answers | What it counts | How often |
|---|---|---|---|
| PM compliance | Did the PMs that came due get done on time? | Preventive and predictive work orders only | Weekly, by craft group and technician |
| Planned maintenance percentage | How much of the crew's time went to planned work? | All maintenance labor hours | Weekly, by zone or line |
| Schedule compliance | Did the crew finish the week it committed to? | Every job on the frozen weekly schedule | Weekly |
For the weekly schedule number, use the Schedule Compliance Tracker. All three sit side by side in the 12 maintenance KPI examples.
Questions planners ask
- What is a good PM compliance percentage?
- 90% is the target for a well-run program and 95% or more is world class. Below 85% for two reporting periods in a row is the trigger to run PM Compliance Recovery.
- How do you calculate preventive maintenance compliance?
- Divide the PMs done inside their compliance window by the PMs that came due in the period, then multiply by 100. 96 on time out of 120 due is 80%. Late PMs, deferred PMs and PMs closed without the work count as misses.
- What is a good planned maintenance percentage?
- 80% or more of maintenance hours planned, which leaves reactive work at 20% or less. Measure it by line or zone as well as plant-wide, because a healthy average can hide one line at twice the reactive rate.
- Do PMs count as planned maintenance?
- Only when they were on the schedule before the week started and done as planned. A PM pulled forward because something was already failing is reactive work with a PM number on it.
- Can PM compliance be high while equipment keeps failing?
- Yes. The number counts closures, not whether the task prevents the failure. Spot-check closed PMs, fix wrong procedures and watch reactive work and MTBF next to PM compliance. If PM compliance rises and reactive work stays flat, something is missing.
The full 90-day PM Compliance Recovery playbook is Chapter 15 of Fix the System. Read a free sample of the book.
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The PDF remains the printable worksheet. This web guide is excluded from printing so it does not add pages to it.
Two pages. Days 7 through 14 of the PM Compliance Recovery install. Classify every overdue PM by asset criticality, rank it, and clear the A-class list before you install kitting.
Companion to: Fix the System, Chapter 15. Who uses it: the maintenance planner, maintenance supervisor, and reliability engineer, working together. When: Week 2 of the PM Compliance Recovery install. Re-run every quarter thereafter, or any time PM compliance drifts below 85% for two consecutive periods. Why this exists: you cannot fix a PM program whose backlog you do not understand. The triage worksheet forces you to look at every overdue PM, classify it, and make a decision. It is painful. It is non-negotiable. A plant that runs the install without doing the triage will get a compliance bump from the install moves alone, then regress when the un-triaged overdues start aging into emergencies.
Step 1 — Pull the overdue list
From the CMMS, export every PM that is currently past its due date. Include:
- Work order number
- Asset tag
- Asset description
- PM description (or PM template code)
- Original due date
- Days overdue (today minus original due date)
- Assigned technician (if assigned)
If your CMMS cannot export this list, build it manually. The triage cannot proceed without it.
Step 2 — Classify each asset by criticality
For every asset on the list, assign A / B / C:
- A — Critical. Loss of this asset stops production plant-wide, affects safety, affects regulatory compliance, or carries a replacement cost above $50K.
- B — Important. Loss of this asset affects a production line or a support system but not the whole plant. Replacement cost between $10K and $50K.
- C — Standard. Shop-floor tools, low-consequence equipment, duplicate capacity available, replacement cost under $10K.
If you do not already have a criticality classification for an asset, do it now. Do not guess. Ask the operations manager for each ambiguous case.
Step 3 — Fill the triage table
Group the list by criticality. Sort within each group by days overdue (most overdue first).
A-Class overdues (CRITICAL — these are the emergency-waiting-to-happen list)
| WO # | Asset | PM Description | Days Overdue | Parts Issue? | Planner | Triage Decision | Target Clear Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Triage Decision column options:
- EXECUTE — clear within 14 days, no exceptions
- ESCALATE — parts / resource blocker requiring plant-manager attention
- RECLASSIFY — PM is not actually required on this asset (document why)
B-Class overdues
| WO # | Asset | PM Description | Days Overdue | Parts Issue? | Planner | Triage Decision | Target Clear Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Triage Decision column options:
- EXECUTE — clear within 30 days
- RESCHEDULE — move into the next cycle with a revised due date (only if the asset's condition supports the deferral)
- RECLASSIFY — PM not required on this asset
C-Class overdues
| WO # | Asset | PM Description | Days Overdue | Triage Decision | Target Clear Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Triage Decision column options:
- EXECUTE — clear within 60 days
- RESCHEDULE — move into next cycle
- RECLASSIFY — PM not required; remove from the PM template
- ABSORB — C-class overdues on duplicate-capacity equipment can often be absorbed by operating the duplicate and scheduling the deferred asset into the next natural window
Step 4 — Tally and set the clear-list
| Class | Total overdue | Execute | Escalate | Reschedule | Reclassify / Absorb |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A | n/a | ||||
| B | n/a | ||||
| C | n/a |
Commitment: A-class cleared by ________ (target: day 42 of install). B-class cleared by ________ (target: day 56 of install). C-class managed — on a trajectory toward zero, not necessarily zero.
Step 5 — Identify the root-cause buckets
Across the whole overdue list, count how many were blocked by each cause. This feeds the Day 14-21 interviews and the install plan.
| Cause | Count |
|---|---|
| Parts unavailable or wrong part number on WO | |
| PM displaced by break-in work | |
| Labor not scheduled (tech assignment missing or reassigned) | |
| Procedure unclear, missing, or known-wrong | |
| Asset not accessible (production schedule conflict, lockout conflict, permit conflict) | |
| Deferred by supervisor or planner decision (document why for each) | |
| Unknown — no cause captured on the WO |
The largest bucket is where the install plan concentrates. For most plants, the largest bucket is parts. If your largest bucket is something else, your install plan looks different from Ray's.
Step 6 — Sign-off
| Role | Name | Signature | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| Planner (lead) | |||
| Maintenance supervisor | |||
| Reliability engineer | |||
| Plant manager (sign-off on A-class clear commitment) |
What to avoid
- Reclassifying too aggressively. "We don't need that PM anymore" is sometimes true. It is usually a way to make the number go down without doing the work. Require a written justification for every RECLASSIFY decision on A- and B-class.
- Mixing triage with install. The triage is diagnosis. The install starts after triage. Do not begin kitting discipline while the overdue list is still un-sorted.
- Skipping the root-cause count (Step 5). The install plan is shaped by Step 5. A plant that skips it defaults to the textbook install sequence and discovers at day 60 that their biggest cause was something the sequence does not address.
- Using the triage as a punitive exercise. The overdues are the system's failure, not a technician's failure. Keep the language structural, not personal.
End of worksheet. File with the install plan from Day 21-30.