Category: CMMS
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What Should a Maintenance Planner Actually Be Measured On?
Ask most maintenance managers how they measure their planner’s performance, and you’ll get one of two answers. Either a vague reference to schedule compliance (a metric that belongs to the whole team, not the planner alone) or a blank look, followed by something along the lines of “we just know when it’s working.” Neither is… Read more
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The Cost of Poor Spare Parts Management
Why do spare part stock levels matter more than most organisations realise? Spare parts management rarely gets the attention it deserves. It sits quietly in the background, often viewed as an administrative or stores function rather than a core contributor to reliability, cost control, and operational risk. When it works well, no one notices. When… Read more
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Why Does Maintenance Scheduling Fail In Many Organizations?
Guest Article Part of our Planner HQ Contributor Series, where we feature voices from the global maintenance and reliability community. Everyone knows that having a schedule for any task or activity significantly increases the chance of success. Whether it’s planning a trip, preparing for an exam, or saving for a major purchase, structured scheduling leads… Read more
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A Day In The Life of a Maintenance Planner
The maintenance planner role is one of the most talked about yet least understood positions in modern maintenance organisations. Ask ten people what a planner does and you’ll likely get ten different answers. Some will say they “build job plans.” Others will describe them as schedulers, administrators, or even data analysts. In reality, the role… Read more
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Digital Transformation – Are Maintenance Planners More Important Than Ever?
Digital transformation, in maintenance is accelerating faster than ever. New technologies appear every year promising smarter inspections, automated scheduling, AI-driven planning recommendations, advanced asset analytics, and predictive failure modelling. Industry 4.0 get thrown around all the time now. For many organisations, the shift toward digital maintenance seems to suggest that traditional roles, especially the maintenance… Read more
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A Guide to Equipment Numbering – Creating Intuitive Asset Hierarchies
Guest Article Part of our Planner HQ Contributor Series, where we feature voices from the global maintenance and reliability community. “Effective maintenance management does not happen by chance—it happens by design.” Have you ever wondered why some companies excel in maintenance while others constantly struggle with inefficiencies? The answer often lies in their foundation. A well‑structured… Read more
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Asset Management: Connecting Maintenance to the Bigger Picture
Asset management is often spoken about in boardrooms and strategy meetings, while maintenance planning happens on the shop floor. But in a mature organisation, the two are inseparable. Every maintenance planner and CMMS specialist contributes directly to the principles defined in ISO 55001, the international standard for asset management. They may not sit in the strategy… Read more
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A Guide to Creating Physical Asset Hierarchy – A Systems Approach
Guest Article Part of our Planner HQ Contributor Series, where we feature voices from the global maintenance and reliability community. “Effective maintenance management does not happen by chance—it happens by design.” Have you ever wondered why some companies excel in maintenance while others constantly struggle with inefficiencies? The answer often lies in their foundation. A well-structured… Read more
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The Hidden Cost of Poor Backlog Management
Every maintenance team has a backlog on their CMMS. In fact, some level of backlog is healthy and very much normal. It provides a pipeline of work, ensures technicians are never idle, and helps planners prioritise the teams activities effectively. However, when that backlog grows unchecked or is poorly structured, it becomes more than an… Read more
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7 Signs it is Time to Upgrade Your CMMS
If you’re like most maintenance planners, you spend more time in your CMMS than in any other system. It’s the heartbeat of your role; where you scope jobs, manage backlogs, track spare parts, and analyse performance. At its best, a CMMS (Computerised Maintenance Management System) is the digital foundation of proactive maintenance. It brings structure,… Read more
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5 Proven Strategies for Better Spare Parts Management
When work orders stall, it’s rarely because technicians don’t know what to do. More often, it’s because the right parts aren’t available when they’re needed. Few things are more frustrating than watching skilled labor stand idle because a simple bearing, seal, or sensor is missing from the shelf. For maintenance planners, spare parts management isn’t… Read more
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What Is a CMMS? A Planner’s Guide to the Essentials
CMMS. Four letters that get thrown around in every maintenance meeting, yet often misunderstood. Some companies think of it as just another piece of software. Others assume that once it’s installed, their maintenance problems will magically disappear. And then there are those who still don’t use one at all. For a maintenance planner, the CMMS… Read more
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8 Ways to Boost Maintenance Schedule Compliance
When it comes to maintenance planning and scheduling, few metrics are watched more closely than schedule compliance. On paper, the weekly schedule might look perfect. In reality, it’s common to see only 40–60% of that work actually completed as planned. Poor compliance undermines the entire planning process. It frustrates technicians, confuses operations, and gives leadership the… Read more
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10 Ways to Improve CMMS Data Quality
Your CMMS is only as good as the data it contains. Even the most advanced maintenance planning system will fall short if the information feeding it is inaccurate, inconsistent, or incomplete. For maintenance planners, poor data quality isn’t just frustrating — it’s dangerous. It leads to missed PMs, misallocated labor, unreliable KPIs, and confusion on… Read more
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Top 5 KPI Metrics Every Great Planner Must Track
A great maintenance planner doesn’t just plan jobs — they track and measure their effectiveness. Without clear metrics, it’s impossible to know whether planning efforts are reducing downtime, increasing reliability, or improving efficiency. Tracking key maintenance KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) gives planners the visibility they need to identify gaps, prioritise improvements, and demonstrate the value of structured… Read more
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Why Every Maintenance Planner Needs The Maintenance Planners Playbook
Why Was The Maintenance Planners Playbook Book Written? Maintenance planning is one of the most misunderstood and undervalued roles in many organisations. Too often, planners are seen as administrators rather than the strategic linchpin between maintenance, operations, and reliability. This misunderstanding leads to a cycle of reactive work, firefighting, and wasted resources. The WHY behind The Maintenance Planner’s… Read more
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How to Audit Your Maintenance Backlog for Better Efficiency
A maintenance backlog can either be a sign of healthy forward planning or a red flag that signals inefficiency, misalignment, and missed opportunities. The difference lies in how the backlog is structured, managed, and audited.For many organisations, maintenance backlogs grow quietly — unnoticed until they impact uptime, force teams into reactive work, or skew KPI reporting.… Read more
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5 Worst Ways to Run a Weekly Schedule (and How to Fix Them)
A weekly maintenance schedule is the backbone of reliable work execution. It takes all the planned work, matches it with available resources, and aligns it with operations to make sure the right jobs get done at the right time. But when a weekly schedule is poorly built or managed, the result isn’t just inefficiency —… Read more
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How to Conduct Effective PM Quality Audits
Preventive Maintenance (PM) is often seen as the foundation of reliable asset performance. However, the reality in the field is that not all PM work delivers value. Poorly executed PMs can be just as harmful as having no maintenance strategy at all – at least with no maintenance you truly know where you stand! This… Read more
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Top 10 Maintenance Planner Skills for Reliability and Efficiency
A great maintenance planner is the backbone of any effective reliability and maintenance program. Their role bridges the gap between strategy and execution, ensuring that work is planned properly, resources are allocated effectively, and assets receive the care they need to operate at peak performance. But what truly sets apart an exceptional planner from a… Read more
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Smart Stock: Getting Your Spare Parts Strategy Right
One of the quiet but critical elements of any good maintenance strategy is spare parts management.It’s not flashy. It doesn’t grab attention.But when it’s not done well?Everything else — job planning, scheduling, technician productivity — starts to fall apart. Spare parts are the invisible glue that holds planned work together. And as a planner, even… Read more
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CMMS Data Quality: The Hidden Engine of Effective Maintenance
In the rush to digitize, many organizations have implemented a CMMS (Computerized Maintenance Management System) expecting it to transform their maintenance operation overnight. And while these systems offer powerful capabilities — scheduling, asset tracking, cost analysis, inventory management — there’s a simple truth many learn the hard way: A CMMS is only as good as… Read more
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Why Is The Maintenance Planning Role Misused?
Search any job board for “maintenance planner” and you’ll find descriptions that vary wildly — from technical administrator to schedule coordinator to all-round maintenance fixer. This, is a problem. Across industries, the maintenance planning role is inconsistently defined, poorly understood, and frequently misused. As a result, organisations don’t get the value they expect from the… Read more