Reporting

There have been many volumes written on the subject of maintenance Key Performance Indicators, or KPI’s – it is a big topic.

I’ll preface this page by saying that if you’re serious about implementing KPI’s in your company, I strongly recommend that you first read a few books on the topic.

A few of my favorites are:

  • “Developing Performance Indicators for Managing Maintenance”, by Terry Wireman
  • “Reliability-Centered Maintenance” , by John Moubray

That being said, here are some of the high points about KPIs:

What is a KPI report?

KPI reports, if properly created, help you identify weak spots, or rather, opportunities for improvement, in your business. A KPI should point you in the right direction so that you may further analyze the problem to find out what caused the indicator to be low. Do not confuse a KPI report with a report designed to show who’s not doing their job or one that proves that you’re doing everything right and therefore do not need to strive for improvement. Simply put, the metrics you develop should serve as a tool for triggering corrective action.

Picking out the KPI’s that are right for you

Let’s start by defining “your business” as the asset management business that you manage, also known as the maintenance or facilities department within your company.  Keep in mind that you must look at your department as a business in itself which is part of a larger business (the company you work for) working towards the same corporate goals. Before picking out the best KPI’s for your business you must first understand and align your department with the company’s objectives.

Take the following business conditions that may require different KPIs:

  • Having to cope with extremely high utility costs
  • Racing to the market with a new product before you competition
  • Different stages in a product life cycle
  • Extremely high costs of downtime or lost production
  • Dangerous working conditions for operations or maintenance
  • Owning inexpensive assets that are readily available versus expensive assets with long lead times

Characteristics of KPIs

Key performance indicators should be:

  • Specific
  • Measurable
  • Able to be trended over time
  • Reliable
  • Measured against a specific attainable target
  • Cost effective to measure

Some functional areas for maintenance KPIs

Below are some of the most commonly used KPIs for Maintenance. Click on a function to reveal popular some KPIs examples within the category. KEEP IN MIND, each of the KPIs listed have their inherent strengths and weaknesses.

  • Inventory and Purchasing
  • Work Order System Accuracy
  • Technical training / skills
  • Operations involvement
  • Reliability Centered Maintenance
  • Predictive Maintenance
  • Total Productive Maintenance
  • Financial Optimization

How EAM Expert can help you

If you have a CMMS or EAM system, all of the KPI listed here can be pulled from it – one way or another.  They key is in the way records are input.  The age-old adage of “garbage-in , garbage-out” will make or break your chances for success.  We can help you create the KPIs of your choice by doing the following:

  • Making sure that the KPIs you choose are:
    • Specific
    • Measurable
    • Able to be trended over time
    • Reliable
    • Measured against a specific attainable target
    • Cost effective to measure
  • Choosing fields creatively to capture the data that your CMMS / EAM system does not account for natively
  • Creating codes in your system to designate certain conditions such as coding a work order as “BREAKDOWN” or a purchase order as “RUSH”
  • Customizing your system by adding fields if needed
  • Teaching your employees how to input records correctly
  • Helping you create SOPs for your employees to follow
  • Teaching you how to write the reports or write them for you using either Crystal Reports or InfoMaker

If you’d like see some sample reports written against a Mainsaver system, click HERE.