Optimizing Preventive Maintenance with a CMMS: 8 Proven Tips

This article was written by Erik Hupje, Maintenance and Reliability Leader.

The Origins of Preventive Maintenance

For most of human history, maintenance was reactive: we fixed equipment only after it failed. This First‑Generation approach prevailed until the World War II era.

By the 1950s, a shift toward preventing equipment failures emerged. Second‑Generation maintenance introduced time‑based preventive maintenance (PM) – scheduled overhauls or replacements at fixed intervals – which became the industry standard.

The true breakthrough occurred between the 1950s and 1970s in the aviation sector. A comprehensive 12‑year data study revealed that routine overhauls had negligible impact on overall reliability or safety. This insight led to reliability‑centred maintenance, which prioritizes equipment performance over arbitrary time schedules.

Many modern PM programs still rely on outdated, time‑based thinking. Below are eight evidence‑based strategies to align PM with reliability‑centred principles using a CMMS.

Tip #1: Accept Low‑Consequence Failures

Not every failure can be prevented through maintenance. External events such as lightning strikes or flooding are beyond our control. Likewise, failures that carry minimal operational or safety impact—like a general lighting failure—may be best addressed reactively. Record such events in your CMMS, but avoid over‑engineering PM tasks for them.

Tip #2: Leverage Condition Monitoring

Time‑based tasks can waste resources when equipment’s failure probability is constant. Typically, 70–90 % of assets benefit from condition monitoring, while only 10–30 % require scheduled replacement. Use your CMMS to log monitoring data, compare it to baselines, and auto‑generate tasks when thresholds are breached. Reserve time‑based actions for components with a proven wear‑out cycle.

Tip #3: Adopt a Risk‑Based Approach

View maintenance as an investment that must yield a return in safety and reliability. Evaluate both the likelihood and consequence of failure—Risk = Likelihood × Consequence—and allocate resources to the highest‑value interventions. A CMMS can capture failure‑related costs, enabling a data‑driven risk assessment that includes downtime and production loss.

Tip #4: Use PM to Detect Hidden Failures

Preventive tasks are ideal for uncovering failures that remain silent during normal operation. For example, testing a high‑pressure trip switch—only triggered by an emergency—can reveal a latent fault before it causes a safety incident. These “failure‑finding” tasks enhance safety compliance and are often documented in incident investigations.

Tip #5: Avoid Generic PM Libraries

Even identical equipment can demand different maintenance based on operating mode or service level. A pump in standby requires a distinct PM schedule compared to one running continuously. Over‑generic libraries waste resources and may obscure critical differences. Use your CMMS to tailor tasks for each asset’s real operating context.

Tip #6: Don’t Treat Maintenance as a Design Fix

“You can’t maintain your way to reliability.” —Terrence O’Hanlon. Maintenance preserves the inherent design reliability of equipment, but cannot compensate for a flawed design. Use PM data and failure‑mode analysis to inform defect‑elimination programs, and avoid accepting high failure rates as a design compromise.

Tip #7: Eliminate Unnecessary Tasks

Every extra minute spent on a task reduces the time available for higher‑priority work. Unnecessary tasks can even degrade reliability by diverting focus. Keep PM tasks focused: one effective action per failure mode, unless the failure carries exceptionally high consequence. Implement a strict change‑control process in your CMMS to prevent ad‑hoc task additions.

Tip #8: Continuously Improve Your Program

The most effective maintenance programs evolve. Prioritize eliminating redundant tasks, shift from time‑based to condition‑based replacements, and extend task intervals where data and experience support it. For example, moving a daily task to a weekly schedule can cut labor by over 80 %. Track the impact and refine the approach iteratively.

About the author:

Erik Hupje has spent two decades as an asset‑management engineer across the globe, focusing on maintenance and reliability in the upstream oil and gas sector. He founded R2 Reliability and created the Road to Reliability framework, a proven methodology for preventive maintenance engineering.