Maintenance KPIs for small plants: the few that matter

Large maintenance reports can list dozens of KPIs. A small plant is better served by a few numbers that everyone understands and that point to a decision. These are the ones worth tracking first.

1. Overdue preventive tasks

How many PM tasks passed their due date without being done. This is the earliest warning sign: a growing number means planned work is being crowded out, often by breakdowns or overloaded weeks.

2. Maintenance completion rate

Of the work that was due in a period, how much was completed. Look at it by week. A steady rate means the plan is realistic. A falling rate means the demand is higher than the capacity or priorities are unclear.

3. Open work orders

How many one-time jobs are waiting, and how many of them are scheduled. A long list of open, unscheduled work orders usually means nobody owns the planning.

4. Workload against capacity

The hours of work due this week compared with the hours your team can deliver, per trade. This is the number that tells you in advance that a week will fail.

5. Postponements

How often planned work is pushed, and why. Postponing is sometimes right, but a pattern (the same machine, the same reason) shows a problem to fix.

How to use KPIs without drowning in them

• Review the same five numbers every week, in the same meeting.
• Ask "what decision does this number change?". If none, stop tracking it.
• Compare week to week, not against an industry benchmark you cannot verify.
• Let the numbers come from the system, not from someone's spreadsheet at the end of the month.

Where the numbers come from

In Riffhelm the dashboard shows open PM tasks, open work orders, what is scheduled, what is overdue, what is completed and the completion rate, with a drill-down into each. You see them without building a report.

To try it with your own machines, send us your files: we set up the system, you review and approve, and the 30-day free trial starts then.