January 16, 2025

6 Tips for Excelling in Preventative Maintenance and Management

As a maintenance manager, you face daily challenges. They come from everywhere. Management, team members, and production line personnel. You deal with emergencies, backlogs, deadlines, and budgets. How do you cope with everything to be successful? Not only in your department but to further the success of the company. This article will explore six tips to help maintenance managers succeed.

Of course, I could list twenty or more attributes or qualities you should have. However, let’s keep it simple. The six areas you’ll read about include:

Prioritizing Preventive Maintenance

Build Foundations Communications Skills

Understand Your Role in Maintenance

Make Wise Decisions

Strategic Planning

Delegation: A Foundational Skill

Also, let’s see how a computerized maintenance management system can help you with each of the six tips.

 

Prioritize Preventative Maintenance for Long-Term Success

We’re looking to get you and your team away from a reactive mindset. Stop paying attention to assets only when they fail or break down. You risk safety hazards and incur more expenses.

Instead, create a foundation maintenance program. Preventive. Know your assets and what routing PMs they need. Inspections. Cleaning. Lubrication. Replacement parts.

For vehicles, you’ll rotate tires. For buildings, you’ll conduct roof, basement, gutter, window, siding, and other inspections.

You’ll use equipment readings to help develop a PM program. PSI, fluid level, temperature, and others. You’ll record and keep a history of them.

With PMs, you’ll set priorities and deadlines. Many assets require maintenance activities to satisfy regulators and auditors. You’ll need documentation to show when those people visit.

CMMS – Your CMMS software can help you do all the above. You create your list of assets with all the relevant information. You set up a list of PMs, again, with detailed data. You assign the PMs to the assets with associated inventory and cycles. Your CMMS should have a section on each asset record where you record routine readings.

Discover how streamlined maintenance processes can elevate production. Learn more.

 

Build Foundational Skills in Communication

Make this another foundation skill to develop. With whom do you communicate every day? Your team. You schedule and assign work orders to technicians, crews, or specialized crafts. Feedback helps improve efficiency and productivity.

Discuss with your team about the jobs. Conduct quality checks and consider options for improvements.

Attainment seeks to get as much productivity out of a person as possible. You won’t overwhelm the technician with work every minute of every shift. However, if the worker finished a sixty-minute in only thirty, then how does he spend the extra time?

Why did the job not take as long?

You want to investigate and answer these questions. Perhaps the technician possesses skills that you can use in other areas.

You want communications with production line people. Help them take care of their machines. Show them the PMs they can administer.

Maintenance receives the blame when equipment fails. Set a goal to reduce or eliminate that blame game by providing an effective service.

CMMS – With your software on a mobile device, you can show production people the ins and outs of what you do. You help them keep tabs on readings and how to submit work requests through an HTML link.

 

Understand Your Role in Management and Maintenance

You do provide a service, right? To whom?

Obviously, to what I mentioned above. The production line. The assets. Production edges out maintenance for importance. The product must come first. However, production relies on maintenance for…service.

You provide services to your team. Training, coaching, improving skills, motivating, collaboration, and as we’ll see later, delegating.

CMMS – You improve your communication skills through a CMMS. You assume the role of admin, using the organization the system provides to streamline your operations. For other system users, you set authorizations for their roles.

 

Make Wise Decisions with Preventative Maintenance in Mind

Review the above challenges. You’ll have obstacles impeding your reaching your goal. How do you cope?

First, you gather the relevant information. Don’t have too much information, only as much as you need that fits the issue. Then, you discuss the options with your team. Set up a "what if" tree. With each decision, branch out and see what comes next.

What further challenges await? Which solution will be best?

Third, you ensure you have the correct resources to implement the solution, then do it.

Finally, you review the decision and improve where possible.

You’ll have questions and decisions every day.

• Which job(s) take priority?
• What deadlines do you have?
• Do you have enough in the budget for emergencies?
• Do you have enough critical spares in the stockroom?

CMMS – You’ll find much of the information on the CMMS. All those records, histories, and revisions. You have better oversight over asset management, inventory control, PM scheduling, and work order decisions.

Ready to revolutionize your maintenance department? Schedule a live demo today.

 

Strategic Planning as a Foundational Management Skill

You plan your daily activities. Possibly, the day before. You plan PMs and work orders.

Planning keeps you organized. It helps you see the above obstacles and prepare the solutions.

Keep in mind, that successful planning takes time and effort. It requires all of the skills discussed today and others you develop. Determination, discipline, time management, flexibility, and a whole host of others.

For the definitive guide to maintenance planning and scheduling, read the book by Richard Palmer.

CMMS – Part of work order management includes planning. You have a calendar for drop and drag scheduling. You plan your PMs.

You prioritize your work orders. The best-skilled workers for the job receive the assignments.

Other ways a CMMS helps you plan include numerous reports. Key performance indicator (KPI) reports. Equipment reports. Resource reports.

Using these reports helps you overlap wise decision-making and planning.

 

Delegation: A Foundational Skill for Maintenance Managers

You have only a certain number of hours in the day and your shift. You can’t take on all the responsibilities. You have to learn how to pass along jobs to those who possess the skills. And you have to learn when to say the magic word no.

First, delegating shows that you do take responsibility. You acknowledge the team. You encourage and motivate them. You know your role as a leader.

Second, saying no does not show weakness or resistance. Instead, you prioritize the day and your activities. Deadlines loom. Important jobs await attention.

Declining a request means you analyzed the information and decided other things took priority.

This does not mean that you completely refuse the job. You might delegate that to someone who has extra time.

CMMS – I reiterate the part about assigning work orders to individuals and small teams. Maybe an entire shift will take responsibility. You might even delegate a dedicated scheduler to put jobs on the calendar.

Achieving Success Through Preventative Maintenance and Management Expertise

You take on a lot of responsibility as a maintenance manager. With experience and developing skills, you have a better chance at success. Using these above tips will take you far.

Using the world-class CMMS from Mapcon Technologies gives you that extra jump. MAPCON is scalable to fit your needs. You can rely on U.S.-based support. Train with experts in-house, onsite, or online. 800-922-4336