Maintenance metrics and KPIs, how and which ones to track

Maintenance metrics and KPIs are parameters and indicators with which to monitor the effectiveness of maintenance processes. Find out which are the most important

Being able to measure progress towards achieving maintenance objectives is important to determine the success of a production system. Maintenance metrics and KPIs serve exactly this purpose. They provide companies and Facility Management professionals with the necessary parameters and indicators to evaluate their performance and operational capabilities over time.

We will take a look at the meaning and importance of maintenance metrics and KPIs, trying to understand what are the characteristics and differences. We will also provide a detailed list of the most important metrics that every organization should track to optimize business processes and improve the effectiveness of maintenance practices.

Before starting, I suggest you to use a Facility Management software to better manage all activities related to the monitoring of metrics and KPIs. This tool, constitutes an indispensable support to achieve the essential objectives of maintenance.

What are the maintenance metrics?

Maintenance metrics are quantifiable measurements that allow you to monitor daily maintenance activity within a company. They are intended to help professionals to assess the performance of people, processes, and so on.

These measurements provide a precise and reliable picture of how everything and everyone operates within a structure. Metrics essential to guide decision-making processes and improve the effectiveness of maintenance practices from time to time.

The most common metrics can be divided into three different categories, as follows:

Asset performance metrics, which are used to monitor equipment failure rates and evaluate the operating conditions of each individual plant or machine;
Operational metrics, serve to quantify the effectiveness of maintenance programs. it also analyse the performance of the various departments in achieving their objectives;
Inventory metrics, which help optimize strategies for controlling, tracking, and managing inventory and spare parts.

Having measurable data available makes easier to identify the strengths, criticality and opportunities for improvement of the maintenance processes. it is fundamental to quantify the progress towards achieving the final objectives of an organization.

Types of maintenance metrics

What are Maintenance KPIs (Key Performance Indicators)

Key performance indicators ( KPIs) are business objectives benchmarks that aim to monitor the performance and effectiveness of the most strategic processes. They provide useful information on the performance of an organization as a whole.

Maintenance KPIs, help companies and facility managers to quantify the progress made in the field of maintenance. They highlight the results achieved, the goals still to be achieved and all the actions to take to achieve a certain objective.

If an organization’s goal is, for example, to reduce production costs by a certain amount, since maintenance is one of the factors that directly affect the achievement of this goal, it can be useful for a company to monitor performance ratios related to departmental expenses, equipment downtime, and proper work order management.

Maintenance Metrics and KPIs: What’s the Difference

Maintenance metrics and KPIs are very similar parameters and are often used interchangeably because they both measure a company’s performance against certain goals.

In fact, the substantial difference between these two is that maintenance KPIs are numbers that link the organization’s end goals to maintenance performance, while maintenance metrics link maintenance performance to the effectiveness of daily maintenance processes.

The key performance indicators sets the objectives to be pursued and give a dimension to the results obtained in relation to the objectives. Metrics serve to connect daily maintenance actions to the performances and represent the pieces with which it is possible to build KPIs.

To better clarify the difference between metrics and maintenance KPIs, let’s assume that a company’s goal is to increase revenue by 20%. Revenues are directly influenced by downtime (fewer plants are in operation, fewer products are manufactured and sold). The equipment downtime is therefore one of the maintenance KPIs to be monitored. All quantifiable actions that can affect downtime, such as Mean Time To Repair (MTTR) or planned maintenance percentage, are maintenance metrics to be monitored.

6 Essential Maintenance Metrics to Monitor

The choice of maintenance metrics is closely linked to the sector of application, the objectives to meet and the type of resources to manage, therefore, not all metrics assume the same importance for each company.

It is possible, however, to define a list of the most significant parameters on which each organization should focus to evaluate the effects and validity of its maintenance strategies. This list includes:

Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF) measures the average operating time of the equipment between multiple failures or interruptions; The longer the average time between failures, the greater the ability of the system to operate properly and without interruption. Knowing how long a specific equipment will last allows you to prepare in advance for error events and optimize preventive maintenance strategies;
mean Time To Repair (MTTR): is a measure of the maintainability of repairable items and is used to quantify the average time taken by the maintenance team to repair a failed asset. This parameter has a significant impact on the profits of an organization, too high value can result in delays of orders fulfillment or failure to achieve business objectives. The Mean Time To Repair includes the time needed to diagnose the problem, the repair time, the operating test period and the return to normal operating conditions. Monitoring this metric is the key to identifying and eliminating inefficiencies in unplanned maintenance processes;
overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE): is a metric used to measure the overall performance of a technical system or, more generally, of the entire production system. The essential elements involved in the quantification of this parameter are basically three: quality, performance and availability. An OEE score of 100% means, in fact, that a company is able to produce pieces of the best quality, at 100% performance (at the highest possible production speed) and with the maximum availability of equipment, guaranteed by a reduced number of machine downtime and operational interruptions.

The three parameters just illustrated are part of the so-called resource return metrics we talked about earlier. The most common operational metrics include:

the Planned Maintenance Percentage (PMP) is the percentage of time spent on planned maintenance activities compared to unplanned maintenance. It is a valuable metric for tracking the integrity of preventive maintenance programs and identifying inefficient processes. If the value of the PMP is high, it means that the maintenance plans implemented by a company are effective and that the various teams are able to minimize corrective maintenance interventions. The PMP standard required worldwide is higher than 90% (values higher than 70% are still considered acceptable);
preventive Maintenance Compliance (PMC) is an additional metric used to assess the consistency of preventive maintenance programs. Measures how many of the planned maintenance activities have been completed within the set time period. Monitoring PM compliance is critical to optimizing maintenance schedules, using resources effectively, and ensuring that equipment always provides maximum reliability.

With reference to inventory metrics, one of the most important parameters that every company should track is:

inventory Turnover: represents the ratio between the stocks value purchased and the stocks value available. This metric gives an idea of the speed with which goods flow into the warehouse and is essential for measuring the effectiveness of a facility’s investments in various types of resources and spare parts.

Metrics to track

How to Measure Maintenance Metrics

Now that we have seen which are the most significant maintenance metrics to keep under control, let’s try to understand which are actually the tools that allow you to calculate and monitor these parameters.

A CMMS (Computerized Maintenance Management System) is definitely the best solution to gather information from every resource and get a complete, continuous and reliable overview of every maintenance process.

These systems are specifically designed to simplify the management of different activities (even remotely) and to provide fully automated reports. Therefore they will help improve decision-making and measure progress towards achieving the final maintenance objectives.

If you are also looking for the right tool to automatically calculate and track the maintenance metrics and KPIs of your interest, let yourself be supported immediately by a Facility Management software, the system that helps you analyze the performance of your equipment, eliminates the need for complex manual calculations and represents a tool of fundamental importance to monitor any aspect, process or activity related to the maintenance of your resources.