Maintenance key performance indicators (KPIs) are quantifiable metrics that track and measure factors critical to the success of an organization. These benchmark measurements can be used to evaluate the performance and productivity of individual personnel or larger teams.
In the maintenance world, KPIs are intended to track progress toward specific goals, like preventing downtime, increasing machine reliability, optimizing wrench time, or reducing costs. KPIs are typically a combination of a specific metric (like downtime), as well as a benchmark (like a 25% decrease), which is then used to quantify a larger goal (like minimizing downtime).
There are two main types of maintenance KPIs, known as leading and lagging indicators.
Leading indicators give insight into future performance and include metrics like preventive maintenance (PM) compliance percentage. The higher this percentage, the more likely that reactive maintenance and downtime will decrease over time.
Lagging indicators, on the other hand, are typically results-based metrics, like Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF) and Mean Time to Repair (MTTR).
The most successful maintenance teams rely on a mix of both leading and lagging indicators to achieve success.
Maintenance KPIs are invaluable to leadership teams, as they provide a data-backed pulse on employee performance and output. But ensuring the individuals in your organization are tracking the right maintenance KPIs can be a challenge.
Every maintenance role in an organization could potentially have a different set of KPIs they’re tracking, even if the overall goal is the same. This article outlines several of the most important maintenance KPIs for a range of different maintenance roles, from maintenance technicians to plant managers to reliability engineers.
Maintenance KPIs for Maintenance Technicians
Mean Time to Repair (MTTR)
A measurement of the average time it takes to repair or replace a failed component or asset, MTTR can inform decisions on staffing, inventory levels, and repair vs. replacement decisions, which all have a major impact on an organization’s bottom line.
Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF)
Measuring the elapsed time between failures, MTBF is a powerful KPI for understanding the performance and reliability of an asset. Carefully tracking MTBF helps an organization optimize their preventive maintenance schedules, including technician tasks like inspections, lubrication, or calibrations.
Maintenance Backlog
A maintenance backlog KPI measures the accumulation of maintenance work that is needed. The longer that planned or emergency maintenance is not completed, the greater the risk of costly and/or potentially dangerous machine failures.
Planned Maintenance Percentage
This measurement tracks the percentage of hours spent carrying out planned versus unplanned maintenance activities. A world-class planned maintenance percentage is upward of 90% planned versus unplanned work. However, you should target a percentage above at least 50%, which is roughly average in the maintenance world.
Maintenance KPIs for Reliability Engineers
Cost of Non-conformance (CONC)
Non-conformance occurs when a product doesn’t meet predefined quality standards. Tracking the cost of non-conformance not only serves as a lagging indicator that quantifies how much potential revenue you’re missing out on. It can also serve as a leading indicator that suggests your plant needs to focus more on preventive maintenance to avoid product defects.
Defective Parts Per Million (DPPM)
An element of the cost for non-conformance, this measure calculates the number of flawed and rejected parts you should expect per million produced. Tracking this KPI will help ensure that the quality and consistency of your company’s products meet or exceed the standards your customers have come to expect.
Percent of Asset Uptime Versus Downtime
As simple as it may seem, maximizing asset uptime is key to running a successful plant. If a critical piece of equipment is frequently down for maintenance (whether preventive, corrective, or emergency maintenance), you are likely to lose out on potential sales due to an inability to meet demand.
Maintenance KPIs for Planner Schedulers
Inventory Turnover Rate
Measuring how much inventory was sold and restocked in a specific period of time helps provide insight into decisions about stock levels and ideal price points. Understanding inventory turnover is vital to gauging product demand and customer purchasing trends.
Percent of Asset Uptime Versus Downtime
As simple as it may seem, maximizing asset uptime is key to running a successful plant. If a critical piece of equipment is frequently down for maintenance (whether preventive, corrective, or emergency maintenance), you are likely to lose out on valuable production time and risk being unable to meet customer demand.
Maintenance KPIs for Continuous Improvement (CI) Managers
Percent of Preventive Maintenance Completed on Time
Tracking how much of your maintenance team’s time is spent on preventive versus corrective or emergency maintenance is a key leading indicator that can help your organization minimize both downtime and overall maintenance costs.
Cost Savings Related to Machine Uptime
This lagging indicator is related to the KPI above and provides a way to quantify how much your company is saving as a result of adopting a preventive maintenance approach. Paying attention to this KPI can help your organization maximize its efficiency and increase throughput, which can drive increased sales.
Suggestions per Unit Time
Tracking suggestions made, reviewed, tested, or implemented over a specified period of time (per month, for instance) will help ensure managers are not missing or ignoring potential areas for improvement.
Maintenance KPIs for Storeroom Managers
Inventory Turnover Rate
Measuring how much inventory was sold and restocked in a specific period of time helps provide insight into decisions about stock levels and ideal price points. Understanding inventory turnover is vital to gauging product demand and customer purchasing trends.
Inventory Cost of Carry
It is important to know how much it costs to store all inventory as compared to the total value of all inventory held. This KPI shows how efficiently goods are moved through the storeroom. It also sheds light on the accuracy of inventory demand projections.
Time to Receive
This is the amount of time it takes for inbound stock to be accepted and added to inventory. Improving this maintenance KPI will help your organization save time, reduce costs, and improve the flow of inventory.
Order Picking Accuracy
By tracking the percentage of orders that are picked error-free, you can help ensure your customers (or internal technicians) are always receiving exactly what they need. It is possible to achieve 100% order picking accuracy by taking steps to ensure all storeroom items are in the right place and accurately documented.
Maintenance KPIs for Plant Managers
Planned Versus Unplanned Maintenance
Maximizing how much of your maintenance team’s time is spent on preventive rather than corrective or emergency maintenance is key to a smooth-running plant. When required maintenance is planned, not only will technicians spend less time troubleshooting, tracking down parts, and fixing problems, the rest of your plant will also be able to plan around any downtime, preventing wasted time.
Percent of Asset Uptime Versus Downtime
As simple as it may seem, maximizing asset uptime is key to running a successful plant. If a critical piece of equipment is frequently down for maintenance (whether preventive, corrective, or emergency maintenance), you are likely to lose out on valuable production time and risk being unable to meet customer demand.
Cost of Non-conformance (CONC)
Non-conformance occurs when a product does not meet predefined quality standards. Tracking the cost of non-conformance not only serves as a lagging indicator that quantifies how much potential revenue you’re missing out on. It can also serve as a leading indicator that suggests your plant needs to focus more on preventive maintenance to avoid product defects.
Closing Thoughts
Although the KPIs outlined above are some of the most used in the maintenance, repair, and operations (MRO) world, many organizations will customize – or define their own – KPIs to help them achieve their specific goals.
But no matter which KPIs you ultimately decide to track, utilizing a computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) software is a perfect way to guarantee you’ll have the data-collection, customization, and autonomously generated insights you’ll need to succeed.
Contact our team of experts to learn how eMaint can help you effortlessly define and track the most important KPIs across your organization.