5 Steps to Create a Preventive Maintenance Schedule

If your fleet or shop doesn’t have a preventive maintenance schedule, you can’t give the trucks you work with the glow-up they deserve. These schedules help fleets get the most out of their trucks and avoid downtime (among all sorts of other benefits).

But if you’ve never used one of these schedules before, you might not know where to start while you’re trying to implement one. Would a list of five steps to follow while creating a preventive maintenance (PM) schedule help? Sure, it would! Keep reading for that.

Why is a Preventive Maintenance Schedule Important?

When you have a well-thought-out PM schedule, you’ll enjoy benefits like:

• Better equipment performance. Trucks and heavy equipment count on regular maintenance to keep functioning like they should. A reliable PM schedule will make it easier for shops to provide consistent service and easier for fleets to get the most out of their equipment.
• Less downtime. When trucks get the attention they need, they’re much less likely to break down. Because of that, prioritizing the PM schedule will help avoid a major contributor to downtime.
• Improved repair costs. Completing PMs isn’t free, but maintenance doesn’t cost nearly as much as major repair work. Since the former task can reduce your risk of needing the latter, focusing on preventive maintenance will help fleets save money.
• Extended asset lifespans. If you’re able to take good care of your equipment, it will be more likely to last for a while. That can protect you from needing to buy new trucks ahead of schedule, keeping another major expense under control.
• Accurate maintenance tracking. The heavy-duty repair shop software you use as part of your PM scheduling efforts should support data tracking. Once you have access to that data, you can use it to optimize future maintenance intervals.
• Compliance. Fleets are required to pass DOT inspections on a regular basis. Since these inspections can be fairly involved, PM schedules make sure every truck is up-to-date and hasn’t missed any necessary checks.

Preventive Maintenance Plan vs. Preventive Maintenance Schedule

Do you already have a preventive maintenance plan? If you do, you might think you’re covered…but that’s not necessarily the case. Though PM plans and schedules both focus on preventive maintenance, they’re ultimately two different things.

The big difference between preventive maintenance plans and schedules comes down to what they focus on. Your preventive maintenance plan will deal with the overarching goals and strategies for maintenance work, while your preventive maintenance schedule will outline the specific tasks you want to achieve and when you want to achieve them. (Or, to put it another way: PM plans are about “what” and “why,” and PM schedules are about “when” and “how.”)

That means neither a preventive maintenance plan nor a PM schedule is enough on its own. But when you implement them both, you’ll take the best possible care of your trucks. For fleets, that means more reliable equipment and lower maintenance costs. For shops, you can expect happier customers for those same reasons.

The Different Types of Preventive Maintenance Schedules

Preventive maintenance plans and schedules are both indispensable, but…well, this post isn’t called “5 Steps to Create a Preventive Maintenance Plan.” With that in mind, the three main types of PM schedules are:

Time-Based Scheduling

If you follow a time-based preventive maintenance schedule, you’ll set up PMs based on a simple calendar interval. Whether you want to take care of these appointments monthly, annually, or daily (for some reason), you’ll have the freedom to do just that.

There’s no denying that time-based PM scheduling has its benefits: it’s great for keeping up on maintenance suggested by manufacturers, and it’s easier to schedule and track than other PM options. However, this approach to PMs doesn’t take equipment usage into consideration. If you’re 100% reliant on time-based scheduling, you might not be giving your vehicles the attention they actually need.

Usage-Based Scheduling

Usage-based preventive maintenance is one step up from time-based scheduling when it comes to considering your fleet’s actual condition. With this form of scheduling, you’ll look at how much your vehicles are used on an average day and account for that in your PM plans.

Though average usage can definitely help you gauge your trucks’ needs, usage-based scheduling isn’t the most accurate option out there. After all, this scheduling method is still based on an approximation of your vehicles’ status.

Condition-Based Scheduling

The last (and most elaborate) form of maintenance scheduling is condition-based scheduling. This scheduling method doesn’t just guesstimate your vehicles’ condition based on their average usage or a time interval. Instead, you’ll use actual data from your trucks to know when a piece of equipment needs attention.

You don’t need to commit to just one of these PM strategies; in fact, combining scheduling methods can make your maintenance program stronger than it would be otherwise. But in a head-to-head…battle? Competition? Whatever—at the end of the day, condition-based scheduling will usually give you the best results. (Of course, that’s assuming your fleet manager has the software they need to juggle this amount of data, which isn’t always a guarantee.)

How to Create a Preventive Maintenance Schedule

And now, for the moment you’ve all been waiting for: the section where we actually talk about the main point of this blog! When you’re ready to build a PM schedule for your shop, follow these steps:

1. Identify critical assets and components. In any fleet, some pieces of equipment will have a higher-than-average impact on your business if they stop working. Know what equipment fits this description (and what equipment is especially prone to failure).
2. Define maintenance tasks and intervals. For your maintenance strategy to succeed, understand exactly what services your vehicles depend on. A preventive maintenance checklist can help you track tasks like inspections, filter replacements, and fluid changes.
3. Gather and analyze maintenance data. The more you know about your trucks’ history, the less trouble you’ll have predicting their future. Take a look at your maintenance and failure records while setting maintenance intervals—that way, you’ll be less likely to over-maintain or under-maintain your equipment.
4. Develop and format your preventive maintenance schedule. Once you know when your trucks need maintenance, it’s time to start implementing your new schedule. If you plan on using condition-based scheduling, invest in software that can keep up with data for an entire fleet.
5. Implement, monitor, and improve. Finally, give your workers the training they need to follow your new PM schedule. When that’s done, track your staff’s compliance with this schedule and tweak maintenance intervals for even better results.

Find the Right Software for Scheduling (And More)

By creating a preventive maintenance schedule, you can do a better job of keeping up with PMs and reap more rewards than ever before. And now you have a list you can follow to do just that! It must be your lucky day.

But if you want to really maximize your scheduling efforts, you’ll need the help of modern heavy-duty shop software. With one of these programs, your techs won’t have to worry about manual PM tracking. Instead, your system will keep track of upcoming appointments and give your workers automated reminders when it’s time to take care of maintenance tasks.

This software shouldn’t stop at supporting your schedule, either: it should also assist you with accounting, customer communication, inventory management, and more. Take the first step toward using a program that can do it all—sign up for a free demo of Fullbay today!