Examples of preventive maintenance are more useful by asset than by category, because a task that makes sense on a pump is meaningless on a door. This page lists tasks the way a schedule does: per asset class, with the trigger that usually suits each. It ends with a preventive maintenance list a site can start a schedule from, on the understanding that every interval on it is a starting point to be adjusted from the site's own history, not a rule.
Rotating equipment: motors, pumps, fans, compressors
Check and top up lubrication on a monthly or run-hour interval. Listen and feel for bearing noise and heat on the walk-round. Check alignment and belt tension quarterly. Replace bearings on a run-hour interval set from the history rather than waiting for the noise. Replace filters on a pressure-drop or calendar interval. Test standby units by running them monthly. For compressors, drain condensate and check the safety valve on the manufacturer's interval.
Conveyors, packaging and production machinery
Inspect belts, chains and rollers for wear weekly. Check guards and interlocks on every shift start, which is a safety task as much as a maintenance one. Lubricate chains on a cycle count. Check sensor alignment and clean photo-eyes monthly. Replace wear parts on a cycle interval taken from the history of when they failed. Calibrate anything that measures, on the interval the process needs.
Mobile and material handling: forklifts and dock equipment
The daily pre-use inspection, which the powered industrial truck standard requires and which a checklist makes routine. Fluid levels, tyres, forks and chains, brakes, horn and lights. A service on run hours. Battery care for electric trucks. Dock levellers and doors on a monthly inspection and an annual service. The forklift maintenance checklist worksheet on this site is the daily task written out.
Building plant and a starting list
Boilers, chillers, air handling, lifts and generators run on calendar intervals with statutory tests attached, and most of them are a trade's work with the site's job being to hold the record. A starting list for a site with mixed equipment: daily walk-round with a short checklist; weekly conveyor and guard inspection; monthly lubrication, filter and standby-run tasks; quarterly alignment and belt checks; run-hour services on anything with a meter; and the annual statutory tests. Put it on the schedule, run it for a quarter, and let the reactive work orders say what is missing.
Questions people ask about examples of preventive maintenance
How many preventive tasks should a site have?
This site's worked example runs 60 preventive jobs a month across 180 assets. The number is a consequence of the register and the strategy per asset, not a target.
Should I copy the manufacturer's intervals?
As a start, yes. Then adjust from the history: failures between tasks mean shorten, tasks that find nothing for a year mean lengthen or drop.
What is the simplest preventive task?
The daily walk-round with a checklist. It finds most of what a monthly inspection finds, earlier, and it costs minutes.