A preventive maintenance plan sample is worth more than a definition, so this page gives one for a single asset class and the maintenance plan template it follows. An equipment maintenance plan is the register with a strategy and a set of tasks against each asset, and the way to plan maintenance for a year is to build it class by class rather than asset by asset. The last section is what a pm plan has to say to be followed rather than filed, which is the part most plans miss.
A sample plan for the site's pumps
Asset class: centrifugal pumps, process and standby. Strategy: inspection-based on process pumps, test-run and run-to-failure on standby, with a bearing change on run hours for both. Tasks: weekly walk-round item, heat and noise; monthly inspection with a checklist, seal, coupling, vibration by pen, motor current; quarterly alignment check; bearing replacement every set number of run hours from the history; standby test run monthly. Spares: one seal kit and one bearing set per pump model on the shelf. Owner: the day-shift technician. Review: quarterly against the reactive work orders.
The template it follows
Asset class and the assets in it. Consequence of failure and the strategy chosen. Tasks, each with a trigger, an interval, a checklist or procedure, and an owner. Spares held. The compliance tests, if any, with their statutory interval. The review interval and what the review reads. One page per asset class, and the plan for the site is the set of pages. The maintenance log worksheet on this site is where the tasks land once they are decided.
Building the equipment plan from the register
List the assets by class. Rank the classes by consequence of failure. For each class from the top, decide the strategy and write the page above, starting from the manufacturer's schedule and the technicians' knowledge of how the equipment fails. Stop when the classes left are run to failure with a spare, and write that down too. Then add the preventive hours up and check them against the hours the team has; this site's worked example, 60 jobs and 66 hours a month across 180 assets, is a plan that fits a small team.
What a plan has to say to be followed
Who does each task, because a task without an owner is a wish. When, as a trigger the schedule can raise. What done looks like, as a checklist with limits. What happens to a finding. And when the plan is next read against the record. A plan with those five is a schedule; a plan without them is a document that describes the maintenance the site wishes it did.
Questions people ask about preventive maintenance plan sample
How long should a preventive maintenance plan be?
A page per asset class, and most sites have a dozen classes that matter. A plan that runs to a binder is a manual, and manuals are not followed.
Should the plan be in the CMMS or a document?
Both. The document says why; the CMMS holds the tasks and raises them. A plan that exists only in the software loses its reasoning when the person who set it up leaves.
How often should the plan be reviewed?
Quarterly for the classes at the top of the ranking, yearly for the rest, and whenever a failure the plan should have prevented happens.