Developing Maintenance Key Performance Indicators From Maintenance Work Order Data

Maintenance management for manufacturing is a crucial activity for improving productivity within a facility. Within this process, maintenance work orders (MWOs) are used when tracking and solving any maintenance–related issue. The MWOs often capture the problem, the solution, at what machine the problem occurred, who solved the problem, when the problem occurred, and other information. These MWOs are manually written by maintenance technicians, entered into a database, or recorded directly into maintenance management software. Technicians often describe or record information informally — or do not record it at all — leading to inconsistencies and/or inaccuracies in the data. This paper outlines maintenance key performance indicators (KPIs), developed using MWOs, that show why consistent and accurate data collection is important for maintenance decision making. The maintenance data, or “elements,” and their corresponding KPIs are derived from MWOs from real manufacturers (large manufacturers and small and medium enterprises). While all elements or KPIs are not recorded by every manufacturer, the guideline provided here outlines the elements necessary to calculate specific KPIs. These examples are developed to aid in common maintenance decisions.