Many plants carry hundreds or even thousands of active preventive maintenance tasks, and the instinct when reliability issues surface is often to add more. Real gains, however, may already be sitting inside the CMMS.
Steve Janow, a senior reliability consultant with more than three decades of maintenance experience, explains in the course “MVP 306: PM Development & Optimization” how success starts with the data already on file, not with new work orders. "Organizing is the key to success," Janow said, adding that teams need to understand what the system already contains before attempting to improve reliability.
Confirm Every PM Is Linked to an Asset and Backed by Instructions
A PM with no equipment attached protects nothing. Janow demonstrated how filters and reports can identify PM records that carry no linked assets, which is a gap that often remains after incomplete implementations, equipment changes, or interrupted setup projects.
Maintenance teams should search for active PMs with blank asset fields and either connect them to the correct equipment or remove them. "It's not doing anything," Janow said about an unlinked PM, adding that a program only drives reliability when each task ties to the equipment it protects.
Instructions matter just as much. A PM without written steps forces a technician to rely on memory, which creates inconsistent results, particularly among newer employees. Janow says instructions should identify the task, the method, the acceptable result, the corrective response, and the required safety precautions.
Organizations can draw that detail from OEM manuals, troubleshooting guides, and technician knowledge. "You want a PM to be able to be completed the same way, no matter who does it," Janow said. Critical assets deserve attention first since gaps on high-risk equipment carry the greatest consequence.
Craft Hours and Classification Fields Support Better Planning
Estimated labor hours let supervisors balance workloads and answer production's most common question: How long will the equipment stay down? Janow described craft hours as a field that belongs in every PM record and recommended populating blank fields using technician experience or historical work orders.
That information helps planners avoid an uneven schedule, such as a week with 100 hours of PM work followed by one with 250, a swing that strains labor and equipment availability.
Consistent classification fields, including PM type, priority, and expense class, make records searchable and support reporting. This allows a facility to separate data points when measuring performance.
One example highlighted how organizing those fields cut the time needed to pull records for a safe quality food (SQF) audit from one or two hours to about three minutes. Janow cited the result as evidence that structured data improves compliance and operational efficiency alike.
Replacement PMs should list expected parts. Janow explains how teams can search descriptions containing words such as "replace" or "change" to find records missing materials such as bearings, belts, filters, knives, and sensors. Linking those parts to the correct PM speeds up work, reduces downtime searching for stock, and supports inventory planning.
These checks reflect a broader lesson: A CMMS delivers value only when its underlying records are accurate, structured, and complete.
Register for MVP 306: PM Development & Optimization here.
