PPM is cheaper than failure in almost every case that matters: an unplanned outage costs repair fees plus disruption plus, in regulated areas, compliance exposure. A PPM schedule is also the backbone of most compliance evidence.
People often just say preventative maintenance, or write it the American way as preventive maintenance. They mean the same thing: work done on a schedule to stop a failure happening. Planned preventative maintenance is the formal name for the scheduled programme that delivers it, so PPM is the plan and preventative maintenance is the activity.
The practical question is usually how much to do. Too little and you are running reactive maintenance with extra paperwork; too much and you are servicing equipment that did not need it. Most estates settle by starting from the manufacturer intervals and the statutory ones, then adjusting against actual failure history and condition assessment scores.
Common questions
What does Planned Preventative Maintenance (PPM) mean in simple terms?+
Planned preventative maintenance (PPM) is maintenance carried out on a schedule before equipment fails: servicing the HVAC quarterly, testing fire alarms weekly, inspecting lifts monthly. It is the opposite of reactive maintenance, which waits for the breakdown.
What are the compliance implications of Planned Preventative Maintenance (PPM)?+
PPM is cheaper than failure in almost every case that matters: an unplanned outage costs repair fees plus disruption plus, in regulated areas, compliance exposure. A PPM schedule is also the backbone of most compliance evidence.
What goes wrong with Planned Preventative Maintenance (PPM)?+
People often just say preventative maintenance, or write it the American way as preventive maintenance. They mean the same thing: work done on a schedule to stop a failure happening. Planned preventative maintenance is the formal name for the scheduled programme that delivers it, so PPM is the plan and preventative maintenance is the activity.
What else should you know about Planned Preventative Maintenance (PPM)?+
The practical question is usually how much to do. Too little and you are running reactive maintenance with extra paperwork; too much and you are servicing equipment that did not need it. Most estates settle by starting from the manufacturer intervals and the statutory ones, then adjusting against actual failure history and condition assessment scores.