PM Compliance: How to Measure It, Improve It, and Report It

Preventive Maintenance (PM) compliance is one of the simplest maintenance KPIs to calculate—and one of the most misunderstood. Many teams report PM compliance as a percentage and move on. But behind that number sits the real story: equipment health, operational risk, technician workload, backlog pressure and leadership visibility.

When PM compliance drops, downtime rises. Backlog grows. Failures accelerate. Plants move from a stable, proactive cycle into firefighting. Yet when compliance increases—even by a modest amount—the operational impact is immediate.

This guide walks through how to measure PM compliance, how to improve it, and how to report it in a way that drives decisions.

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What PM Compliance Actually Measures

PM compliance is the percentage of scheduled preventive maintenance tasks completed on time within a defined period.

The standard formula is:

PM Compliance (%) = (Completed PMs on time ÷ Total scheduled PMs) × 100

Most plants aim for 85–95% depending on asset criticality and workload. Scores consistently below this range indicate systemic issues: labour shortages, unrealistic schedules, inefficient PM design or uncontrolled reactive work.

Why PM Compliance Matters

PM compliance is one of the most powerful leading indicators of reliability performance because:

• High PM compliance correlates strongly with lower unplanned downtime
• It shows whether the plant is operating proactively or reactively
• It exposes whether the team has realistic capacity or is overloaded
• It signals whether asset risk is increasing or decreasing
• It is one of the first metrics executives ask for during audits, shutdown readiness and budgeting cycles

Poor PM compliance doesn't just create more breakdowns. It destroys planning efficiency, increases labour costs, and masks deeper operational issues.

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How to Measure PM Compliance Correctly

Most plants calculate PM compliance, but very few calculate it correctly. Here is the correct, industry-standard approach.

1. Count only true PM tasks

Include:

• Time-based PMs
• Usage-based PMs
• Regulatory/mandatory checks

Exclude:

• Corrective work
• Emergency/reactive work
• Project work
• Inspections not part of the PM programme

2. Apply the "10% Rule"

A PM is considered "on time" if it is completed within ±10% of its frequency.

Examples:

• A 30-day PM can be completed within 27–33 days
• A 90-day PM can be completed within 81–99 days

This keeps compliance honest and prevents teams from "gaming the metric" by completing tasks weeks late.

3. Use a consistent reporting period

Common cycles:

• Weekly (for planners)
• Monthly (for site/operations managers)
• Quarterly (for executives and audit readiness)

The key is consistency—drift destroys trend visibility.

4. Segment your PM compliance

To turn compliance into a diagnostic tool, break it down by:

• Asset criticality
• Work centre / production line
• Technician or team
• Task type
• Site (for multi-site organisations)

This immediately shows where the system is failing, not just that it is failing.

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Why PM Compliance Breaks Down

PM compliance does not fail randomly. It usually fails in predictable, repeating patterns.

1. Unrealistic scheduling

Planners schedule more PMs than technicians can realistically complete based on labour availability, shift structure and asset access.

2. Excessive reactive work

A high percentage of reactive jobs cannibalises PM time, pushing tasks late or off the schedule entirely.

3. Poor PM design

Many PM programmes contain outdated, redundant or low-value tasks that clog the schedule.

4. Parts and tooling delays

A PM cannot start if the required kit, consumables or replacement components are missing.

5. Approvals and workflow friction

Slow sign-offs, multi-step workflows, or paper-based processes delay PM completion.

6. Data quality issues

PMs marked "complete" with no timestamp, duplicate tasks, or incorrect schedule dates all distort compliance reporting.

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How to Improve PM Compliance: A Practical Playbook

Improving PM compliance requires both operational discipline and schedule optimisation. Below is a practical, step-by-step improvement framework used by high-performing maintenance teams.

Step 1 — Audit your PM load

Export the last 6–12 months of PMs and look for:

• Tasks consistently late
• Tasks frequently skipped
• Tasks with unclear instructions
• Tasks with unrealistic durations
• Tasks that don't prevent any known failure mode

Remove or consolidate low-value PMs. Strengthen PMs that target real failure modes.

Step 2 — Stabilise reactive work

You can't improve compliance while the plant is in firefighting mode.

Actions:

• Prioritise eliminating top downtime drivers
• Apply simple root-cause analysis for repeat failures
• Introduce a planned work ratio target (typically 60–70% planned)

Once reactive load falls, PM compliance naturally rises.

Step 3 — Build a realistic schedule

Use resource-based scheduling, not date-based scheduling.

Best practice:

• Match PM volume to available labour hours
• Schedule around production windows
• Avoid bunching workload on particular days
• Use automated reminders and mobile access

Step 4 — Improve PM execution

Technicians must be empowered to complete PMs efficiently.

Support mechanisms:

• Clear digital checklists
• Photos of failure modes to look for
• Tooling lists
• Auto-generated storeroom pick lists
• Runtime/availability guidance from operations

Step 5 — Create a weekly cadence

High-performing teams run:

• Weekly schedule review
• Daily PM compliance snapshot
• Weekly backlog review
• Monthly performance and resource planning

Consistency beats intensity.

Step 6 — Hold clear ownership

Assign compliance accountability across roles:

• Technician → task execution
• Planner → schedule quality
• Supervisor → barrier removal & resources
• Maintenance manager → overall compliance and reporting
• Operations → asset access and resource support

When ownership is shared, compliance collapses.

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How to Report PM Compliance to Stakeholders

This is where most guides stop short. But reporting is what turns compliance from a metric into a decision-making tool.

What Leaders Actually Need to See

Different stakeholders care about different views:

Maintenance Manager

• Weekly compliance %
• Overdue tasks
• Backlog pressure
• Team/technician breakdown

Operations Manager

• PM compliance by line or asset
• PMs missed due to access issues
• Downtime correlation

Plant Manager / Director

• Trend over last 6–12 months
• Compliance vs unplanned downtime
• Risk indicators for critical assets

Executives / Finance

• Cost of missed PMs
• Asset risk trend
• Compliance vs maintenance cost curve
• Progress against reliability roadmap

Your Reporting Template (Use This)

Your PM compliance report should show:

1. Overall PM compliance (%)
2. Trend line (6–12 months)
3. Compliance by criticality (A/B/C assets)
4. Overdue PMs (count and %)
5. Reactive vs planned maintenance (%)
6. Backlog age profile
7. PMs causing breakdowns when missed
8. Estimated cost avoidance from PM execution

This turns compliance into a business intelligence asset, not just an engineering metric.

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A Simple PM Compliance Dashboard Layout

Your dashboard should include:

• A large top-line KPI (overall compliance %)
• A trend chart
• A breakdown by line/asset
• Overdue work banners
• Backlog chart
• Correlation between PM compliance and downtime

Plants that adopt this structure typically see:

• Clearer weekly focus
• Better cross-functional alignment
• Faster decision-making
• Improved trust from leadership
• Reduced firefighting

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PM Compliance Benchmarks (Realistic Numbers)

Based on typical manufacturing environments:

• > 95% — World-class, sustainable with strong planning
• 85–95% — Good, proactive environment
• 70–85% — Needs attention, risk increasing
• < 70% — Firefighting environment; expect high downtime

These ranges vary by industry and maturity level, but they hold across FMCG, utilities, oil & gas, heavy industry, logistics and food/bev.

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Putting It All Together: A 90-Day PM Compliance Turnaround Plan

If you need to improve PM compliance quickly, use this structured 90-day plan.

Days 1–30: Stabilise & Clean

• Audit PM tasks
• Remove low-value PMs
• Correct durations
• Fix data fields
• Stabilise reactive work

Days 31–60: Optimise the Schedule

• Build resource-based schedules
• Improve communication with operations
• Load-balance PM frequency
• Introduce mobile workflows

Days 61–90: Build Reporting & Culture

• Launch weekly dashboard
• Train supervisors on compliance governance
• Report trends to operations/leadership
• Set new target ranges and create accountability loops

Most plants see a 10–20% improvement within the first 90 days when this process is followed consistently.

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Conclusion

PM compliance is more than a percentage. It is a reflection of your plant's discipline, stability, and reliability culture. High compliance reduces unplanned downtime, increases asset life, strengthens audit readiness, and gives leadership confidence that maintenance is under control.

But it only works when measured correctly, improved systematically, and reported clearly.

If you want to turn PM compliance from a simple KPI into a strategic operational tool, start with clean data, realistic schedules, and transparent reporting. The results follow quickly.

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How LeanReport Can Help

Most plants know their PM compliance is slipping long before leadership sees the issue. The challenge is time: planners and reliability engineers rarely have hours to clean exports, rebuild pivot tables, and rebuild dashboards.

LeanReport automates all of it.

With one upload of your CMMS export, LeanReport instantly generates:

• PM compliance dashboards
• Backlog analysis
• Overdue work summaries
• Failure mode insights
• Downtime vs compliance correlations
• Executive-ready visualisations

If you want to get clearer PM compliance reporting without spending hours in spreadsheets, you can:

Upload a sample CSV and generate your first report in minutes.