Preventive Maintenance checklist in 5 easy steps

A preventive maintenance checklist is a plan for organizing company resources to ensure maintenance tasks are performed. Use these 5 simple steps to create it

Creating a preventive maintenance checklist is one way to protect your business from unplanned downtime and risks and it’s key to lowering maintenance costs, improving asset lifespan and efficiency.

With a few easy steps and the right preventive maintenance software, a maintenance team can create an efficient preventive maintenance checklist for organizing company resources to ensure maintenance tasks are performed.

This article will explain the benefits of creating preventive maintenance checklists and how to manage them using a facility management software that we recommend you to immediately try to produce and control all the operations necessary for maintenance.

What is a preventative maintenance checklist?

A preventative maintenance checklist collects the detailed list of tasks that technicians must complete during an asset’s maintenance process, ensuring that all steps are performed correctly.

There are two primary types of preventive maintenance checklists:

1. Pass-or-fail checklist, and
2. Step-by-step checklist.

Pass-or-fail checklist

The pass-or-fail checklist can identify problems and prevent bigger issues by scheduling maintenance inspections sooner than usual. This type of checklist collects a series of checks in the form of statements that may be negative or positive.

For instance, imagine that a maintenance technician needs to verify that the temperature of a machine is always around a certain range of values, a checklist of this type would guide him in the control of the temperature and in compliance with the required standards. The check can therefore be passed or not but, if the result is negative, a thorough check will be required.

Step-by-step​ checklist

A step-by-step checklist outlines instructions for changing a specific part from beginning to end. This checklist ensures no crucial steps are skipped during a PM so failure can be avoided.

Consider, for instance, inspections on safety devices, which must be carried out at regular intervals. A feasible step-by-step checklist would involve the following operations:

1. check inventory;
2. check and restock first aid kit;
3. check the condition of safety signs;
4. check fire extinguishers and any firefighting equipment;
5. inspect for safety hazards, including falling hazards;
6. test smoke detectors;
7. etc.

Types of checklists for preventive maintenance

What Are the Benefits of Preventive Maintenance Checklists?

The benefits are related to standardization and speed and include:

1. reduce the chance of human error: implementing checklists allows to avoid occasional errors due to operators’ memory gaps;
2. rapid problem solving: maintenance technicians can quickly check machinery continuously and monitor their equipment by mechanically performing the same operations and reducing maintenance times;
3. workflow standardization: it is easier for operators to complete maintenance routine tasks if they know what to do;
4. establish continuous improvement: by following the checklists, workers improve their professional skills, becoming autonomous;
5. greater safety: a maintenance plan carried out correctly results in a reduction of the sudden risks of breakage and damage and therefore greater safety of the working environment.

Benefits of using a preventative maintenance checklist

Preventive Maintenance Checklist in 5 Easy Steps

Here below 5 essential basic steps to follow to create it effectively:

1. establish in detail the objectives of the preventive maintenance plan;
2. include safety measures, which must be an integral part of any intervention to be carried out;
3. collect specific data with clarity and sequentiality, in order to quickly interpret the tasks to be carried out. It is necessary to be concise;
4. include photos and diagrams, to facilitate the process of understanding;;
5. delegate maintenance tasks to the right people, who have the appropriate training to understand how to properly carry out maintenance procedures.

How to manage maintenance checklists with a CMMS software?

Regardless of your industry, a CMMS software allows you to create and manage checklists in a customized manner.

Having the right software, enables you to streamline routine tasks to a large extent. You can rely on centralized and digitized systems that simplify work, enabling a correct asset management with safe data storing and protection.

In this way, each user can access all the various checklists from a common database, with also the possibility of creating new ones, updating them automatically according to needs and sharing them in real time.

For this reason, I recommend you to immediately try a CMMS software to automate the entire asset management process and manage your preventive maintenance checklists.