Maintenance KPIs
Maintenance KPIs: 10 metrics worth tracking, with formulas
A short list of maintenance metrics that genuinely help decisions, the formula for each, and the job-card data needed to calculate them honestly.
Plain-English definition
What are maintenance KPIs?
Maintenance KPIs (key performance indicators) are measures that show how reliable equipment is, how well the team keeps up with planned work, and how quickly it responds to failures.
The 10 maintenance KPIs
Pick a few that answer the questions your managers actually ask. Tracking all of them badly is worse than tracking three of them well.
| KPI | Formula | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|
| MTTR (mean time to repair) | Total active repair time ÷ number of repairs | How quickly failures are fixed |
| MTBF (mean time between failures) | Total operating time ÷ number of failures | How reliable an asset is |
| Downtime | Sum of time assets are unavailable when needed | The production cost of failures |
| PM compliance | PM jobs completed on time ÷ PM jobs due × 100 | Whether routine work is keeping up |
| Planned maintenance percentage | Planned hours ÷ total maintenance hours × 100 | Proactive versus reactive balance |
| Reactive work ratio | Unplanned jobs ÷ all jobs × 100 | How much time goes to firefighting |
| Backlog | Open job hours ÷ weekly available hours | Weeks of work waiting |
| Overdue jobs | Count of open jobs past their due date | Where follow-up is needed |
| Waiting time share | Waiting time ÷ total job duration × 100 | How much delay is outside the repair |
| Repeat failures | Breakdowns on the same asset within a set period | Where root cause work is needed |
Benchmarks: use with care
Commonly quoted targets include a planned maintenance percentage of around 80% or more, PM compliance of 90% or more and a backlog of two to four weeks. Treat these as conversation starters, not grades. A small plant with old equipment and a large plant with new lines will rightly look different.
The more useful comparison is your own trend: is downtime on critical assets falling, and is planned work rising as a share of the total?
Getting trustworthy data
Every KPI above depends on a few honest timestamps and classifications on each job: when it was raised, started, waiting, completed and when the asset went back in service, plus whether the work was planned or unplanned.
If those are written on paper after the fact, the KPI measures memory. If they are captured on a digital job card while the work happens, the KPI measures the work.
How UPWRKS does it
KPIs that come straight from the job cards.
UPWRKS builds reports from completed job cards, so planned versus unplanned work, breakdowns, downtime and repair time can always be traced back to the jobs behind them.
Timestamps, job type and waiting reasons are captured as people work.
Each job type is set as planned or unplanned once.
Every number links back to the job cards that created it.
KPIs built from memory or re-typed spreadsheets are argued about. KPIs built from timestamped job cards are trusted.
Common questions
Maintenance KPIs FAQs
What are the most important maintenance KPIs?
For most teams: downtime on critical assets, MTTR, MTBF, PM compliance and the planned-versus-unplanned split. Add backlog once work is consistently recorded.
What is a good MTTR?
There is no universal figure; it depends on the equipment. Track your own MTTR per asset type over time and separate waiting time from active repair time.
How do I calculate PM compliance?
Divide the number of preventive jobs completed within their due window by the number of preventive jobs that were due, then multiply by 100.
Does UPWRKS calculate maintenance KPIs?
UPWRKS reports planned versus unplanned work, breakdowns, downtime, repair time and history from completed job cards, with spreadsheet exports for further analysis.