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Maintenance / Preventive Maintenance / Maintenance Manager

Scheduling with Date Ranges (Concept)

Preventive Maintenance work is defined in terms of an interval, such as annually, quarterly, monthly, etc. The specific date on which a job is done is less important than the fact that a job is done within a certain date range. For example, an annual a PM job for a boiler inspection for a school needs to be done in the summer when classes are out. This is a seasonal PM, but it's not critical that the job be done at the beginning, middle, or end of the summer. It just needs to be done sometime between July 1 and August 30. Another example is for a quarterly PM that is part of warranty compliance. The PM is scheduled for every 90 days, and should be completed within 9 days of the end of the quarter in order to remain in compliance.

Most PM work is be considered as routine, which can be delayed to some degree, or even indefinitely. For this reason, it makes sense to think about PM Dates as a Date Range. There is the scheduled date, which is the date that is based on the schedule interval and the priority of that schedule/equipment/location. Then there is the due date, the last date by which that PM should be done.

SLAs in V.23 can optionally be defined with a Time to Complete, which is used to calculate the Due Date of a work request. The Due Date is set as a certain amount of time after the date/time when the work is Requested. This approach makes sense for high-priority Corrective Maintenance work, because that is work that should be done within a set time-frame, and this also tells the Requestor what to expect. Setting the Time to Complete also makes sense for outsourced work, where a contract governs the turnaround time for work to be completed by the service provider. However, this method of Due Date calculation might not make sense for in house staff when it comes to performing non-urgent Corrective Maintenance work or PM work.

For PM work that is performed with internal staff, the Due Date can be based on a date range, and not be calculated based on the SLA. To accommodate this, the PM Schedules table offers these fields:

Generating PM Schedule Dates

When you generate PM Schedule Dates from the PM Schedule, the routine completes three fields in the PM Schedule Dates table: 

For example, suppose you have a monthly PM Schedule, with a boundary of 5 days before and after. The scheduling routine generates PM Schedule Date records with these values:

PMS Code PM Date Earliest Date Latest Date
54 9/1/2016 8/28/2016 9/4/2016
54

10/1/2016

 9/27/2016 10/4/2016
54 11/1/2016 11/1/2016 11/4/2016
54 12/1/2016 11/27/2016 12/4/2016

PM Work Requests

The PM Date value determines the value of Date Assigned in the Work Requests table. However, PM Schedules can be set to override the SLA Time to Complete, so that the work request escalation dates are defined by the PM Schedule Date itself (the PM Date - Latest value). The workflow rule that generates PM Work Orders presents messages asking if you want to override the SLA.

Example 1: Set the Days Late Boundary, and set Work Request Due Date from PM Schedule

This is the prescribed method, where the Maintenance Manager uses the PM Schedule to control when work is due. SLAs still perform the usual work request routing and execute any optional steps (such as verification or notifications), but the Due Date (also called the Escalation for Completion date) will be based on the PM Schedule Date's Latest Date value. This keeps the PM Plan aligned with the work request dates, and helps to ensure that there is no disconnect between the expectations of the Maintenance Manager and the maintenance staff who will actually perform the work. When the Maintenance Manager uses the PM Planner view to see when a PM Schedule is scheduled and when it is due, that information will match the dates on the work request.

Example 2: Set the Days Late Boundary, and set Work Request Due Date from the SLA

This method is useful if the Maintenance Manager is concerned with scheduling work within a reasonable time frame for a PM Schedule, but the Due Date of the work is less critical and can therefore be set by the SLA. This can be useful for non-critical PM work that is not subject to regulations or warranties in terms of when the work must be performed. The Maintenance Manager can choose a to-do date within the date range (based on the Days Late Boundary and Days Early Boundary), and the SLA adds a certain number of days to that date to determine the Work Request Due Date. If no value is set for the SLA Time to Complete, then the work request will have no Due Date and will not be escalated at any time.

Example 3: Do not set the Days Late Boundary, and set Work Request Due Date from PM Schedule

Maintenance Managers can plan maintenance on equipment systems. This type of work often requires that some equipment be shut down so that craftspersons can work on the subcomponents. Each subcomponent may have its own PM Procedure and work request. In this case, the PM Schedules for those subcomponents may not benefit from a Days Late Boundary, because the work should be done on the exact day that is set by the Maintenance Manager to minimize equipment downtime. The work request Due Date should also be set to the same day as the Date to Perform. The Maintenance Manager can ensure that this Due Date is correct by defining the PM Schedule so that the Due Date comes from the PM Schedule and not the SLA. Alternatively, the manager can adjust the SLA for that PM work so that the Time to Complete is also set to less than one day, such as 4 hours.

Example 4: Do not set the Days Late Boundary, and set Work Request Due Date from the SLA

PM Schedules default to having a null value for Days Late Boundary, with the Due Date coming from the SLA. No date range applies for these schedules; the work will be presumed to be done on the same day as appears on the PM Planner.