In many maintenance departments, a technician's day looks like this: a breakdown call, a walk to the store for a part that isn't there, a search for the right tool, a wait for the operator to stop the machine, a call to an engineer for the manual, and finally an hour of actual repair. The team is busy all day, yet the backlog keeps growing. Maintenance planning and scheduling fixes this by preparing work before it starts and organising it so technicians spend more time actually fixing things.
Planning and scheduling are different jobs
- Planning answers how: what are the steps, what skills are needed, which parts and tools, what permits and isolations, how long will it take?
- Scheduling answers when and who: which jobs go into next week, in which production window, assigned to which technicians?
Mixing the two — or doing neither — is why so much maintenance time is wasted.
What a good job plan contains
- Clear description of the work and the asset.
- Step-by-step instructions for anything non-trivial, or a link to the standard procedure.
- Skills and number of people required.
- Estimated hours per skill.
- Parts list with part numbers and quantities — reserved or kitted in advance.
- Special tools and equipment: lifting gear, alignment tools, test instruments.
- Safety requirements: isolation procedure, permits, PPE.
- Drawings, manuals and photos from previous repairs.
- Production requirements: machine downtime needed and when.
For recurring jobs, the plan is created once and reused — each time with improvements from technician feedback. A library of job plans is one of the most valuable assets a maintenance team can build.
Kitting
For planned jobs, parts are picked from stores before the job, placed in a labelled kit and delivered to the job site or a staging area. Technicians start work with everything ready. Kitting alone often eliminates hours of walking and waiting per week.
Which work should be planned?
Not every job justifies detailed planning. Emergency breakdowns are attended immediately, with planning limited to what's needed for safety. Small routine tasks need only a standard checklist. The focus should be on planned corrective work, preventive maintenance with significant scope, shutdown jobs and repetitive repairs — the work where preparation saves the most time.
Weekly scheduling
A simple weekly rhythm works for most plants:
- Mid-week: the planner reviews ready work — jobs fully planned with parts available.
- Scheduling meeting with production: agree which machines will be available when, and which jobs fit those windows.
- Load the schedule to about 80–90% of available technician hours, leaving room for breakdowns.
- Publish the schedule before the week starts.
- Daily: supervisors assign jobs from the weekly schedule and adjust for breakdowns.
- End of week: measure what was completed and why other jobs slipped.
Production involvement is essential. A schedule that maintenance creates alone will collide with the production plan.
Backlog management
The backlog is all identified work not yet completed. Keep it visible and clean:
- Separate work awaiting planning, awaiting parts, awaiting shutdown and ready to schedule.
- Review old jobs monthly — close duplicates and jobs no longer needed.
- Track backlog in weeks of work for each skill: total estimated hours divided by weekly available hours.
A growing backlog in one skill is an early warning that you need more capacity, contract support or a change in priorities.
Measuring improvement
- Schedule compliance — scheduled jobs completed as planned.
- Planned work percentage — share of hours spent on planned versus unplanned work.
- PM compliance — preventive tasks done on time.
- Backlog in weeks by skill.
- Estimate accuracy — planned versus actual hours.
- Breakdown hours and MTBF — the long-term result.
Wrench time studies — observing technicians over a sample of shifts — are revealing but should be done openly and positively. The purpose is to find what stops technicians working, not to criticise them.
Starting small
You don't need a planning department on day one. Start with:
- One person owning a weekly schedule, even part-time.
- A weekly meeting with production.
- Kitting for the top ten recurring jobs.
- Job plans for those jobs, improved each time they're done.
- Tracking schedule compliance.
An example: a plastics plant
A plastics processor with eight technicians had constant overtime and a backlog of over three hundred open jobs. A senior technician was given half their time to plan and schedule. They cleaned the backlog to a hundred and twenty real jobs, created plans and kits for recurring mould and dryer work, and started a weekly meeting with production. Within four months, planned work rose from about a third to over half of hours, overtime dropped significantly and breakdowns began to fall as PM compliance improved.
Common mistakes
- Planners pulled into breakdowns and becoming firefighters.
- Schedules loaded to 100% with no room for emergencies.
- Scheduling jobs whose parts haven't arrived.
- Production not involved in scheduling.
- Job plans never improved with technician feedback.
How software helps
A CMMS holds job plans, parts reservations, the backlog by status, weekly schedules and technician assignments, and calculates schedule compliance, backlog weeks and estimate accuracy automatically. Technicians see their jobs, plans and parts on a mobile app. See maintenance management software.
Talk to us about planning and scheduling maintenance work.
Shutdown and turnaround planning
Planned shutdowns concentrate a large amount of work into a short window. Start collecting shutdown jobs months ahead, plan and kit each one, order long-lead parts early, line up contractors and build a sequence that respects isolations and access. A short daily progress review during the shutdown keeps the critical jobs on track.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between planning and scheduling?
Planning decides how a job will be done: steps, skills, parts, tools, permits and estimated time. Scheduling decides when it will be done and by whom, in coordination with production.
What is wrench time?
The share of a technician's shift spent actually working on equipment, as opposed to waiting for parts, permits, access, instructions or travel. In unplanned environments it is often surprisingly low.
Do small factories need a dedicated planner?
Not necessarily a full-time person, but someone must own planning and scheduling for part of their time. Without ownership, every job becomes urgent.
What is a healthy maintenance backlog?
Many teams aim for two to four weeks of ready work. Much less suggests the team is under-loaded or work isn't being identified; much more suggests capacity or prioritisation problems.
What is schedule compliance?
The percentage of scheduled jobs completed in the scheduled week. It shows whether the schedule is realistic and whether breakdowns are pulling people away.
