Proper preventive maintenance (PM) is the biggest determinant of a facility’s uptime. When you stay ahead of wear, you avoid many of the breakdowns that halt production and burn cash. The hard part is building a plan that keeps maintenance teams aligned across lines, shifts, and sites.
This guide makes it simple. We go system by system, sharing customizable checklists and showing you how to load them into a computerized maintenance management system (CMMS).
Key takeaways
- A comprehensive preventive maintenance checklist (PM) is simple, specific, and owned by someone on your team.
- Start with the big systems—production equipment, electrical, HVAC, plumbing, safety, material handling, and facility checks.
- Match frequency to original equipment manufacturer (OEM) guidance and actual use. Assets that carry heavy loads or sit in harsh areas (compressors, high-speed conveyors, etc.) need more PM touchpoints than light-use equipment.
- Tie every task to a work order so you capture parts, labor, and notes in one place.
- A CMMS makes PM easy to track and improve over time.
How do you prepare a preventive maintenance checklist?
Start with this template. In the example below, we assume you manage PM for a mid-sized manufacturing facility. Use it as a starting point—swap in your own equipment, intervals, and local safety rules.
As you go through it, add any missing tasks and load the final list into your PM schedule or CMMS.
Download your free preventive maintenance checklists PDFs
Download our preventive maintenance checklist for step-by-step tasks, pass/fail criteria, and fields to log labor, parts, and downtime.
How to customize this preventive maintenance checklist
Every facility runs a little differently. Use the template above as your baseline, then tailor it so your preventive maintenance program fits your people, equipment, and budget.
Here’s how:
Start by matching PM frequency to the OEM
Start with the manufacturer’s guidance. Use the manual to set your first preventive maintenance schedule for routine items, such as filters, belts, lubricants, and inspections. Sticking to original equipment manufacturer (OEM) timing keeps you within warranty and prevents the small, routine misses that turn into breakdowns—like a clogged filter overheating a motor.
Adjust for usage (runtime and cycles)
Heavy-use assets need shorter intervals, while light-use assets can often go longer between checks. Track meters, hours, or cycles and tune your preventive maintenance tasks so techs service what’s actually wearing out. This keeps equipment in good shape without over-servicing.
Factor in the environment
Hot, dusty, wet, or corrosive areas speed up wear. For assets near ovens, wash-down zones, docks, or outdoors, shorten the interval and add specific condition checks to your rounds—vibration, surface temperature, and airflow.
Those quick reads help you spot rising heat, drag, or misalignment before they cause downtime. In clean, climate-controlled spaces, you can usually stretch the gap between services.
Plug it into your PM schedule (and your CMMS)
Load the final maintenance checklist into your preventive maintenance software (CMMS), assign owners, and set parts and time estimates. Use mobile work orders, photos, and pass/fail limits so a maintenance technician can complete tasks efficiently and you can track results.
Need a walkthrough? See our guide to building a PM schedule.
What’s the ROI on preventive maintenance?
Preventive maintenance delivers value in four key ways:
- Less downtime. Routine maintenance tasks catch wear early, so you avoid unplanned stops and keep lines moving. Fewer emergency shutdowns = fewer missed orders.
- Lower repair spend. Planned service and on-time parts swaps are far cheaper than costly repairs after a failure. You also avoid rush freight and overtime tied to reactive maintenance.
- Longer asset life. Greasing moving parts, changing air filters, and keeping sensors calibrated slows wear. Equipment runs cooler, safer, and stays productive for more years.
- Safer, cleaner audits. Checked fire extinguishers, tested alarms, and documented inspections reduce risk and help you pass compliance reviews without scrambling.
So, how can you reliably measure your return on investment?
Track the simple stuff first. Compare scheduled maintenance hours vs. breakdown hours, watch your equipment downtime trend, log parts and labor per asset, and review completion rates for preventive maintenance tasks.
Over time, you should see fewer equipment failures, faster fixes, and steadier output. If you’re using preventive maintenance software like a CMMS, dashboards make this easy to see and share.
What’s the best way to track preventive maintenance?
Short answer: Use a CMMS.
A computerized maintenance management system gives your maintenance team one place to keep track of all things related to preventive maintenance. It can:
- Plan the preventive maintenance schedule
- Assign work orders
- Give technicians step-by-step checklists on their phones or tablets
- Keep an audit-ready maintenance history
… all within a cloud-based, mobile-friendly tool.
Why a CMMS beats spreadsheets
Spreadsheets have inherent limitations. They’re static documents that can’t automatically task out work orders or send reminders. They’re also difficult to use on mobile devices, making it hard to upload photos or track progress while moving between jobs.
A CMMS centralizes work order management with real-time updates from technicians. A maintenance manager can see when a job starts, how it’s progressing, and where to step in. That visibility helps you stay ahead of reactive maintenance and costly repairs.
What you can track (and automate) with a CMMS
Instead of juggling spreadsheets and manual logs, a CMMS gives you a single source of truth for preventive maintenance—making it easier to track, automate, and optimize every moving piece.
- PM schedules and checklists: Create repeatable work orders tied to meters, dates, or events. Techs get notifications and complete step-by-step procedures on mobile, even during a busy shift. Your preventive maintenance checklist becomes standard work rather than tribal knowledge.
- Parts and inventory: Keep spare parts in good shape and on hand. Barcode scans update stock, helping you avoid delays and rush shipping when equipment failures happen.
- History and compliance: Every completed task, photo, and signature rolls into the asset’s maintenance history—an essential part of audits and reliability reviews.
- Team communication: Built-in chat keeps maintenance personnel, production, and safety aligned without extra apps.
How to get started
Load your maintenance checklist into the CMMS, assign owners, and set first-pass frequencies using OEM guidance.
From there, use dashboards to track scheduled maintenance vs. breakdown hours and tighten intervals on assets that show early wear. The right platform streamlines PM scheduling, work order creation, and reporting so you can identify potential issues faster and keep equipment in great condition.
For a practical walkthrough of how CMMS software supports a preventive maintenance program, check out our blog, What Is the Role of CMMS in Preventive Maintenance?
Reduce downtime by automating preventive maintenance
The fastest way to lift uptime is to move PM into a system your team will actually use. MaintainX makes this simple. You can:
- Build your preventive maintenance schedule
- Assign mobile work orders
- Capture photos and sign-offs
- Track completion in real time
From here, it’s plug-and-play: download your customizable checklist, set OEM intervals, add owners and parts, and you’re ready to go live.
FAQs
How do you prepare a preventive maintenance checklist?
Start with your assets. List what you own, rank each item by risk to safety and production, and note any history of equipment failures.
Next, set your preventive maintenance schedule. Use calendar time for items like monthly safety checks and meter readings (hours, cycles, mileage) for high-use equipment. Be sure to include OEM recommendations for service intervals and inspections. These guidelines are designed to maximize performance and lifespan while preventing avoidable breakdowns.
Finally, load everything into a CMMS so a maintenance technician can open a work order on a phone, follow the checklist, record parts and labor, and close the job. Review results every month and tune the plan to cut unplanned downtime and costly repairs.
Which systems should I prioritize when building a preventive maintenance checklist?
Start where a failure hurts most:
- Production equipment and machinery: moving parts, lubrication points, alignment, guards, and sensors
- Electrical: panels, breakers, terminations, UPS units, and damaged cords
- HVAC systems: air filters, belts, coils, refrigerant levels, and controls
- Water and plumbing: pumps, water pressure, backflow preventers, water heaters, and leaks
- Fire and life safety: fire extinguishers, sprinklers, smoke detectors, and carbon monoxide alarms
- Material handling: forklifts, conveyors, dock levelers, and restraints
- Facility basics: lighting, exits, spill kits, and housekeeping routes
Cover these areas first, then expand from there.
What is the best preventive maintenance checklist software?
There is no one “best” preventive maintenance checklist software for every facility. Look for cloud-based CMMS software that makes checklists fast to complete and easy to track with features like:
- Mobile work orders (with offline access)
- Time- and meter-based scheduling
- Required fields, photos, and pass/fail limits for clean data
- Parts and inventory management with low-stock alerts
- Asset history and dashboards for mean time to repair (MTTR), completion rates, and costs
If your maintenance team spends most of its day on the floor, a mobile-first CMMS like MaintainX is a strong fit.
How often should preventive maintenance be performed?
Follow the OEM as your baseline, then adjust by use and environment. For example, a conveyor running two shifts in a dusty area may need weekly checks, while a lightly used pump in a clean room can go monthly or quarterly. Review your data and change frequencies as needed.
What are the types of preventive maintenance strategies?
Most preventive maintenance programs mix these methods:
- Time-based PM: Perform routine maintenance on a calendar (weekly, monthly, annually)
- Meter-based PM: Trigger work by runtime, cycles, or starts
- Condition-based PM (predictive): Watch real-time indicators—vibration, temperature, oil analysis—and service when readings show wear
- Run-to-failure (for non-critical items): Allow low-risk assets to fail and replace them quickly
How does predictive maintenance differ from preventive maintenance?
Preventive maintenance follows a set schedule to prevent failure. Predictive maintenance uses sensor data—vibration, temperature, oil analysis—to predict failure and service the asset at the right moment. Many teams start with PM and add predictive tasks to a few critical assets.
What is the 10% rule of preventive maintenance?
The 10% rule says you can complete a PM up to 10% early or late and still consider it on time. For a task due every 30 days, that gives you a three-day window. Use it to keep schedules realistic without skipping work.
The MaintainX team is made up of maintenance and manufacturing experts. They’re here to share industry knowledge, explain product features, and help workers get more done with MaintainX!
