Cómo crear una lista de verificación de mantenimiento preventivo

Preventive Maintenance Checklists: Your Blueprint for Peak Performance

Keeping your production process running is paramount to any business’s ability to serve its customers and make a profit. Unplanned equipment downtime hurts your bottom line, causes considerable stress, and is an unfortunate inevitability. 

Fortunately, you can curb the threat of unplanned downtime by effectively planning routine maintenance and inspections. 

Preventive maintenance is crucial to ensuring your maintenance operations are run like a well-oiled machine. However, your endeavors will only be successful if your practices are strong. Preventive maintenance checklists help create a practical approach to handling PM schedules and tasks. 

Keep reading to learn how to optimize your maintenance operations with an effective preventive maintenance checklist. 

What Is a Preventive Maintenance Checklist?

A preventive maintenance (PM) checklist details the tasks that your technicians must complete during a maintenance check. 

It will include both time-based (routine) and condition-based (non-routine) tasks, ensuring that critical issues are both prevented and corrected. A preventive maintenance program detects and prevents costly and potentially dangerous problems in the future. 

If you develop and follow a comprehensive plan with a detailed PM checklist, your company will see better results from your maintenance activities.

UpKeep has revolutionized preventive maintenance checklists. 

Our maintenance management software has created an intuitive system for maintenance managers and business owners to optimize their preventive maintenance practices without missing a beat. 

By combining the capabilities of a computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) and an enterprise assets management system (EAM), we’ve provided clients with an all-inclusive tool that meets their preventive maintenance checklist needs. 

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Why Is It Important To Have a Preventive Maintenance Checklist?

Well-developed preventive maintenance plans offer up to a 545% ROI, meaning that each dollar spent on preventive maintenance saves five dollars or more in the future.

Consider a vital piece of equipment that costs $275,000 to replace, not including the lost revenue from production downtime. Without maintenance, it may last five years. With preventive maintenance that costs $4,000 per year, the machinery can last up to 10 years. The longer the equipment lasts without replacement, the higher your return on investment. The total savings over ten years would be close to $235,000 — not including the savings from continued production and lack of downtime.

Preventive maintenance protects your investments by increasing your equipment's lifespan and reducing repair and replacement costs. In addition, it typically doesn’t add to downtime costs because maintenance checks are performed during off-hours.

UpKeep helps maintenance managers and business owners manage preventive maintenance checklists and maintenance operations. Compatible with both iOS and Android devices, our advanced mobile software allows you to:

• Automate work order submissions

• Monitor and track work orders

• Attach vital documents and maintenance manuals to work orders

• Communicate with third-party vendors

• Manage your maintenance inventory

• And more

6 Benefits of Implementing a Preventive Maintenance Checklist for Your Maintenance Practices

#1: Reduced Incidence of Human Error

One key reason to implement PM checklists is that they reduce the impact of human error. No one is immune to the occasional mistake or memory lapse. In fact, studies show that even competent and properly trained technicians will make a mistake once every 500 times they perform a task — and once every 25 times when factors like fatigue are introduced!

By removing the need to memorize every step of every inspection, you’ll have more consistent PMs since important tasks are less likely to be left out.

UpKeep allows users to create detailed PM checklists featuring:

• Automated work order tracking and assignment

• Previous details regarding work orders

• Documents and manuals relevant to the equipment and task

#2: Workplace Consistency and Continuity

One of the harsh realities facing manufacturers and other industries today is the growing skills gap. About 10,000 workers reach age 65 every day, meaning they’re retiring from their jobs — and taking their decades of experience with them. 

To make matters worse, not enough potential hires are entering the manufacturing workforce to replace these labor losses. McKinsey & Company, a multinational management consulting firm, reports a 43% gap between new hires and the number of unfilled positions since 2020. 

PM checklists can reduce the impact of this level of turnover, allowing inspection and routine work practices to remain consistent as new workers replace retirees.

#3: Quicker Inspections

When used properly, preventive maintenance checklists can speed up inspections faster than if technicians relied on their memories alone. It’s simple to look at the list, check each item, respond, and move on to the next item.

In addition, when items on the checklist are put in the right sequence, they can reduce some of the back-and-forth travel that might occur during routine maintenance tasks.

UpKeeps preventive maintenance checklist software automates work orders around your PM schedule so that you are always prepared and up-to-date for inspections. 

#4: Improved Troubleshooting Practices

Much of today's maintenance relies on troubleshooting. To be as efficient as possible, you’ll need to streamline your troubleshooting processes with a detailed checklist. 

Items to be checked during an inspection are limited to those placed on the list, which saves time when trying to find the root cause of an equipment failure. In addition, it will keep the process consistent, thereby limiting the number of reasons why something might go wrong with a given piece of equipment.

#5: Streamlined PM Planning

With well-designed PM checklists, each recurring task has a set procedure and amount of time to complete, making the maintenance planning process much simpler. Standardizing these tasks with checklists also makes it easy to determine which tools and materials are needed for each task.

Ultimately, maintenance planners can focus more on optimizing workflows and improving reliability by spending less time planning individual tasks.

UpKeep helps you identify and prioritize your most valuable assets while also tracking planned downtime so you can strategically schedule maintenance tasks. 

#6: Improved Equipment Reliability

All of these benefits come down to improved equipment reliability. With a quality preventive maintenance checklist:

• Maintenance technicians are less likely to miss items during inspections

• Each task is thoroughly planned out with the proper supplies on hand

• Schedules are optimized to avoid downtime and avoid delays

To boil it down, when your preventive maintenance operations are backed by a quality PM checklist, you’ll:

• Experience fewer maintenance errors

• Waste less time on breakdowns and delays

• Elongate the lifespan of your equipment

• And save more money

How To Create the Ultimate Preventive Maintenance Checklist

Create the ultimate preventive maintenance checklist with these helpful tips from UpKeep. 

What Are the 5 Important Tasks That Should Be Included in a Preventive Maintenance Plan?

Five main vital tasks that should be featured in your preventive maintenance checklist are:

• Equipment inspections

• Parts and equipment cleaning

• Lubrication of rotating parts

• Machinery power inspections and calibrations

• Scheduled equipment repair and replacement

UpKeep can help you prioritize high-priority tasks and equipment without missing a beat. Simply create a preventive maintenance checklist and schedule, and our software will automatically create and submit work orders for you. 

8 Steps for Creating a Comprehensive Maintenance Checklist

There is no “one size fits all” maintenance checklist; rather, the perfect one depends on what type of equipment or facility you’re using in the first place. Preventive maintenance checklists can be divided into the following categories:

• Equipment and machines

• Buildings and facilities

• Vehicles and fleets

Creating your checklists is a process involving data and best practices and tailoring it to the needs of your business. Fortunately, you don’t have to start from scratch. Here are some tips for developing your PM checklist:

#1: Have a Clear Objective

First, you’ll want to precisely determine what you want to accomplish. Taking a look at your current maintenance data can be a good starting point. Some potential goals might include:

• Reducing maintenance costs

• Improving schedule compliance

• Minimizing production rejects

• Increasing equipment uptime

• Reducing the incidence of faults

• Improving safety

Your goals may include several of these items since some will support each other. Reducing equipment faults can increase uptime, improve safety, and minimize rejects. Some items may be a higher priority than others, which is where using existing data can help.

#2: Audit Your Equipment

Once you know what you need to accomplish, you’ll need to fully document your equipment and the state of your operations as they currently stand. As equipment breaks down and parts are replaced, many maintenance teams lose track of exactly what’s in their facilities, so taking a complete audit of each item will help simplify this process.

In addition to taking stock of each item, its model, and its serial number, you’ll need to outline the replacement parts it uses, its expected/past downtime, average repair response times, and the costs associated with maintaining it.

#3: Note Any Applicable Standards and Regulations

Most facilities need to meet strict health and safety requirements, and in some cases, that means keeping certain pieces of equipment in good repair. Federal and state regulations may have rules in place that require specific maintenance tasks and procedures. You’ll need to consider these compliance standards as you create your preventive maintenance checklist.

For example, the FDA outlines many standards and mandates regarding the maintenance management of manufacturers producing FDA-regulated products with its Current Good Manufacturing Practices (CGMP) regulations.

#4: Select Assets

Once you have your list of assets, outline the type of preventive maintenance tasks you’ll need to complete for each one. Some common tasks include:

• Inspection items (with specific parts to check)

• Lubrication

• Metering and condition monitoring

• Tuning and adjustments

• Changeover tasks

• Recurring part replacements

Along with these tasks, you’ll need to note the frequency, priority, and needed equipment for each one. Using existing checklists as a reference could help with that process.

When determining the priority for each task, it may help to conduct a failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA). This will help you determine what could go wrong, how it could impact your facility, and what you might do to prevent it.

#5: Outline PM Tasks for Each Asset

Once you have your tasks you want to complete for each asset, it will be time to put your list together. 

Each item on your checklist should be detailed enough to let technicians know exactly what they’re supposed to do, an estimation of how long it will take, and the items should be arranged in a sensible, sequential order.

Along with the list items, include spaces for responses, whether you’re using a pass/fail system or a more open-ended format. Also, be sure to include the other parts of a PM checklist discussed above.

Create a separate list for each asset or system you want to inspect. In some cases, your list might cover an entire building or process, while others might be machine-specific.

UpKeep allows you to easily prioritize, organize, and customize your task dashboard for detailed task management. 

#6: Offer Clear Instructions for Checklist Items

Once you have the tasks you want to complete for each asset, it will be time to assemble your list. Each item on your checklist should be detailed enough to let technicians know exactly what they’re supposed to do, an estimation of how long it will take, and the items should be arranged in a sensible, sequential order.

Along with the list items, include spaces for responses, whether you’re using a pass/fail system or a more open-ended format. Also, be sure to include the other parts of a PM checklist discussed above.

Create a separate list for each asset or system you want to inspect. In some cases, your list might cover an entire building or process, while others might be machine-specific.

#7: Train Your Personnel

Once you have your checklists created, you’ll need to ensure your maintenance team uses them properly. Often, there’s a bit of resistance to the adoption of checklists, but if you take the time to discuss why they’re important and demonstrate best practices, it can facilitate their use. It may take some time, but the end results are worth the effort.

#8: Track the Results and Adjust

As with any new maintenance process, you’ll want to track the results of your checklists as they’re used. Over time, you may need to add or subtract items from the list, adjust the time required to complete them, or retrain your technicians if you see signs of pencil whipping.

It may help to consider the initial rollout as a test run. As you collect data from one or two assets, you’ll be able to make adjustments to create a long-lasting procedure. The idea is to be flexible and focus on continuous improvement.

6 Tips for Creating a Preventive Maintenance Checklist

#1: Involve the Right People in the Process

It helps to have the right expertise on board when planning the assets to maintain and creating PMs for each one. Your maintenance manager and supervisors, as well as some of your senior technicians, can provide valuable insight into which tasks are necessary for each asset.

In addition, you’ll want to include your maintenance planner in the discussion since their whole purpose is to plan maintenance tasks — which is exactly what creating a PM checklist is all about.

Whether you outsource your maintenance or have a fully staffed team, UpKeep’s maintenance management platforms allow you to quickly assign and connect with maintenance technicians so that your maintenance needs do not cost you more time or money. 

#2: Be Detailed, but Concise

With each item on your list, you want to be as specific as possible without creating a massive block of text for your technicians to read through. Being clear and detailed will ensure your technicians perform each task correctly every time, but only if they don’t feel like reading each step would be a waste of time.

#3: Include Pictures

You don’t always have to rely on text alone to describe the PM tasks on the list. Photographs or diagrams of the equipment and its components can help you make your checklists as straightforward and easy to use as possible.

UpKeep makes it easy to upload pictures, documents, and comments onto existing or previous work orders with just the tap of a button. 

#4: Include Safety Measures

When creating the PM tasks for your list, make sure you’re aware of any safety measures that need to be taken. For instance, you’ll need to include lockout/tagout procedures whenever technicians need to access moving equipment. In addition, include any safety warnings and PPE required for each checklist.

#5: Make Your Checklists Mobile

One final way to make your preventive maintenance checklist effective is to make it mobile. 

An asset operations management solution (such as UpKeep) can help you digitize existing checklists and create entirely new ones. Those lists can then be accessed, filled out, and logged via a mobile device, making them highly convenient for technicians out on the floor.

#6: Update as Needed

Your PM checklist should be regularly updated based on equipment changes, company growth, issues that your maintenance team experiences, standard operating procedure updates, and changes to production processes. Make sure you plan update sessions to align with these events and on a regular calendar basis as well.

UpKeep makes creating, editing, and storing multiple preventive maintenance checklists easy on our accessible software. 

How UpKeep Can Strengthen Your Preventive Maintenance Capabilities

Are you ready to ditch your current method of tracking your PM operations for the future of maintenance management? Say goodbye to your previous preventive maintenance checklist methods and say hello to UpKeep’s all-inclusive maintenance management tool. 

At UpKeep, we understand that implementing new maintenance software may be a little jarring. We’ve designed our interface to be easy to use and customizable so even your least tech-savvy employee will be able to master our platform. 

We also offer various training modules and 24/7 support to help ensure customer success.

Our mobile preventive maintenance checklist solution will empower your team to:

• Reduce maintenance response time

• Streamline communication with unlimited free requesters

• Decrease equipment and asset downtime by up to 26%

• Ensure consistent cost records

• Extend your asset and equipment lifetime by up to 11%

• Achieve up to 652% ROI by integrating UpKeep into your workflow

Experience the power of our thorough maintenance management tool with your free trial today. 

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