Fine-Tuning Success: A SMART Guide to Goals for Maintenance Departments

SMART Goals for Maintenance Departments: How To Optimize Success Through Goal-Setting

Setting goals for your maintenance department can be daunting, especially if you lack the staff, resources, or modern equipment needed to run at optimal efficiency.

The key to setting goals that will make a significant impact is to think SMART.

Even if you’re understaffed or underfunded, with the SMART goal-setting method you can boost cost savings, efficiency, and morale by setting realistic, attainable goals for your team.

Still have doubts?

Consider this your invitation to understand SMART goals and why they’re important for your maintenance department. 

Then, we challenge you to try a few for yourself.

Table of Contents

• What Are SMART Goals?

• Why Are SMART Goals for Maintenance Departments Important?

• 5 SMART Goals Your Maintenance Department Needs To Increase Productivity and Streamline Operations

• UpKeep’s CMMS Solution Gives You the Tools You Need To Operate Your Maintenance Department at Peak Performance

What Are SMART Goals?

The SMART system is an effective way for maintenance technicians to set clear goals and a roadmap for accomplishing them. 

SMART stands for: 

• Specific: Detailed, clearly defined goals can ensure success. Specific goals for maintenance tasks should include details that answer the questions:

• What is the goal?

• When is the deadline?

• How will successful completion be measured?

• Measurable: Setting measurable goals can help avoid confusion from broad objectives and ambiguity. Measurability helps the technician:

• Monitor progress

• Determine what tasks still need to be completed to reach the desired outcome

• Assess performance

• Identify improvement areas

• Attainable: Setting realistic goals and expectations boosts motivation and morale within your maintenance department. Otherwise, you may find your team feeling frustrated and apathetic. 

• Relevant: Goals should align with the values of your maintenance department to drive a sense of purpose and direction. You can incorporate goals relevant to the businesses you support or the career ambitions of your maintenance technicians to propel them and your team forward. 

• Time-based: Time-specific goals can encourage your technicians to focus on completing each step rather than worrying about what’s ahead. Deadlines should be decided with consideration of all the tasks and resources necessary to achieve success. With that in mind, estimate how long each task should take and create a schedule that works for your maintenance team.

Why Are SMART Goals for Maintenance Departments Important?

SMART goals can be used as markers to help your technicians thrive, overcome setbacks, and stay on track.

With extensive work hours and repair scheduling, maintenance technicians must be prepared, organized, and able to juggle multiple tasks at once.

SMART goal-setting provides thoughtfully structured mini checkpoints that help technicians stay organized, multitask, and achieve short-term successes to motivate technicians to stay the course. 

With innovative computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) software from UpKeep, businesses are empowered to achieve their maintenance and facility management SMART goals. 

Our digitized, user-friendly platform streamlines maintenance tasks, work orders, equipment tracking, inventory management, and more cutting the time your technicians spend filing and locating paperwork by 90%.

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5 SMART Goals Your Maintenance Department Needs To Increase Productivity and Streamline Operations

Still unsure how to apply the SMART method to your maintenance department’s goal-setting?

Here are five examples of common maintenance department SMART goals and how they drill down the details to increase the probability of achieving success.

#1: Decrease Equipment and Asset Downtime 

Unplanned downtime is expensive.

It’s reported that unplanned equipment and asset downtime costs industrial manufacturers $50 billion per year in repairs, lost revenue, and overtime pay for order backlogs.

The costly consequences mean most maintenance departments aim to eliminate or reduce the occurrence of such events as much as possible.

Your maintenance team should have a robust system to ensure that equipment and assets are inspected, maintained, and tuned up regularly.

Preventive care plans allow technicians to provide equipment with the required maintenance and scheduled inspections can help identify equipment issues before they lead to failure.

While downtime can’t always be avoided, strategically planned downtime around operations schedules can help maintenance technicians stay ahead of any issues.  

UpKeep’s revolutionary CMMS software centralizes your maintenance department operations at your fingertips in a simple, mobile solution that has saved businesses across various industries more than $638 thousand in avoided production downtime. 

Request a demo to start your savings today.

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Example of a SMART Goal for Reducing Downtime

Specific: Reduce unplanned equipment and asset downtime by 10% within six months by creating a bi-weekly inspection and maintenance schedule and ensuring all technicians become trained on the equipment maintenance procedures.

Measurable: Equipment downtime can be documented and measured to determine if the goal is reached in the allotted time.

Attainable: Reducing equipment downtime by 10% within six months is achievable with a regular maintenance schedule and tracking.

Relevant: Achieving a 10% reduction in downtime is pertinent to minimizing unplanned equipment downtime for operations.

Time-based: After six months performance will be assessed.

#2: Improve Product Quality

Improving product quality is like setting performance goals for your equipment. 

Making sure equipment remains in working order increases output, ultimately improving performance and product quality.

Properly maintained equipment does more than reduce downtime and improve product quality, it can also lead to increased customer satisfaction rates and sales.

In addition to maintenance, repairing equipment problems efficiently can play an essential role in improving product quality.

When time spent troubleshooting issues costs money and minimizes the quality of a product, having qualified and experienced maintenance technicians can become a real asset.

Example of a SMART Goal for Improving Product Quality

Specific: Improve product quality by expanding technician's troubleshooting skills. Incentives will be offered for each technician to sharpen their diagnostic techniques by attending at least one workshop, seminar, or class by the end of the quarter.

Measurable: Each technician will report which workshop or seminar they attended to receive the incentive.

Attainable: This goal is achievable even for technicians with a busy schedule.

Relevant: Learning troubleshooting and diagnostic techniques is a key skill pertinent to the job requirements of an efficient maintenance technician.

Time-based: Technicians have one full quarter to achieve the goal. 

#3: Optimize Safety and Compliance

Safety and regulatory compliance is a critical part of business for many industries.

Some industries require maintenance teams to manage adherence to the Occupational Safety Health Administration (OSHA), and federal, state, and local regulations concurrently.

Setting smaller, achievable goals can help ensure your maintenance department remains in compliance.

Compliance goals can include:

• Consistent scheduled maintenance and inspections

• Adding injury prevention safety guards equipment 

• Keeping a detailed log of safety measures taken and all work performed on equipment

Implementing a centralized system can streamline your operations and help you sustain compliance by:

• Tracking all equipment maintenance activity

• Documenting safety measures taken

• Organizing product requirements

• Filing safety guidelines; and 

• Saving warranty pamphlets and other important documents 

More than just a CMMS, UpKeep’s asset operations management (AOM) platform gathers work orders, inventory, and full asset life cycle information in one easy-to-use mobile command center. 

With UpKeep, you can quickly generate preventive maintenance reports to stay on top of safety and compliance and ace audits. 

Example of a SMART Goal for Optimizing Safety and Compliance

Specific: Create and implement clear safety procedures to follow in hazardous situations to reduce the occurrence of injury or incidents at the workplace by 20% within six months.

Measurable: This can be evaluated by how many incidents have been reported in six months.

Attainable: Updating safety procedures can be done and 20% is a realistic expectation.

Relevant: Reducing the risks of injury or incidents is important for maintenance technicians.

Time-based: There is a deadline of six months to reach the goal.

#4: Extend Your Asset and Equipment Lifetime 

The math is simple — the more operating hours you can get out of an asset, the more efficient your operations will be. 

Setting clear maintenance key performance indicators (KPIs) and tracking equipment activity will reveal trends in equipment performance and allow you to make maintenance decisions backed by data.

Understand your maintenance organization and work orders deeper than ever before with rich, customizable analytic dashboards in UpKeep’s AOM platform.

Prioritize resources and future improvements to strengthen operations and make data-driven decisions that extend the life of your assets and equipment by up to 11% with UpKeep. 

Example of a SMART Goal for Improving the Longevity of Assets and Equipment

Specific: Improve the longevity of our assets and equipment by adding scheduled preventive maintenance, assigning technicians to perform maintenance tasks, and tracking equipment performance and usage. Equipment performance will be monitored regularly and compared to warranty data over the next two years.

Measurable: Performance will be measured over time against the warranty data to determine if the equipment is lasting as long as it possibly can before warranties are needed.

Achievable: Through preventive maintenance and monitoring it is realistic to increase the lifespan of your equipment.

Relevant: Increasing equipment lifespan can help save time and money in the long run.

Time-specific: Two years is adequate time to fully measure progress, replace failing equipment, and measure performance.

#5: Maximize Energy Efficiency 

Increasing costs and environmental consequences have put energy consumption at the forefront of company concerns.

With energy conservation becoming a growing objective worldwide, many maintenance departments are faced with the added responsibility of maximizing energy efficiency.

Daunting as it may be, some tools can help demystify energy consumption and highlight opportunities to cut back.

Energy tracking software can monitor and record utility usage to identify areas of energy waste, generate reports to pinpoint cost savings and showcase success to stakeholders, boost sustainability efforts, and more. 

UpKeep's AOM is the only tool with CMMS software that integrates with your existing tech stack.  

Built to bridge the gaps between maintenance, reliability, and operations, UpKeep can help you Improve overall facility condition and maximize your energy efficiency. 

Contact us to request a demo.

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Example of a SMART Goal for Boosting Energy Efficiency

Specific: Reduce energy consumption by 15% within six months by installing a motion detection sensor lighting system and turning the temperature up two degrees in the summer months to conserve energy. The monthly energy bills will be monitored to check consumption readouts to determine the effectiveness of these changes.

Measurable: Monthly energy bills will be consulted to monitor consumption and cost.

Attainable: The goal requires small doable changes to the environment and the desired result is realistic.

Relevant: Reducing energy consumption will have a direct effect on increasing energy efficiency.

Time-bound: The six-month timeframe allows for enough time to determine the success.

UpKeep’s CMMS Solution Has the Tools You Need To Operate Your Maintenance Department at Peak Performance

No matter where you are in your facility’s maintenance optimization journey, UpKeep’s CMMS solution has the tools to help you achieve your team’s SMART goals.

With a digital centralized hub to manage your operations, our benefits can put you on the path to:

• Reducing downtime through improved maintenance efficiency with optimized maintenance schedules and planning.

• Better asset management with a centralized database of asset information to track equipment history, maintenance schedules, and other important details.

• Increased equipment lifespan with regular maintenance and inspections reducing the need for costly replacements.

• Confident regulatory compliance and safety by tracking maintenance records and ensuring that equipment meets regulatory standards.

• Cost savings improve the bottom line by optimizing maintenance schedules, reducing downtime, and extending equipment lifespan.

Whether you need to get granular data on maintenance and equipment trends or link vital information from the field with programs across the organization, UpKeep can optimize your maintenance practices in today's fast-paced business environment.

Request a demo today to get started.

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