Preventive Maintenance
Preventive Maintenance (PM) is a significant part of field service operations. It refers to the maintenance activities that are carried out on a regular basis to improve the efficiency and life of the Installed Products. Performing preventive maintenance helps extend the life of an Installed Product and avoid unplanned downtime and maintenance activities. Field service organizations need to plan and schedule preventive maintenance activities efficiently to optimize the cost and maximize efficiency. A well-planned preventive maintenance program can provide a profitable revenue source for field service organizations.
Implementing an integrated PM Plan involves a lot of complexity, such as schedules, labor time, and parts. Also, the type and nature of PM activities also vary based on the business nature of the customer organizations, type, and usage of Installed Products. To address various maintenance needs of products, a service contract can have an unlimited number of preventive maintenance plans with varying frequencies and coverage.
ServiceMax offers multiple capabilities to automate and simplify the tasks involved in preventive maintenance plans. It enables you to plan your maintenance tasks at regular intervals or based on some conditions. It automates the creation of work orders and cases for maintenance activities and automatically assigns tasks to the work order owners.
Key Features
The following are the key benefits of effective preventive maintenance for field service organizations:
• A steady stream of recurring revenue
• Proper utilization of technician's workload
• Build better relationships with customers, provide support and suggestions
The PM Plans in ServiceMax are maintenance plans that you can create for your Accounts, Locations, Service Contracts, and Installed Products. The plans have pre-defined schedules and can also include the tasks and parts required for executing the preventive maintenance plans.
Use Cases
The following are some of the use cases of Preventive Maintenance Plans:
• A solar company installs new solar panels at the customer's location. However, the work is not over when a system is installed. Solar panel systems work best when they are checked regularly by a knowledgeable field service technician. The company provides one year of monthly preventive maintenance visits following a solar panel system installation to avoid future breakdowns or critical maintenance issues. By creating a PM Plan, all the work orders for a solar panel system’s monthly maintenance visits can be scheduled in advance.
• An MRI machine is installed at a hospital. A defective medical device can greatly affect the degree of care, operational efficiency, cost, and hospital reputation. Therefore, the maintenance of equipment is of paramount importance. Regular maintenance and monitoring of expensive medical equipment cost less than repair in the event of a breakdown. A PM Plan is intended to anticipate the service needs of a device and is configured at a pre-defined schedule. By creating a PM Plan, all the work orders for the MRI machine's bi-monthly maintenance visits can be scheduled in advance.
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