Here is the distinction in one breath. PM compliance asks whether your scheduled PM and PdM got done on time. Schedule compliance asks whether everything you put on the schedule got done as scheduled. PM yield asks whether those PMs were worth doing at all. Three different questions, three different numbers, and each one is blind to what the others measure.
PM Compliance: did the preventive work get done on time
PM compliance is the narrow one. It looks at the preventive and predictive work that came due and asks how much of it was completed inside your window. That is useful, because preventive work that slips is the leading indicator of breakdowns to come. But notice what it cannot see. It does not know whether the work was actually performed or just closed, and it does not know whether the PM was worth doing in the first place. It only knows timing. A program can hit 95 percent PM compliance doing perfectly punctual, completely useless work.
Schedule Compliance: did the plan hold
Schedule compliance is broader. It looks at all the work you committed to the schedule, preventive and corrective alike, and asks how much got done as scheduled. This is a measure of your planning and scheduling process, not your preventive program specifically. It tells you whether the schedule you build on Thursday survives contact with Monday, or whether reactive work and poor estimates blow it up every week.
The two get confused constantly, so here is the line. PM compliance is about a subset of work, the PMs, and whether they were on time. Schedule compliance is about all scheduled work and whether the schedule held. You can have strong schedule compliance and weak PM compliance, which usually means your PMs keep getting bumped off the schedule for reactive work. That pattern is invisible if you only watch one of the two.
PM Yield: was the work worth doing
PM yield, sometimes called PM effectiveness, asks the question the other two ignore entirely. When you do a PM, does it find anything, prevent anything, or generate corrective follow-up work? A PM that never finds a defect and never prevents a failure across hundreds of executions is a PM you are doing out of habit, not need. Yield is how you catch that. It is the difference between a program that is busy and a program that is working.
Yield is blind to timing. It does not care whether the PM was on time, only whether it was worth doing. That is exactly why it pairs with compliance rather than replacing it.
Why one number always lies
Picture the work as nested layers. All the work you scheduled sits on the outside. Inside that is the preventive subset. Inside that is the preventive work done on time. And inside that is the preventive work that was actually effective. Each metric measures a different layer, and the layer you are not watching is where your problem is hiding.
High PM compliance with low yield means you are doing the wrong PMs on time. High schedule compliance with low PM compliance means you plan well but let PMs get bumped. High yield with low compliance means the PMs that do get done are valuable, you just are not getting to enough of them. Any single number can look fine while one of these problems quietly runs your reliability into the ground.
So what do you do before you have perfect reports
You do not need a finished benchmarking exercise or a custom report suite to start watching these together. My recommendation is to put all three on a single KPI List portlet on your Start Center. The KPI List shows multiple KPIs side by side with green, yellow, and red status indicators, so you and your team see compliance, schedule compliance, and yield in one glance every time you log in. It builds awareness while you do the slower work of setting real targets and designing the proper reports.
The trap to avoid is reporting one of these as if it were the whole story. When someone asks for compliance, ask which question they actually want answered, then show them the metric that answers it, and ideally the other two next to it for context.
Each metric gets its own treatment in the guide series: the PM Compliance Guide for compliance, and the Schedule Compliance Guide for schedule performance. The PM Compliance Calculator and Schedule Compliance Calculator will help you run both numbers against your own data.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between PM compliance and schedule compliance?
PM compliance measures whether your preventive and predictive work orders were completed on time. Schedule compliance measures whether all scheduled work, preventive and corrective, got done as planned. PM compliance is about a subset of work and whether it was on time. Schedule compliance is about the full schedule and whether the plan held.
What is the difference between PM compliance and PM yield?
PM compliance measures timing: did the PM get done on time? PM yield measures effectiveness: was the PM worth doing? A program can hit 95 percent PM compliance doing perfectly punctual, completely useless work. Yield catches the PMs you are doing out of habit rather than need.
Which maintenance KPI should I report?
All three, together. When someone asks for compliance, ask which question they actually want answered, then show them the metric that answers it and the other two next to it for context. Put PM compliance, schedule compliance, and PM yield on a single KPI List portlet on your Start Center so the team sees all three every time they log in.
Why is one compliance number not enough?
Each metric measures a different layer of maintenance performance and is blind to the others. High PM compliance with low yield means you are doing the wrong PMs on time. High schedule compliance with low PM compliance means PMs are getting bumped for reactive work. Any single number can look fine while a problem hides in a layer you are not watching.
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