Why 45?
Most organizations track too many metrics or too few. The sweet spot lies somewhere between the vanity dashboards that measure everything and the single-number obsession that misses context. After two decades of building KPI programs in Maximo, I've landed on 45 indicators that cover the full maintenance lifecycle without creating dashboard fatigue.
The Five Pillars
These 45 KPIs break down into five functional areas:
- Work Execution (12 KPIs) — Schedule compliance, wrench time, backlog age, and the metrics that tell you whether work is getting done efficiently.
- Asset Reliability (10 KPIs) — MTBF, MTTR, availability, and failure patterns that reveal asset health before catastrophic breakdowns.
- Resource Utilization (8 KPIs) — Labor productivity, contractor spend, parts availability, and the cost side of the equation.
- Preventive Maintenance (9 KPIs) — PM compliance, route efficiency, condition-based triggers, and the leading indicators that prevent reactive chaos.
- Planning & Scheduling (6 KPIs) — Plan accuracy, schedule breaks, and the upstream metrics that determine downstream success.
The Selection Criteria
Every KPI on this list had to pass three tests:
- Actionable — If the number moves, someone can do something about it. No vanity metrics.
- Measurable in Maximo — The data has to exist in standard Maximo tables or be derivable from them without custom development.
- Leading or Diagnostic — Either it predicts future problems (leading) or explains current ones (diagnostic). Lagging-only metrics didn't make the cut.
What's Next
I'm documenting each of these 45 KPIs in the KPI Control Series — complete with Maximo queries, benchmark ranges, and interpretation guides. The first batch is already available, with the full set rolling out through 2026.
If you're building a KPI program or auditing an existing one, this framework gives you a starting point grounded in what actually works. No consultant fluff, no theoretical models that fall apart in production environments.