PPM stands for Planned Preventive Maintenance. It is maintenance carried out on a schedule to keep equipment working, rather than in response to something breaking. A PPM schedule sets out what gets serviced, how often, by whom, and against which standard — and in most facility contracts it is the work the client is actually paying for.
How a PPM schedule is built
A schedule starts from the asset register. Each asset type carries a maintenance frequency — monthly, quarterly, biannual, annual — derived from the manufacturer's recommendation, a published standard such as SFG20, statutory requirement, or the service contract itself.
The system then generates the work in advance, assigns it to the right trade, and tracks completion. Good practice is to level the load across the year so you are not trying to service every chiller in the same fortnight, and to tie each task to a checklist so completion means something more than a tick.
Planned, reactive, and predictive
- Planned preventive — scheduled in advance on time or usage. Predictable cost, predictable resourcing.
- Reactive — triggered by a failure or a complaint. Always more expensive per job, and the tenant has already been affected.
- Condition-based — triggered by a measured reading crossing a threshold, such as vibration or temperature.
- Predictive — uses sensor data and modelling to forecast failure before any threshold is crossed. Genuine value on critical rotating equipment; oversold everywhere else.
What ratio should you aim for
A commonly cited target is 80% planned to 20% reactive by work order volume. Treat it as a direction rather than a rule — a young building with new plant will beat it comfortably, and a twenty-year-old tower with deferred capital works will not, however good the FM team is.
The more useful measure is the trend. If reactive volume is rising month over month on the same portfolio, either the PPM schedule is not being executed properly or the asset base is deteriorating and needs capital attention. Both are worth knowing early, and both are visible in a CAFM system long before they show up in a budget.
Why PPM evidence matters in the GCC
In a market where most buildings are maintained under contract, the PPM schedule is the contractual deliverable. Owners withhold payment against missed PPMs, and penalty regimes are usually written around schedule attainment rather than reactive response.
That makes the evidence trail as important as the work. A completed PPM with a timestamp, a technician identity, a geolocation and photographs is defensible; a signature on a paper sheet filed in a site office is not, particularly when a Civil Defence or municipality inspection asks for twelve months of history.
Common questions
What does PPM stand for in maintenance?
Planned Preventive Maintenance. Note that PPM has other meanings in other contexts — parts per million in water treatment and air quality, and planned preventative maintenance is a common alternative spelling of the same term.
What is the difference between PPM and preventive maintenance?
They are used interchangeably in facilities management. PPM emphasises that the preventive work is scheduled and resourced in advance rather than done ad hoc when someone has time.
How often should PPM be carried out?
It varies by asset. Fire alarm panels and emergency lighting are typically monthly, HVAC filters quarterly, chillers and generators annually with interim checks, lifts monthly under most GCC regimes. Where a statutory requirement or a manufacturer's warranty sets a frequency, that governs.
What is SFG20?
SFG20 is a UK-originated library of standard maintenance schedules covering several hundred asset types, widely used as a reference for building PPM regimes. It is often adopted in GCC contracts as the technical baseline, adapted for local statutory requirements and climate.