Preventive maintenance sounds like one of those “nice in theory” ideas. Everyone agrees it’s important … right up until jobsites get busy, machines are needed now, and maintenance gets pushed to “later.”
And then later turns into:
A good preventive maintenance program isn’t about perfection.
It’s about consistency, clarity, and making the right thing easy to do.
This guide walks through how to build a preventive maintenance (PM) program for a construction fleet step by step, in a way that actually survives real jobsite life.
Before schedules, checklists or software, you need direction.
Keep it practical. Examples:
If the goal is vague (“do better maintenance”), the program will be vague too.
Be honest here.
Trying to fix everything at once is how PM programs stall before they start.
You can’t maintain what you can’t clearly identify.
Every asset should have:
And yes – naming matters.
“Excavator 1,” “EX-01,” and “Big Yellow Cat” should not be three different records.
Construction equipment is different from office buildings or factories.
Most maintenance is driven by usage, not calendar dates.
Hour-based PM works well – as long as hours are accurate.
That’s where many fleets struggle:
However you track hours, the rule is simple:
If hours are unreliable, PM will be unreliable.
This is where the actual “maintenance” lives.
Manufacturers publish service intervals for a reason. Use them as your baseline:
Instead of random tasks, group them:
This keeps things predictable for technicians and schedulers.
Here’s where many PM programs either level up … or fall apart.
A machine working in a dusty quarry does not need the same care as one on a clean urban site.
Adjust PM based on:
Think of this as adding “site multipliers” to your PM schedule.
Inspections are only useful if something happens afterward.
The key rule:
If an inspection finds a problem, it must create action.
That means:
A perfect PM schedule that no one can execute is useless.
Decide:
Many fleets succeed by:
Preventive maintenance fails fast when parts aren’t available.
A “500-hour kit” with all required parts saves time, reduces mistakes, and keeps PM on schedule.
If techs have to hunt for parts, PM gets skipped. Simple as that.
Documentation shouldn’t feel like punishment.
At minimum, capture:
Good records help with:
You don’t need 30 dashboards. You need a handful of useful signals.
Start with:
If a KPI doesn’t lead to action, it’s just noise.
The fastest way to kill a PM program is trying to deploy it everywhere overnight.
A smarter approach:
Momentum beats perfection every time.
Here’s the hard truth: Most PM programs fail not because the idea is wrong, but because the process is scattered.
Hours live in one place.
Inspections live in notebooks.
Work orders live in emails.
Parts live in someone’s head.
This is where a CMMS (computerized maintenance management system – software that organizes maintenance, inspections, assets, and parts in one place) quietly changes the game.
A platform like FieldEx helps construction fleets:
Want to see FieldEx in action? Book a free demo or simply get in touch. We’re here to help.
Preventive maintenance isn’t about doing more work.
It’s about doing the right work at the right time – before problems get expensive.
A simple, consistent PM program will always outperform a complicated one that nobody follows. Start small, stay disciplined, and improve as you go.
That’s how fleets buy uptime instead of reacting to downtime.
It’s a structured system for servicing equipment before failures happen, using schedules, inspections, and documented work.
Most heavy equipment PM is hour-based, while low-use assets may benefit from calendar schedules.
Routine servicing tasks, inspections, safety checks, fluid changes, and documentation of findings.
By standardizing schedules, inspections, and work orders in a centralized system instead of spreadsheets.
PM compliance, unplanned downtime, repeat failures, MTTR, and maintenance cost per operating hour.
Most fleets can pilot and scale a working PM program within 30–60 days if the scope is realistic.
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