Reactive maintenance and planned visits on one schedule, one asset history

Reactive maintenance that gets the right technician to a breakdown fast, without pushing planned visits off the calendar, and keeps every repair and service on the record of the asset it belongs to.

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Updated 15 Oct 2026

FieldEx scheduling board on desktop with a technician's inspection checklist open on the mobile app, as used by maintenance contractors

FieldEx is field service management and maintenance management (CMMS) in one system for teams that run planned maintenance and reactive repairs side by side. Breakdowns reported by phone, portal or QR code become jobs on the same scheduler as planned visits. Response targets are timed, repairs and services share one asset history, and reports show how much of your work is planned and how much is reactive.

What FieldEx does for teams balancing breakdowns and planned work

Every maintenance team lives with two kinds of work pulling against each other: the planned visits that stop failures and the breakdowns that won't wait. FieldEx puts both on one scheduler and one asset record, so a dispatcher can see what a breakdown displaces, a technician sees the asset's last service before fixing it, and a manager can see the balance move month by month. Book a demo to see it with your own assets and jobs.

Breakdowns reported from anywhere

A QR code on each site that opens a fault-report form without logging in, with the location, a description, contact details and photos or video.
A branded customer portal where clients raise repair requests, ask for an appointment date and follow the job, through the customer portal.
Requests from the office, the mobile app or other systems, each arriving as a live, unassigned job in the backlog.
A separate job type for breakdowns, with its own form and fields, so reactive work is counted apart from planned work from the moment it is logged.

Planned visits that keep running

Maintenance plans for assets and for whole sites that create visits automatically, by calendar date, by meter reading such as running hours, or whichever comes first, in preventive maintenance.
Fixed calendar schedules, or schedules counted from the last completed visit, so a visit pulled forward to fix a fault resets the clock where you want it to. Fixed calendar dates apply to time-based plans.
Missed visits rescheduled automatically after the overdue period you set.
A planned visit generated early for an asset when a technician is already on site for a repair.

One scheduler for both kinds of work

A drag-and-drop scheduler with an unassigned backlog beside each technician's day or week, in scheduling and dispatch.
Automatic assignment by skill, availability, shift, leave and service zone, using live location to rank the nearest eligible technician.
Reassign or reschedule a planned visit in a drag when a breakdown takes its slot, with the technician notified each time.
A dashboard of overdue maintenance, work due in the next 7 days and work completed in the last 7 days, with a calendar of open, overdue and completed jobs.

Response times you can prove

Service-level agreements applied to jobs that match the rules you set, such as job type, priority, customer or asset.
Several stages per agreement, such as attend, make safe and complete, each with its own at-risk and violation thresholds against business hours.
Alerts to the users or groups you choose, the job owner or their manager, before a target is missed.
Timing, completion and violation details shown on each job and available in reports.

Repairs on the asset's record

Every breakdown, repair, planned visit, part used and meter reading kept on the asset, with parent and component levels, in asset management.
A notification when a new job repeats a recent job on the same asset, so a returning fault is noticed the day it comes back.
Inspection checklists whose failed answers create corrective jobs and tasks, and book a follow-up inspection.
A change history on each asset showing who edited what and when.

The FieldEx mobile app at the breakdown

The asset's history, open jobs and the right checklist on the FieldEx mobile app, opened by scanning the asset's QR label.
Ordered tasks inside a job, such as make safe, diagnose and permanent repair, with tasks that must be finished before the job can close.
Parts used from the technician's own stock, watermarked photos, check-in and check-out times and the customer's signature.
Jobs downloaded to the phone, worked without a signal and uploaded when the connection returns.

The planned to reactive balance in reports

Reports that count jobs by type, so planned and reactive work can be compared by site, asset type, customer or month, in reporting and analytics.
Asset reports on reliability, maintenance cost, utilization and age, to find the assets that keep breaking.
Reports exported as CSV, Excel or PDF, or emailed on a schedule to managers and clients.

What are the disadvantages of reactive maintenance?

The US Department of Energy's Federal Energy Management Program (FEMP), in its Operations and Maintenance Best Practices Guide (Release 3.0, chapter 5), calls reactive maintenance the "run it till it breaks" mode and lists its costs: unplanned downtime, overtime labour, higher repair and replacement costs, secondary damage to other equipment, and poor use of staff. NASA's Reliability Centered Maintenance Guide for Facilities and Collateral Equipment explains why: under a reactive approach, repair or replacement happens only once deterioration has caused a functional failure, so every failure arrives unannounced.

The hidden cost is the planned work that gets dropped to deal with it, which makes the next breakdown more likely.

What FieldEx does about it

Breakdowns don't erase the plan: planned visits stay on the scheduler when a breakdown arrives, and a displaced visit is moved, not lost.
Overtime made visible: check-in and check-out times on every job show how much field time goes to breakdowns, by technician and by week.
Secondary damage traced: every repair is recorded on the asset and its components, so knock-on failures are seen on the same history.
Missed visits caught: planned visits that slip past due are rescheduled automatically after the overdue period you set.

What is a good ratio of planned to reactive maintenance work?

NASA's Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) guide gives a working target: about 70% of maintenance work should be preventive maintenance and predictive testing and inspection, about 30% corrective work, and emergency work 10% or less. Most sites are a long way from that. FEMP's guide reports that more than 55% of an average facility's maintenance resources and activities are still reactive, against 31% preventive and 12% predictive.

You can only move the ratio if every job is labelled planned or reactive when it is created, and counted the same way each month.

What FieldEx does about it

Every job typed at the start: planned visits are created as planned job types by their plans, and breakdowns arrive as reactive job types from the backlog, the portal or a QR report.
The ratio on a report: a report groups jobs by type and month and counts them, so the planned share and the emergency share can be tracked over time.
By site, asset type or customer: filter the same report to see which sites or asset types are dragging the ratio down.
Sent to the people who act on it: schedule the report to email managers or clients every month.

What is the difference between reactive and corrective maintenance?

The terms overlap, and the difference is planning. NASA's RCM guide says reactive maintenance is also called breakdown, repair, fix-when-fail or run-to-failure maintenance, and that trouble calls are a type of reactive maintenance. Corrective maintenance, in the same guide's glossary, is repair that restores a component to its designed condition, and planned repairs count as planned maintenance. So a fault found on an inspection and fixed on a scheduled visit is corrective but planned; the same fault fixed after the machine stops is reactive.

A contractor who can't produce these two numbers from its own records is relying on the client's count.

What FieldEx does about it

Corrective work raised from inspections: a failed answer on an inspection checklist creates the corrective job and its tasks, so the repair can be planned before the failure.
Breakdown jobs kept separate: trouble calls arrive as their own job type, so a planned repair and a breakdown repair are never counted as the same thing.
A follow-up when needed: the same failed answer can book a follow-up inspection to confirm the fix held.
Down to the asset: each figure can be filtered by building, asset type or zone to find where the score is lost.

When is it acceptable to run equipment to failure?

When it is a deliberate choice. NASA's RCM guide says reactive maintenance can be used effectively when it is a conscious decision, based on an RCM analysis that compares the risk and cost of failure with the cost of the maintenance needed to prevent it. FEMP's guide puts it more bluntly: run-to-failure works well if equipment shutdowns do not affect production and if labour and material costs do not matter. Light fittings, small extract fans and low-cost spares are common examples; anything safety-critical or hard to replace is not.

What FieldEx does about it

Run-to-failure assets flagged: asset types and statuses let you mark which assets are on planned maintenance and which are run to failure, so plans only pick up the right ones.
Plans follow your criteria: maintenance plans add assets automatically by type or other criteria, and new assets of a planned type join without anyone adding them.
Failures still recorded: a run-to-failure asset's breakdowns and replacements stay on its record, so the decision can be checked against real costs.
Costs to test the choice: asset reports on maintenance cost and age show when a run-to-failure asset is costing more than a plan would.

How much can planned maintenance save compared with reactive repairs?

FEMP's guide estimates that a preventive maintenance programme saves 12% to 18% over a reactive one. In its cost comparison for motors and similar equipment, reactive maintenance runs at about $18 per horsepower per year, against $13 for preventive. NASA's guide describes the mechanism: preventive maintenance schedules inspection and maintenance at pre-defined intervals of time, operating hours or cycles to reduce equipment failure.

What FieldEx does about it

Intervals by time, hours or cycles: plans trigger on calendar dates, on meter readings such as hours or cycles, or on whichever comes first.
Each asset's own interval: use the interval set on each asset, or one custom interval across the whole plan.
Cost per asset over time: asset reports compare maintenance cost, reliability and age, so the savings from planned work can be seen asset by asset.
Parts and time on every job: parts with quantities and prices, and check-in and check-out times, are recorded on each planned and reactive job.

How fast should an emergency repair be attended compared with a routine one?

Where the law sets a clock, emergencies are measured in hours and routine repairs in days. Awaab's Law guidance for social landlords in England sets three steps. Emergency hazards must be investigated and made safe within 24 hours of the landlord becoming aware of them. Significant hazards must be investigated within 10 working days, and relevant safety work to make the property safe must be done within 5 working days of the investigation. Supplementary preventative work must begin within 5 working days or, where that isn't possible, physically start within 12 weeks. Commercial clients set the same kind of tiers in their service contracts, usually with a faster attend time than fix time.

The practical problem is that a 24-hour emergency and a 10-day repair land in the same backlog.

What FieldEx does about it

Priority tiers as separate agreements: service-level agreements apply by job type or priority, so emergency and routine repairs each run their own clock.
Make safe and fix as separate stages: each agreement can have several stages with their own thresholds, such as made safe within 24 hours and repaired within 5 working days.
Working days, not calendar days: timers run against business-hours schedules with different hours by day, and can pause and restart on job conditions.
Alerts before a breach: at-risk alerts go to the job owner, their manager or a group you choose, before the violation threshold is reached.

What are the statutory repair times for loss of power, water or a leaking roof?

For council tenants in England, the Secure Tenants of Local Housing Authorities (Right to Repair) Regulations 1994 set prescribed periods in their schedule. A total loss of electric power, water supply or gas supply, and leaking pipes, each have 1 working day. A partial loss of electric power has 3 working days. A leaking roof, a faulty entryphone and a broken extractor fan each have 7 working days. Awaab's Law guidance lists gas or carbon monoxide leaks, broken boilers, total loss of water supply, exposed wiring and significant leaks among the examples of emergency hazards.

What FieldEx does about it

A fault type for each prescribed period: set the 1-day, 3-day and 7-day defects as job types or priorities, each with its own service-level agreement.
The clock starts at the report: a report through the portal or a site QR code creates a time-stamped job, and its agreement starts from that moment.
Proof of attendance and completion: check-in and check-out times, photos and the work done are recorded on the job and printed on its completion PDF.
Breaches counted: service-level agreement data in reports shows how many repairs of each type met or missed their period.

Do building owners need a recognised planned maintenance regime?

For UK government property, yes. The UK Government Facilities Management Standard 001 (under GovS 004 Property) requires organisations to put in place a maintenance regime for all mechanical and electrical (M&E) assets, using a recognised standard regime, with a rationale for any alternative. It also requires a full asset register and a forward maintenance register setting out lifecycle maintenance investment priorities for at least 5 years. NASA's RCM guide describes what a preventive regime covers: regularly scheduled inspection, adjustment, cleaning, lubrication, parts replacement, calibration and repair of components and equipment.

What FieldEx does about it

A regime per asset type: maintenance plans carry the tasks, checklists and intervals of your chosen standard regime, applied to every asset that matches.
A complete asset register: assets carry identifiers, specifications, location, warranty and acquisition details, with parent and component levels, and export when the register is requested.
Lifecycle data for the forward register: asset reports on age, maintenance cost and reliability give the evidence for each year's investment priorities.
Plans with start and end dates: plans can run for a set period or without an end date, with last and next maintenance dates on every asset they cover.

How do you stop the same fault or hazard coming back after a repair?

Fix the cause as well as the symptom, and make it a separate piece of work. Awaab's Law guidance distinguishes between relevant safety work, which makes the property safe, and supplementary preventative measures that stop the hazard recurring. Where those preventative works are needed, the landlord must begin them within 5 working days of the investigation concluding, or, where that isn't possible, take steps for them to start within 12 weeks. FEMP's guide sets the same principle for equipment: reliability centred maintenance combines predictive and preventive techniques with root cause failure analysis.

What FieldEx does about it

Repeat faults flagged: when a new job repeats a recent job on the same asset, FieldEx notifies the users you choose by email or in-app message.
Make safe and prevent as separate tasks: one job can hold the make-safe task and the preventative task, each with its own technician, date and times.
A follow-up inspection after the fix: a checklist answer on the repair can book a follow-up inspection to confirm the fault hasn't returned.
Repeat offenders on a report: asset reliability reports rank assets by breakdowns, so the worst performers get a planned fix.

Customer story

AMRTUR, a Southeast Asian oilfield services provider, runs offshore and onshore maintenance on FieldEx as one field service and maintenance platform. Its story describes preventive maintenance that creates a job at 300 hours of use or 6 months, whichever comes first, QR-code request forms routed to the right team, and a record of every maintenance schedule change, including who changed a date and why.

Read the AMRTUR story

Agri Sumber Prestari (ASP), an agricultural manpower and training company under SD Guthrie Agri Bio, runs maintenance and field operations across Malaysian agricultural estates on FieldEx. Its story describes preventive maintenance scheduled automatically on usage or time, SLA tracking with alerts, and inspection checklists and jobs generated from its procedures, with 92 estates up and running and planning time cut by 50%.

Read the Agri Sumber Prestari story

Questions maintenance managers ask about planned and reactive work in FieldEx

What is the best software for managing planned and reactive maintenance together?

It needs one scheduler for both kinds of work, one history per asset and a way to count each. FieldEx runs planned visits and breakdown jobs on the same scheduler and asset records, with response targets and reports on the planned to reactive split. Compare approaches in our guide to CMMS software.

Can breakdown jobs and planned visits be told apart in reports?

Yes. Each job carries its job type, so reports can group and count planned and reactive jobs by site, asset type, customer or period.

Can a planned visit be done early while a technician is on site for a repair?

Yes. A plan's next visit can be generated manually ahead of its date, and on schedules counted from the last completed visit, the next one follows on from the new date.

Can FieldEx warn us when the same asset keeps breaking down?

Yes. Users are notified by email or in-app message when a new job repeats a recent job on the same asset, and reliability reports show which assets fail most often.

Can we set different response times for emergencies and routine repairs?

Yes. Service-level agreements apply by job conditions such as type or priority, each with its own stages, business hours and at-risk and violation alerts.

Can tenants or clients report a breakdown without an account?

Yes. A QR code for each site opens a fault-report form without logging in, with photos or video, and the report arrives as a job in the backlog.

Can planned maintenance trigger on running hours as well as dates?

Yes. Plans can trigger on the calendar, on meter readings such as running hours or cycles, or on whichever comes first.

Can technicians close repairs without a signal?

Yes. Technicians download their jobs to the mobile app, complete them without a signal and upload the work when the connection returns.

How long does it take to set up planned and reactive maintenance in FieldEx?

Once we know your requirements and your data is ready, FieldEx can be implemented in as little as a week with standard features for small businesses. Larger setups and custom work take longer. Setup, data upload and training are included in the subscription, with no setup fee. Sites and assets can be uploaded. FieldEx helps with setup, and training is included. See FieldEx implementation.

Keep planned visits on track while breakdowns get fixed fast

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