The Key to Success in Maintenance Management: SMART Goals and the Right KPIs

Goals, regardless of the subject, are stepping stones on the journey to reaching your desired destination. At some point in our lives, each of us sets goals in line with certain dreams and follows a path to achieve them.

In professional life, working with goals often creates motivation, but sometimes it can also lead to feelings of hopelessness. Therefore, setting goals that are relevant to the purpose is crucial.

In this process, the abbreviation KPIs (Key Performance Indicators), which many of us use frequently, has recently entered our lives.

You can see many KPIs used in maintenance management as well. I have tried to list some of them below. However, which ones to use and what the measurement and review criteria will be is an important issue.

Goals will help you tell where you are, where you are going, whether things are going wrong, and when you will reach your goal.

If we look at maintenance management as an engineering project, it is natural that the goals you have set will be numerical. And of course, the need for data is inevitable.

The recurring characteristic of goals is that they should be SMART. This abbreviation, like the word KPI, is of English origin and consists of the first letters of the words "Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relative, Timely". Therefore, your goal should be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relative, and Timely.

Goals should encourage appropriate behavior, be difficult to manipulate, and be easily reportable.

Maintenance Objectives

Number of Breakdown	piece	Total Number of Breakdown
Downtime	min	Total Downtime
Breakdown Rate	%	(Total Breakdown Rate / Operation time) * 100
The Impact of Failures on Productivity	%	(Total Downtime / Total Operation Time) * 100
Breakdown Analysis Completion Rate	%	(Number of Analyses Planned / Number of Analyses Completed) / 100
MTBF	min	Total Operation Time / Total Number of Stoppages
MTTR	min	Total Downtime / Total Number of Failures
Maintenance Cost	$ / TL	Total Maintenance Cost
Maintenance Cost Ratio	%	(Maintenance Cost / Replacement Value) * 100
Spare Parts Cost Ratio	%	(Spare Part Inventory Value / Replacement Value) * 100
Completion Rate of Scheduled Maintenance	%	(Number of Completed Maintenance Activities / Number of Planned Maintenance Activities) * 100
The Impact of Scheduled Maintenance on Productivity	%	Scheduled Maintenance Duration / Operation Time
The Effectiveness of Scheduled Maintenance	-	Number of findings after the activity and number of equipment downtimes after the activity.
Number of Work Order	piece	Total Number of Work Orders
Work Order Completion Rate	%	(Number of Completed Work Orders / Total Number of Work Orders) * 100
Red Tag Completion Rate	%	(Total Number of Red Tags / Number of Completed Red Tags) * 100

The examples I've listed in the table, and the time intervals for evaluation, can be determined based on the stage of your company's maintenance management system implementation.

A target lacking even one SMART feature is nothing but wasted time.

The evaluation period is also extremely important. Remember that since the necessary data for lines or equipment lacking digital capabilities will be collected manually, the evaluation of targets will not go beyond evaluating the past.

Therefore, the equipment-based risk assessment you conducted before starting the project will come up again.

For high-risk lines or equipment in your company, even shift-based monitoring may be necessary (Failure Count, Failure Duration, MTTR, MTBF).

One mistake made in businesses is incorrectly defining the scope of target tracking.

MTBF or MTTR tracking are two of the most important KPIs for a maintenance technician, showing the performance status of equipment or systems.

Let's consider a production line with a total of 5 pieces of equipment, where a stoppage in one piece of equipment directly causes the entire line's production to halt. In such a configuration, the MTBF or MTTR results for the line can serve as a mirror, but calculating the MTBF or MTTR data for the entire operation can become an unnecessary endeavor.

If the company is engaged in mass production, this calculation will provide added value. However, if you have a production process based on area, collecting and evaluating data specific to each equipment will be much more beneficial.

The responsibility for the results does not lie with a single person. The entire team must participate in the solution and provide added value.

A common management mistake is to make the results invisible.

The manager's role is to analyze the data, manage an effective root cause analysis process for negative trends, and follow up on actions. Simultaneously, it is crucial to ensure that developments are known to every level of the organization.

In this regard, I believe the equipment ownership method yields very effective results.

I have observed that assigning responsibilities on a line-by-line or equipment-by-equipment basis, especially for preventive maintenance activities, yields effective results if the organizational and production structure allows it. This leads to much faster and more effective follow-up and action-taking.