The PM compliance formula
The Society for Maintenance & Reliability Professionals (SMRP) defines this as metric 5.4.14: preventive and predictive maintenance work orders completed by their due date, divided by those due in the same period. SMRP lists above 90% as best-in-class.
Two things trip people up:
- The denominator is PMs due, not PMs completed. A PM that was skipped still counts against you. Only dividing by what got done will always look better than reality.
- Late is not compliant. A PM finished two weeks past its window was completed, but it wasn't compliant. That's why this calculator shows completion rate and compliance rate separately.
What counts as "on time"?
Most sites allow a grace window sized as a percentage of the PM's frequency, so a weekly PM gets a much shorter window than an annual one. There’s no single published standard for the window: 10% and 20% of frequency are both used in practice. Use whatever your site has defined, and apply it consistently. A 30-day PM with a 10% window has 3 days of slack; a 365-day PM gets about 36.
Some organizations also flag PMs done far too early, since pulling work forward shortens the real interval and wastes labor. Turn that on with the checkbox above if your site measures it.
PM compliance vs. schedule compliance
These are different metrics and are often confused. PM compliance asks whether preventive work got done within its window. Schedule compliance asks whether the crew completed the work that was on this week's schedule, PM or not. Reporting one under the other's name — or holding one to the other's target — produces goals that fight each other.
Why 100% shouldn't be the goal
Compliance tells you the work got done. It doesn't tell you the work was worth doing. A plant can hit 98% while running PMs that never find anything, and still have the same failures. Pair compliance with something that measures yield: corrective work generated by PMs, repeat failures, or MTBF on critical assets.
FAQ
What is a good PM compliance rate?
SMRP treats above 90% as best-in-class. Many sites hold critical assets to a higher bar than the overall number. As a rule of thumb, if you’re more than 10 points below your own target, the PM schedule itself usually needs a hard look — not just more effort.
Should predictive (PdM) tasks be included?
SMRP's definition includes both PM and PdM work orders. If you track them separately, say so on your report so comparisons stay apples-to-apples.
How do I export work orders from my CMMS?
Run a list or report of PM work orders for the period with the work order number, due date (or target start), actual finish date, and frequency. Export to Excel, copy the four columns, and paste them in. Column names don't matter — only the order does.
Is my data uploaded anywhere?
No. The calculator is plain JavaScript running on this page. Your pasted data never leaves your browser.
Do PMs that were cancelled count?
Policies vary. Most sites remove PMs cancelled for a legitimate reason (asset decommissioned, duplicate) from the "due" count, but don't remove PMs cancelled because nobody got to them — those are misses.
Sources & standards
- Society for Maintenance & Reliability Professionals (SMRP). Best Practices Metrics, metric 5.4.14, “Preventive Maintenance (PM) and Predictive Maintenance (PdM) Compliance.” smrp.org (member access).
- Reliamag, “PM Compliance Rate Benchmarks: Is 90% the Right Target?” — summary of the SMRP definition, target, and grace-window practice. reliamag.com
Thresholds labeled “rule of thumb” are practitioner guidance from the author, not published standards. Adjust them to your site’s own definitions.