Smarter maintenance comes in three phases, from reactive to planned work. Requests and priorities come first (0-30 days), then work orders and maintenance plans in one system (30-90 days), then a per-asset approach (90+ days). Each phase has an owner, a decision point and a checkpoint you can measure.
The roadmap is for teams that work from incident to incident. Adapt the pace to safety requirements, available people, data quality and asset complexity.
What does reactive maintenance look like?
Many maintenance departments still work in firefighting mode. Your team reacts to whatever breaks instead of preventing failures. Work orders disappear in emails, WhatsApp messages and Post-its.
This way of working wears your team out. People run from crisis to crisis, without clear priorities and without time for structural improvement. A preventive plan in a spreadsheet alerts nobody, so it slips with every breakdown.
You can break this cycle without turning your whole organisation upside down.
Phase 1 (0-30 days): how do you organise requests and priorities?
With one channel for requests, a ranking of critical assets and a cleaned-up spare-parts inventory. As maintenance manager, you own this phase together with the production manager.
Centralise your work orders
Choose a central system for maintenance requests and define how reports from email or other channels enter it. Measure duplicate requests and handovers so you can test whether the new way of working reduces duplication.
In IFS Cloud, saving a fault report creates a work order with its own number. Whoever reports it needs no object ID, as long as they describe the object clearly. The planner adds the ID during preparation.
Prioritise based on impact
Not every failure is equally critical. Make a simple matrix that shows which assets are business-critical and what downtime costs per hour. Focus first on the top 10 assets that can cause the most damage, so technicians know which work comes first.
Score each asset on the consequences of failure for safety, the environment and production, and on its likelihood. Severity times likelihood gives the ranking. An asset that rarely fails but then stops the line can outrank one that often breaks down with little effect.
In IFS Cloud, you record the result as object criticality, which IFS uses to prioritise work on the most critical objects. The planner applies the ranking to every request. Agree who may raise a priority, or everything becomes urgent.
Clean up your spare-parts inventory
Map parts consumption, lead times, criticality and inventory value. Set availability targets and minimum stock levels for each part. Assess what can be reduced without compromising safety or continuity, and measure the working capital actually released.
Phase 1 is done when:
- Every request arrives through one channel
- Every work order has an agreed priority
- The critical assets are agreed with production
- Critical parts have a minimum stock level
Phase 2 (30-90 days): how do you bring work orders and maintenance plans into one system?
By recording all work as work orders and turning the preventive plan into PM actions that create their own work orders. You remain the owner of this phase.
Implement an enterprise asset management (EAM) system
Choose a system that fits your organisation and start small, with work orders and planning first. In IFS Cloud EAM, technicians book hours and materials on the work tasks within each work order.
Turn your preventive plans into PM actions
Your spreadsheet plan becomes a PM plan in IFS Cloud, with PM actions per object: preventive maintenance tasks triggered by calendar, event or condition. Each PM action generates work orders that sit alongside breakdowns in the backlog. Work that needs a stopped line can be tied to an event, such as an annual shutdown.
These work orders only appear automatically when the calendar, event and condition generation jobs run. Appoint an owner who schedules and monitors those jobs, or the PM plan stays a list.
Start with condition monitoring
Condition-based maintenance can start without sensors. Technicians enter readings such as operating hours or an oil level. If a reading falls outside a PM action’s limits, IFS Cloud creates a work order at the next condition generation run. Our article on IoT and digital twins covers what sensors add.
Record what the technician finds
The history you analyse in phase 3 starts here. In IFS Cloud, you can make the report-in step in the app mandatory, so technicians record fault type, cause, performed action and fault class. You decide which codes exist and what they mean, so the history stays comparable.
Measure your performance
Your main measure in this phase is the ratio of work orders from PM actions to those from fault reports. As the PM share rises, you can see the move from firefighter to strategist. Also track the share of work orders with a recorded cause, because without causes phase 3 has nothing to analyse.
MTBF, first-time fix and cost per asset come later. Our article on maintenance costs explains how to measure them.
Phase 2 is done when all work runs through work orders and PM actions for critical assets generate their own.
Phase 3 (90+ days): which maintenance approach do you choose per asset?
The approach that fits each failure mode, based on the failure history from phase 2. Criticality decides which assets you analyse first. You decide as maintenance manager, with production and your safety manager.
Analyse historical data
Look for patterns in the failures of the past 12 months: after a number of operating hours, at certain temperatures or after specific production batches. IFS Cloud keeps closed work orders for analysis, and IFS says you can adjust the PM plan at any time on that basis.
Develop maintenance strategies per asset
One asset can fail in several ways, so choose per failure mode:
- Condition-based or predictive: only where a measurable signal announces the failure
- Preventive, by calendar or operating hours: for wear that builds up with time or use
- Run-to-failure (replace when broken): only where the consequences are demonstrably acceptable
A critical asset still needs a measurable signal before predictive maintenance fits. Base each choice on a risk assessment, applicable obligations and the consequences of failure. Set a review date for each critical asset.
Our article on reducing maintenance costs shows how an FMECA in IFS Cloud records those choices. Read what AI adds to predictive maintenance.
Integrate with other systems
Connect EAM with enterprise resource planning (ERP), planning and procurement where this supports the process. In IFS Cloud, ERP and EAM share one platform, so parts on an active PM action count as inventory demand within the planning horizon. Not every function sits in the same module or licence, so check this first. Test the integration and compare turnaround times, manual steps and errors with the baseline.
For ESG reporting, measure energy use before and after an intervention. Read how sustainability and traceability improve business performance.
Phase 3 has no end date. You are on track when every critical asset has a recorded strategy and the PM plan follows the history.
Where do you start with smarter maintenance?
This week, with phase 1. List every channel requests now arrive through, from phone and email to WhatsApp. Agree with the production manager which assets are most critical.
From day one, track how much work was planned and how much came from a breakdown. In IFS Cloud EAM, that becomes the ratio from phase 2. After six months, check whether urgent jobs, unplanned downtime and inventory costs are falling.
Not every maintenance department needs a full EAM platform. If your maintenance process is small and simple, a lighter set-up may fit better. Read how IFS Cloud EAM and IFS Ultimo differ.
Questions about the roadmap to smarter maintenance
How do you decide which assets are critical?
By combining the consequences of failure for safety, the environment and production with the likelihood of failure, asset by asset. In IFS Cloud, you record the result as object criticality. IFS uses it to prioritise work on the most critical objects.
Do you need an EAM system for phase 1?
No. One request channel, a priority table and a list of critical assets work with today’s tools. IFS Cloud EAM then turns each request into a work order and keeps the history for analysis.
What does IFS Cloud need to plan preventive maintenance automatically?
PM actions per object with a calendar, event or condition trigger, and generation jobs that run regularly. You decide how often they run. Without those jobs, work orders only appear when someone generates them manually.
How does this roadmap fit your situation?
We analyse your current maintenance processes with your team and draw up a concrete action plan. Tell us where you stand with IFS. After one conversation you will have a clear next step. Discuss your IFS question
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