Jointly plan maintenance, technicians and plant availability
Structured maintenance and servicing planning links recurring appointments, faults, plant, qualified staff and the necessary equipment. Visual Planning® can consolidate this information into a graphical planning board, thereby supporting operational coordination.
The site deals with the planning of maintenance and repair operations. Technical diagnostics, plant management, spare parts management and statutory inspections remain the responsibility of the specialist systems and personnel assigned to these tasks.
Distinguish between preventive and corrective maintenance
| Maintenance type | Trigger | Planning task |
|---|---|---|
| Preventive maintenance | Interval, duration, calendar appointment or defined status | Coordinate appointments well in advance with production, service and available technicians |
| Corrective maintenance | Malfunction, fault or unplanned deviation | Assess priorities, allocate qualified staff and adjust existing plans |
| Testing and inspection | internal policy, manufacturer’s recommendation or statutory deadline | Plan deadlines, responsibilities and required test equipment transparently |
In practice, these tasks run in parallel. Scheduled maintenance windows must not obscure urgent repairs; conversely, unplanned faults should not result in recurring appointments being missed. Joint planning provides an up-to-date overview of the situation.
Which resources need to be coordinated?
Plant and machinery
Location, status, availability, downtime and planned production allocation form the timeframe.
Technicians and teams
Working hours, absences, on-call duties, regions and existing qualifications influence the allocation.
Tools and test equipment
Specialist tools, measuring instruments, lifting equipment or vehicles can be treated as shared resources.
Spare parts and materials
Availability data can be integrated as information relevant to planning; the actual stock management remains within the ERP or service system.
Orders and priorities
Faults, maintenance orders, inspections and modifications are categorised according to urgency, deadline and impact.
Locations and time slots
Journey times, access windows, production breaks and customer appointments limit the possible working hours.
Maintenance planning with Visual Planning®
Highlight recurring assignments
Depending on the process set up, maintenance intervals can be displayed as recurring appointments or as orders imported from a source system. Planning managers can view upcoming assignments alongside resources that are already allocated and can coordinate suitable time slots.
Colours, statuses, symbols and filters help to distinguish between due dates, priorities and processing statuses. Notifications or warnings can be added depending on the configuration and the modules used.
Assign technicians appropriately
When it comes to maintenance and servicing, simply having a free slot in the calendar is often not enough. Key factors include qualifications, experience with the equipment, location, readiness and the availability of the necessary tools. These factors can be taken into account during the planning process.
The general scheduling of mobile staff is carried out under Customer service and field service planning in depth; it covers shifts, absences and qualifications Staff deployment planning.
Coordinate planned downtime with production and detailed planning
Maintenance work affects available machine capacity. Therefore, downtime should not be managed separately from production planning. In Visual Planning®, scheduled maintenance, machine bookings and production orders can be displayed in coordinated views, depending on the data model.
The Production planning takes a holistic view of orders and capacities. The Detailed planning in production assigns work processes to specific machines and time slots. Maintenance planning provides the necessary maintenance windows, downtimes and technical availability data for this purpose.
Dealing with disruptions and last-minute changes
- Assess urgency: Priority is determined by security relevance, impact on production and the agreed response time.
- Find available skilled workers: Qualifications, location and current assignments are considered together.
- Identify the knock-on effects: Postponed maintenance or repairs can affect other orders, equipment and customer appointments.
- Check alternative resources: Alternative technicians, machines, vehicles or tools become visible.
- Provide status: Authorised users work with a shared, up-to-date planning status.
Integration with ERP, service management and technical systems
Order, asset, customer or material data can be imported from existing systems as part of an interface project. Which application remains the primary system and which feedback is exchanged depends on data sources, processes and available interfaces.
Visual Planning® is not a substitute for a specialised Computerised Maintenance Management System where comprehensive asset records, technical documentation, spare parts management or statutory compliance documentation are required. It can complement such an environment with flexible graphical deployment, resource and scheduling planning.
Practical application: Technician deployment planning in mechanical engineering
The HOMAG Case Study It documents the global planning of service engineers and other resources. It demonstrates how important a shared planning status and integration with existing systems are for international service organisations. Individual findings are taken from the published customer interview and should not be interpreted as a universally applicable statement of effectiveness.
Plan maintenance and servicing jobs transparently
In a personalised online demonstration, we will show you how to coordinate plant, technicians, appointments and equipment within a single planning system.