--- title: "The 5 maintenance KPIs that actually matter | attendo" description: "Instead of lists of thirty KPIs nobody uses, five maintenance metrics that change decisions: what each one measures, how to calculate it and its trap." url: "https://attendo.me/en/blog/maintenance-kpis-that-matter" lang: "en" --- # The five maintenance KPIs that actually matter There are lists of thirty maintenance KPIs out there, and almost nobody uses thirty. These are five that change decisions, each with its trap, plus the ones you can usually drop. - By the attendo team - Published September 27, 2026 - 4 min read **In this article** 1. \1. Corrective-to-preventive ratio 2. \2. Preventive plan compliance 3. \3. Maintenance cost per asset 4. \4. MTBF by equipment family 5. \5. MTTR breakdown 6. The ones you can usually drop 7. The rule before adding one more 8. How to set them up without wasting time ## 1. Corrective-to-preventive ratio **What it measures:** the health of the operation, in a single figure. **How to calculate it:** corrective hours divided by total maintenance hours. **Why it comes first:** it tells you whether you are running maintenance or reacting to it. **The trap:** there is no universal good number. What matters is the trend. If corrective work rises three months in a row, the plan is falling apart even if nobody has said so. ## 2. Preventive plan compliance **What it measures:** whether the plan really exists. **How to calculate it:** preventive work orders completed on time divided by those scheduled. **The trap:** it can be dressed up by closing work orders that were never done, or by moving them before they fall due. Always read it next to the number of inspections postponed more than once. A 95% compliance rate with sixty inspections pushed back twice is not 95%. ## 3. Maintenance cost per asset **What it measures:** which equipment is costing you money. **How to calculate it:** hours times cost per hour, plus parts and travel, grouped by asset. **What it is for:** it is the argument that wins a capital spending discussion. “This compressor cost $9,000 in repairs this year, and a new one costs $6,800” ends the conversation (example figures). **The trap:** if parts are not charged to the asset, the cost comes out at half and the argument falls apart. And parts are exactly what people forget to record. ## 4. MTBF by equipment family **What it measures:** reliability and, above all, how it changes over time. **The trap:** comparing it across different families tells you nothing. Its value lies in comparing an asset with itself over time, or twin assets with each other. Two identical pumps with very different [MTBF](https://attendo.me/en/glossary/mtbf) point to an installation or usage problem, not a pump problem. The details are in [how to calculate MTBF and MTTR](https://attendo.me/en/blog/how-to-calculate-mtbf-and-mttr). ## 5. MTTR breakdown **What it measures:** where the time goes in a repair. **How to calculate it:** split MTTR into detection, travel, waiting for parts and actual repair. **Why it is on the list:** the biggest stage is rarely the repair. Without the breakdown, meetings end up discussing technician productivity when the problem is in the parts room or in how requests come in. ## The ones you can usually drop - **Maintenance cost as a share of replacement value.** Useful in heavy industry, not very practical for a service company. - **Work orders closed per technician.** It rewards closing fast, not closing well. - **Maintenance overtime.** It is a symptom, not a management KPI. - **Composite indexes** that blend five things into one number. When it drops, nobody knows why. ## The rule before adding one more A KPI that does not change any decision is decoration. Before adding one, answer a single question: if this number gets worse, what would I do differently tomorrow? If there is no answer, leave it out. ## How to set them up without wasting time - **One single source.** If each KPI comes from a different spreadsheet, the figures never match and the meeting is spent arguing about them. - **Every month, on the same day.** You only see the trend if the cutoff is regular. - **With the detail at hand.** Behind every figure there must be the work orders that make it up. Otherwise nobody can act on it. Five KPIs reviewed every month are worth more than thirty in a report nobody opens. And if you can only look at one, look at the corrective-to-preventive ratio. Last updated: September 27, 2026 Downloadable guide · Template Preventive maintenance plan template A template to print or copy into your spreadsheet: task tables by asset family, how to prioritize with the hours you actually have and how to measure whether the plan is being met. Every interval is marked as an example. [Download the free guide](https://attendo.me/en/guides/preventive-maintenance-plan-template) ## How attendo handles it In attendo CMMS, they all come from the same work orders: MTBF and MTTR, the corrective-to-preventive ratio, plan compliance and cost per asset. Reports can be emailed on a schedule. With AI-Chat, you ask which assets had the most failures, and the answer shows what it looked up. - [attendo CMMS](https://attendo.me/en/cmms) - [AI-Chat and DB Assistant](https://attendo.me/en/modules/ai-chat) ## More on maintenance ### How to calculate MTBF and MTTR without fooling yourself Both formulas fit on one line. The hard part is making the number mean something. Here are the formulas, a complete example and the three mistakes that turn these KPIs into decoration. 4 min read ### Corrective vs. preventive maintenance: which one really costs more Everyone says preventive maintenance is cheaper, but few companies prove it with their own numbers. That is why it is the first thing dropped when an emergency hits. Here is the math, including the uncomfortable part: when corrective is the right call. 5 min read ### How to build a preventive maintenance plan that actually gets done The hard part of preventive maintenance is not designing the plan. It is keeping it alive past the first few months. When a plan is abandoned, it is rarely for lack of will. It was usually sized wrong from day one. 5 min read [All blog articles](https://attendo.me/en/blog) ## Shall we look at it with your operation? Tell us how you work today and we will show you attendo with your own data. If it is not a fit, we will say so. - With your operation, not a generic demo - A real person from our team replies - No cold calls afterwards Would you rather talk first? - Phone [+34 910 053 530](tel:+34910053530) - Email [sales@attendo.me](mailto:sales@attendo.me) - Monday to Thursday 9:30 AM to 6:30 PM and Friday 9:30 AM to 2:30 PM (Spain time)