Key takeaways
- Preventive maintenance fails in FM companies when the calendar lives in one spreadsheet and the assets live in someone’s memory.
- PPM only works when each ticket is tied to a real asset at a real site, with the same assignment and status discipline as a breakdown complaint.
- Site surveys should feed the maintenance backlog — not sit in a separate photo album.
- You do not need predictive IoT to stop missing quarterly filter changes. You need a register that other people can run when you are on leave.
Preventive maintenance software for facility management has a branding problem. Vendors talk about sensors and machine learning. Most FM contractors still miss a quarterly AHU service because the reminder was a row in a file named PPM_final_v7.xlsx.
If that file belongs to one supervisor, you do not have a PPM programme. You have a person. People take leave, change jobs, and get pulled onto breakdowns. The calendar has to survive them.
Why PPM dies in a spreadsheet
A PPM sheet usually starts well: asset, frequency, last date, next date, vendor. Then reality arrives.
- A technician services the unit but nobody updates the date
- A new site is added and never enters the sheet
- Two versions circulate — office and site
- The asset tag on the wall does not match the row name
- When someone asks for history, you search WhatsApp for last year’s photos
Breakdown complaints then look “sudden.” Often they are the bill for skipped preventive work you can no longer prove.
Scheduled maintenance that depends on someone remembering is not a schedule. It is optimism.
Put the asset first, then the calendar
Frequency without an asset register is a to-do list. Start with what you actually have at each client site: name, make, model, serial, location, capacity, photos. That is the DWD FMS asset registry — per company and per site, the same structure as your complaints.
Technicians can list, view, and create assets from the field. That matters. The missing cassette AC is discovered during a visit, not during an annual audit you will never schedule.
Once the unit exists, a PPM ticket is just another job with a due date: assigned technician, status, comments, the same history you already trust for breakdowns. Optional per organisation — turn it on when you are ready, rather than pretending every client wants the same programme on day one.
Surveys should create work, not archives
Site surveys are how good FM companies find the next failure. They are also how bad processes create PDF graveyards. A survey with observations — on web and mobile — should be allowed to become a PPM ticket before the equipment fails and becomes a complaint.
That loop is the operational version of “predictive maintenance.” You do not need vibration sensors on every pump to act on a belt that already looks glazed.
PPM and breakdowns belong in the same history
Clients ask: “Has this chiller been a problem before?” If PPM tickets, complaints, and the asset sit in three tools, the honest answer is “we think so.”
When they share company and site scope, an asset’s story is visible: last preventive visit, last breakdown, last quotation. That is how you stop replacing the same part every quarter without noticing.
| Approach | What it is good at | Where it fails |
|---|---|---|
| Excel PPM calendar | Getting started | Ownership, history, photos, leave cover |
| Paper checklists | Technician habit | Nothing reaches the office in a usable form |
| Enterprise CAFM with IoT | Campuses with BMS teams | Cost and time-to-value for a 10-site FM contractor |
| FMS with assets + PPM tickets | The same assignment model as complaints | Will not invent sensor data you do not have — and should not pretend to |
Start free
Give PPM a home that is not a private spreadsheet
Start a DWD FMS trial, add one site’s assets, and raise the PPM tickets that are currently “due whenever someone remembers.” No credit card.
A practical PPM setup for an FM contractor
- Pick one client site that already complains about “the same units failing.” Do not start with the whole portfolio.
- Register the critical assets — HVAC, DG, pumps, fire, lifts — with photos and serials where you can read them.
- Create PPM tickets for the next 90 days only. Annual calendars that nobody works are decoration.
- Assign them like breakdowns. If PPM is “whenever there is time,” it will lose to whatever is shouting.
- Close with a report using the same service report path, so the client sees planned work as professional, not invisible.
- Use surveys after the first month to catch units that never entered the register.
This is less glamorous than a 52-week Gantt chart. It is also how programmes survive contact with a real roster.
What about AMC dates and OEM vendors?
Keep OEM contracts where they already live if you must. What FMS should own is your obligation to the client: the visit, the evidence, the history. If a vendor does the work, your technician or supervisor still closes the ticket with photos so you are not betting the SLA on someone else’s WhatsApp.
Frequently asked questions
Is PPM required to use DWD FMS?
No. PPM is an operations module you enable per organisation. Many teams start with complaints and reports, then add assets and PPM once the daily firefighting is visible.
Are PPM tickets linked to specific assets?
Yes. Tickets sit alongside the asset registry so maintenance is tied to equipment at a site, not a generic reminder titled “HVAC.”
Can technicians update assets on the phone?
Yes. The mobile API supports listing, viewing, and creating assets, which is how registers stay true after the first week.
Do we need IoT to justify the software?
No. If you are still missing planned visits, sensors are not the bottleneck. A shared ticket and asset record is. Add telemetry later if a client campus actually has it.
About this guide. Written by the Digital Work Desk facility team from the asset and PPM modules we ship: per-site registries, PPM tickets with the same assignment model as complaints, and surveys that can feed maintenance work. See preventive maintenance and asset management for the product view.
If your next-service dates currently live in one person’s laptop, move that site first.