Planned Preventive Maintenance
A maintenance strategy in which building elements and services are inspected and serviced at scheduled intervals to prevent failure and extend service life, rather than waiting for failure to occur.
Planned preventive maintenance (PPM) is a maintenance strategy based on scheduled, proactive intervention to prevent component failure rather than reactive repair after failure. A PPM programme specifies, for each building element or piece of equipment, the nature of the maintenance task, the frequency at which it should be carried out, and the resources required. It is contrasted with reactive maintenance — fixing things when they break — and with condition-based maintenance, which triggers intervention based on measured condition rather than fixed schedules.
The case for PPM is economic as well as technical. Many building failures follow a predictable deterioration curve: a roof covering that shows early signs of blistering and cracking can be repaired for a fraction of the cost of replacement if addressed before water ingress begins. An M&E plant item that receives regular servicing lasts significantly longer than one that receives no attention. The cost of reactive repairs — which often involve emergency call-out charges, consequential damage to finishes and contents, and business interruption — typically far exceeds the cost of the preventive work that would have avoided them.
Effective PPM depends on good baseline information. Before a maintenance programme can be developed, the current condition and age of every significant building element must be established. This is the role of the condition survey: it produces the asset condition inventory that feeds the maintenance model. Without this baseline, PPM programmes are based on assumed rather than measured condition, which means that resources may be directed to elements that do not need attention while genuinely deteriorating elements go uninspected.
Photographic condition records are particularly valuable for PPM because they allow condition to be assessed over time — not just at a single point in time. A series of 360° panoramas from the same position across multiple survey campaigns, each pinned to the same location on the floor plan, provides a visual timeline of deterioration that supports confident maintenance decisions. The investment in photographic spatial documentation at each survey cycle pays dividends in the quality and defensibility of the maintenance planning that follows.
Related Terms
A systematic inspection of a building or structure to assess its physical state, identify defects, and provide a basis for maintenance planning, legal documentation, or investment decisions.
The professional discipline responsible for ensuring buildings and their services function efficiently and safely, encompassing maintenance, operations, health and safety, space management, and asset lifecycle planning.
A dynamic digital replica of a physical asset that is continuously updated with real-world data, allowing the asset to be monitored, analysed, and simulated without physical intervention.
A numerical or categorical score assigned to a building element or asset to describe its current physical state, typically used in condition surveys to communicate deterioration level and prioritise maintenance.
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