What this is
What counts as "on time" for PM compliance?
What counts as "on time" for PM compliance?
Most schemes allow a tolerance window, typically ten percent of the task interval, before a completed task is reclassified as late. A weekly task done on day nine of ten is on time; done on day twelve it should count as a miss even though it eventually happened. The Completed Within Window field exists precisely so late-but-done work does not get folded into the same bucket as work that happened correctly.
What is the difference between compliance and effectiveness?
Compliance measures whether scheduled tasks were carried out. Effectiveness measures whether carrying them out actually prevented failures. A plant can run at 98% compliance and still fail equipment if the PM content is wrong, and it can run at 70% compliance with no failures if the tasks it is missing are low-value. The review separates the two on purpose.
What does a trend-versus-last-period comparison protect against?
A single period's compliance figure can look acceptable while masking a slide that has been building for months. Comparing against the prior period turns one static number into a direction of travel, and a worsening trend at 85% is a different problem to a stable trend at 85%, even though the headline figure is identical.
Scope
When is a pm compliance review required?
This review looks backwards across a completed period to judge whether the schedule was followed and whether following it was worth it. Using it to plan the next period's work, or to record an individual task's outcome, produces a record that duplicates data the schedule and the checklists already hold.
Use this template when
- A review period has just closed and the planned-versus-completed figures are available to compare
- A new record is needed; each one gets its own ID in the form PMC-2026-000
- You are running the Planned Maintenance programme and this review is the monthly checkpoint on it
- A linked record needs this one to exist: it links PM records back to the underlying plan
- Compliance has dropped, a repeat miss has appeared, or a trend needs a documented decision on whether to act
Do not use it for
- Preventive Maintenance Plan, which sets out what preventive work each asset needs, how often and why, rather than judging whether that plan was followed.
- Weekly Maintenance Schedule, which lays out the coming week's planned tasks, not a retrospective on a completed period.
- Schedule Compliance Review, which covers adherence to the wider maintenance schedule rather than the PM programme specifically.
- Maintenance Backlog Review, which tracks the age and volume of outstanding work orders, a different measure to whether scheduled PM ran on time.
- Anything outside KnowMaintain, which belongs in the workspace that owns that process
Compliance mapping
Which ISO 55001 cl.9.1 requirements does this satisfy?
The clause references below are the parts of ISO 55001 clause 9.1 that a PM compliance review actually operationalises, mapped to the section of the form that carries the evidence.
| Clause | Requirement | Where it lands |
|---|---|---|
| ISO 55001 cl.9.1(a) | Determine what needs to be monitored and measured | Compliance |
| ISO 55001 cl.9.1(c) | Determine when monitoring and measurement results shall be analysed | Header |
| ISO 55001 cl.9.1(d) | Evaluate the performance and effectiveness of asset management activities | Effectiveness |
| ISO 55001 cl.9.3 | Feed monitoring results into management review as a trend, not a snapshot | Effectiveness |
| ISO 55001 cl.10.1 | Act on nonconformity and take corrective action | Effectiveness |
| ISO 55001 cl.7.5 | Retain documented information as evidence of the cause of nonconformance | Why tasks were missed |
| ISO 55001 cl.9.1(e) | Retain appropriate documented evidence of monitoring results | Related records |
What it does not cover
- Compliance Percent, which is a single blended figure that can sit above 85% while every miss clusters on the plant's most critical line.
- Main Reason For Non Completion, which captures one dominant cause per period even when several distinct causes are driving misses across different assets.
- Deferrals Formally Approved, which records that approval happened but not who granted it or against what stated criteria.
- Same Tasks Missed Repeatedly, which is a yes or no flag with no field linking it back to the specific task or asset that keeps recurring.
- PM Optimisation Review Needed, which is a judgement call with no evidence field forcing the reviewer to show what the defect-find rate or failure history actually was.
Global
PM Compliance Review requirements by country
PM compliance review is a management-system practice rather than a statutory filing, so its weight comes from what certification bodies and insurers expect to see rather than from a single national law.
ISO 55001 certification audits
An auditor sampling PM records expects the compliance figure reconciled against the plan and the deferral log, not quoted from a dashboard.
A record with no evidence behind the headline percentage is a documented-information nonconformity in its own right.
HSWA 1974 s.2/3 and PUWER 1998 reg.5
Regulators investigating a failure ask whether scheduled maintenance actually happened, and repeat unapproved deferrals on the failed asset read as prior knowledge of the risk.
Deferrals Formally Approved and Same Tasks Missed Repeatedly become the primary evidence trail in any incident inquiry.
OSHA General Duty Clause, s.5(a)(1)
Where a missed PM task contributed to an incident, inspectors look for whether the gap was identified and acted on rather than carried forward unremarked.
Action Required left at No against a worsening trend weakens the employer's position that the hazard was being managed.
How to complete it
How to complete a pm compliance review, step by step
Filling in the numeric fields is mechanical. The judgement calls below are what decide whether the resulting record actually defends the programme.
Completed Within Window exists because a task finished after the interval has effectively run without preventive cover for that period. Most schemes allow roughly ten percent of the interval as tolerance; anything looser and a monthly task done six weeks late starts counting as compliant when it functionally was not.
Compliance On Critical Assets and Compliance On Safety Critical Tasks are separate fields for a reason. A reviewer who only reports the blended Compliance Percent has technically completed the form without answering the question the review exists to ask.
Deferred Tasks and Deferrals Formally Approved together decide whether a gap in the schedule was a managed decision or a quiet slip. "Some" approved should trigger the same scrutiny as "No" until each individual deferral is checked.
PM Tasks Finding Defects Percent sitting near zero over several periods is not proof the equipment is healthy. It is more often proof the task interval, method or scope no longer matches how the asset actually fails, and it should feed PM Optimisation Review Needed rather than be filed as good news.
What auditors find
Most common pm compliance review findings
The patterns below are the ones that make a PM compliance review look complete on paper while leaving the actual failure mode unaddressed.
| Finding | Clause | What fixes it |
|---|---|---|
| Compliance Percent sits above the 85% guideline while Compliance On Critical Assets is materially lower | ISO 55001 cl.9.1(d) | Report the critical-asset and statutory-task figures alongside the blended number every review, not only when the headline looks poor. |
| Deferred Tasks is non-zero but Deferrals Formally Approved is recorded as No | ISO 55001 cl.10.1 | Treat an unapproved deferral as a missed task rather than a scheduled one until formal sign-off exists. |
| Same Tasks Missed Repeatedly is Yes with no CAPA ID entered against it | ISO 55001 cl.10.1 | Require Action Required set to Yes and a CAPA raised whenever a repeat miss is recorded. |
| PM Tasks Finding Defects Percent has run near zero for several periods with no optimisation flag raised | ISO 55001 cl.9.1(d) | Set PM Optimisation Review Needed to Yes and route the task for revision once a low find-rate persists across two periods. |
| Failures On Assets With Full Compliance is greater than zero and PM Optimisation Review Needed is left at No | ISO 55001 cl.10.1 | Escalate to a job-plan content review, since the failure mode is wrong PM scope rather than a scheduling gap. |
| Next Review Due is left blank while Status is set to Complete or Closed | ISO 55001 cl.9.1(c) | Block closure of the record until a next review date is entered. |
Case in point
Case in point: the line that never showed up in the average
A red meat processor ran monthly PM compliance reviews for a year showing a steady 88 to 91 percent, comfortably above their internal target. The planner signed each one off against the blended Compliance Percent and moved on. What the aggregate hid was that a single boning line conveyor's lubrication and belt-tension tasks had been deferred four periods running, each time coded as 'no production window', with Deferrals Formally Approved marked 'Some'.
The conveyor seized during a Friday shift, taking the line down for eleven hours during peak throughput. The post-incident review found Compliance On Critical Assets had actually been sitting in the mid-60s for the whole period the blended figure looked healthy. The fix was procedural, not statistical: the critical-asset breakdown was added as a mandatory line in the monthly report, and a repeat deferral on a critical asset now auto-raises a CAPA rather than waiting for the planner to notice the pattern.
The template
The template, field by field
The form exactly as it installs. Every field, option, score and conditional rule is editable, and the links to other templates come with it.
5 sections
- Reference
- MNT-030
- Archetype
- Review
- Record ID
- PMC-2026-000
- Scoring
- Compliance percent
- Direction
- High is good
- Singleton
- No
- Basis
- ISO 55001 cl.9.1
- Links
- Links PM records
- Tags
- Maintenance, Governance
- Sections
- 5
- Fields
- 40
- Follow up fields
- 3
- Repeating sections
- 0
- Links out
- 3
Header
12 fieldsReview ID*
Auto sequence. Format PMC-2026-000.
The record's own ID. Other templates point at this value.
Status*
Drives who this goes to next.
- Planned2 pts
- In progress2 pts
- Complete3 pts
- Deferred0 pts
- Open0 pts
- Closed3 pts
- Overdue0 pts
Date and Time*
Raised By*
Site*
Site ID*
Format SITE-000.
Links to FDN-001 Site ID
Area
The area within the site.
Exact Location
Drop a pin for anything hard to find.
Period From*
Period To*
Reviewed By*
The Number Behind Most Downtime
PM compliance below 85 percent usually explains most of a plant's unplanned failures. Chase the missed tasks on critical assets first.
Compliance
9 fieldsPM Tasks Due*
PM Tasks Completed*
Compliance Percent*
Completed Within Window*
Done late is not done on time. Most schemes allow ten percent of the interval.
Overdue Tasks*
Deferred Tasks*
Compliance On Critical Assets*
Compliance On Safety Critical Tasks*
Compliance On Statutory Tasks*
Why tasks were missed
3 fieldsMain Reason For Non Completion*
No production window, labour shortage, parts, permit, forgotten or deliberately deferred.
- None missed3 pts
- No production window1 pt
- Labour shortage1 pt
- Parts1 pt
- Permit1 pt
- Forgotten0 pts
- Deliberately deferred0 pts
Deferrals Formally Approved*
- Yes3 pts
- Some1 pt
- No0 pts
Same Tasks Missed Repeatedly*
- No3 pts
- Yes0 pts
Related records
1 fieldPM Plan ID
The plan whose compliance was measured.
Links to MNT-021 Plan ID
Effectiveness
15 fieldsPM Tasks Finding Defects Percent
Tasks that never find anything are candidates for extension or removal.
Failures On Assets With Full Compliance
Failures despite full compliance mean the PM content is wrong, not the schedule.
Failures On Assets With Missed PM
Preventive Versus Reactive Ratio
Trend Versus Last Period*
- Improving3 pts
- Stable2 pts
- Worsening0 pts
Action Required*
Raise the action record, then enter its reference here.
- No2 pts
- Yes0 pts
Priority
- High0 pts
- Medium1 pt
- Low3 pts
CAPA ID
Format CAPA-2026-00000.
Links to FDN-014 CAPA ID
Action Owner
PM Optimisation Review Needed*
- No3 pts
- Yes1 pt
Next Review Due*
Planner*
Signature*
Maintenance Manager*
Second Signature*
MNT-030 · record IDs look like PMC-2026-000 · Links PM records
Open in KnowellaRun it with agents
From a document you fill in to a programme that runs itself
The form is the easy part. Keeping the critical-asset breakdown visible instead of buried in an average, and turning a repeat miss into a CAPA automatically, is the work that actually slips.
Holds the PM compliance review against the live plan and asset register, splits the critical and statutory figures out automatically, and flags a repeat miss before the next review cycle starts.
Picks up the CAPA raised from a repeat miss or a worsening trend, tracks it to closure, and keeps the compliance review and the corrective action record pointing at each other.
Surfaces when a deferral reason of 'parts' recurs against the same task, so a spares shortfall driving compliance down gets fixed at the source instead of being re-coded every month.
Rolls the compliance, critical-asset and trend figures into one view across every site, and holds every proposed CAPA or optimisation flag for your approval before it writes to a record.
This template lives in KnowMaintain — asset maintenance. Work orders, planned maintenance, calibration, reliability and shutdowns.
Meet KnowMaintain→Glossary
PM Compliance Review definitions and key terms
- PM compliance
- The proportion of scheduled preventive maintenance tasks completed within their due window, expressed as a percentage of tasks due in the period.
- Backlog
- Planned or corrective work that has passed its due date and remains outstanding, distinct from a deferral that was formally approved in advance.
- Statutory task
- A PM task required by law or an external certification scheme, such as a pressure vessel inspection, where a miss carries regulatory exposure beyond the operational risk.
- CAPA
- Corrective and Preventive Action: a tracked record raised when a nonconformance, such as a repeat missed PM task, needs a documented root cause and fix.
- Job plan
- The set of instructions, parts and duration attached to a specific PM task, distinct from the plan-level document that says how often the task should run.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions about pm compliance review
What is a PM compliance review template based on?+
It is built against ISO 55001 clause 9.1, which requires an organisation to monitor, measure, analyse and evaluate the performance of its asset management activities. The review is the operational record that satisfies that clause on a recurring basis.
What sections does the PM compliance review contain?+
Five sections: Header, Compliance, Why tasks were missed, Related records, and Effectiveness. Between them they hold 40 fields, 29 of which are required, moving from raw completion counts through root cause to a judgement on whether the PM programme itself needs changing.
How often should a PM compliance review be raised?+
Monthly is the default cadence referenced in the catalogue entry, but a review should also be triggered by any event that calls the schedule into question, such as an unexpected failure on an asset that was showing full compliance.
Why does the form separate compliance from effectiveness?+
Because they can move independently. High compliance with rising failures points to wrong PM content; low compliance with no failures points to over-scheduled, low-value tasks. Conflating the two into one score would hide which problem is actually present.
What happens when Action Required is set to Yes?+
Priority, CAPA ID and Action Owner fields become visible, and the review is expected to carry a live reference to the corrective action record rather than a note that an action was discussed.
Can the PM compliance review template be changed?+
Yes. Every field, option, score and conditional rule is editable, and the links to the underlying PM plan come with it. Most teams install it as it is, run it for a cycle, then tighten the critical-asset and repeat-miss thresholds once they know their own baseline.
Keep going
Related templates and programmes
Industries this is written for
Programmes this belongs to
Used together in Planned Maintenance
Asset Register
Holds every piece of equipment, machine, vehicle and tool you track
Tool and Equipment Register
Holds portable tools, gauges, lifting accessories and small equipment that sit below asset level but still need control
Maintenance Request
Asks maintenance to look at a problem or carry out a job
Work Order
The main record for a planned maintenance job, covering what, where, who and when
Corrective Work Order
Covers a repair to fix something that has already failed or degraded
Emergency Work Order
Covers urgent work where equipment has stopped or become unsafe
More in PM Schedules
Preventive Maintenance Plan
Sets out what preventive work each asset needs, how often and why
Daily PM Checklist
Covers daily checks such as lubrication points, fluid levels and visual condition
Weekly PM Checklist
Covers weekly preventive tasks including cleaning, belt and chain checks and minor adjustments
Monthly PM Checklist
Covers monthly preventive tasks including deeper inspection, filter changes and fastener checks
Quarterly PM Checklist
Covers quarterly preventive tasks that usually need the asset stopped
Annual PM Checklist
Covers the yearly overhaul tasks, including full strip down where required
Written and reviewed by
Siddarth Singh
Founder & Chief Executive Officer, Knowella
Certified Safety Professional and industrial and systems engineer with more than a decade inside food supply chain, freight and manufacturing operations. This page was written against the current text of the standards it cites, not against secondary summaries of them.
- Certified Safety Professional (CSP), Board of Certified Safety Professionals
- MBA, University of Chicago Booth School of Business
- MS and BS, The Ohio State University, Industrial and Systems Engineering
- Six Sigma Black Belt
Sources and last review. Reviewed 16 August 2026 against:
- ISO 55001:2014 cl.9.1 — Monitoring, measurement, analysis and evaluation
- ISO 55001:2014 cl.10.1 — Nonconformity and corrective action
- ISO 55001:2014 cl.9.3 — Management review
- Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, s.2–3
- OSHA General Duty Clause, Occupational Safety and Health Act s.5(a)(1)
This page is general guidance, not legal advice. Confirm requirements with your jurisdiction’s regulator.