Maintenance indicator analysis: 5 KPIs and the cycle

Maintenance indicator analysis is an activity that has become essential in fleet and transport operations in recent years.

Just before leaving that field to work here at Prolog, I frequently faced the need to implement improvements to increase vehicle and operational performance.

These indicators are fundamental. They include assessments of the amount of maintenance a vehicle undergoes, the time between failures, how often the same failure repeats, mean time to repair, and so on.

Having and analyzing these indicators therefore allows you to better understand the main failures in your operation that may be generating high costs and reducing your company’s productivity.

Keep reading to learn:

• Why use and analyze maintenance indicators
• Which indicators to use for analysis
• How to analyze maintenance indicators
• Tips for more accurate analyses

Why use and analyze maintenance indicators?

Using and analyzing maintenance indicators helps build a detailed picture of vehicle performance and maintenance process effectiveness. You can more easily identify recurring issues, predict failures and optimize resources.

Data and indicator analysis also allows decisions based on concrete information, reducing risks and increasing the chances of reducing operating costs and extending vehicle useful life.

When you understand maintenance patterns and critical failure points, you can plan preventive rather than corrective interventions, avoiding unexpected downtime and ensuring vehicle availability.

This happened because I noticed a vehicle was constantly being sent to the workshop due to frequent brake system failures.

After analyzing the indicators, I realized the brake discs were wearing out very quickly. This led me to review parts quality and adjust preventive maintenance frequency to ensure brakes were inspected and replaced before failures occurred.

To summarize the story a little:

You should analyze maintenance indicators to increase vehicle durability, reduce operating costs and identify improvement opportunities that directly affect company goals — such as increasing operational efficiency, reducing environmental impacts, and so on.

Which indicators should you analyze?

The main indicators you should consider are:

• MTBF (Mean Time Between Failures)

MTBF measures a vehicle’s mean time between failures. A high MTBF indicates that vehicles operate for longer periods without failures, reflecting effective maintenance and good-quality parts.

• MTTR (Mean Time to Repair)

MTTR measures the average time it takes to repair a vehicle after a failure. A low MTTR suggests that the maintenance team is resolving issues quickly, minimizing downtime.

• Repeat failure rate

This indicator measures how often the same failure occurs in a vehicle. A high repeat failure rate may indicate issues with parts quality or maintenance procedures.

• Maintenance cost per vehicle

Keep track of maintenance costs for each vehicle. This includes parts, labor and other associated costs.

Comparing these costs with the fleet average can help identify vehicles needing special attention and when it may be time to renew your fleet with modern, more economical vehicles.

• Availability

Operational availability measures the percentage of total time when vehicles are available for use. High operational availability indicates a well-maintained, efficient fleet.

How do you analyze maintenance indicators?

Consider your fleet goals

It is important to consider fleet goals, such as cost reduction or increased vehicle availability, to understand what constitutes good results.

This also helps organize data correctly and identify which maintenance performance indicators and metrics to prioritize in your analyses. With clear goals, you can focus on the indicators that most affect those results.

Have comparison baselines

Use industry benchmarks, your fleet’s historical performance patterns and previously established goals — as well as results achieved.

Comparing your data with these references helps identify deviations and improvement opportunities.

Make projections from historical data

Use historical data to make future projections. Analyze trends and patterns over time to predict possible failures and maintenance needs.

This approach makes it possible to plan preventive interventions and avoid unpleasant surprises.

Plan actions and execute them by priority

After analyzing the data, plan the most appropriate responses to each issue or improvement identified, and rank them according to impact and urgency.

This lets you always focus on actions offering the greatest benefit.

Evaluate and restart the process

After executing the actions, evaluate the results. Check whether goals were achieved and identify areas still needing improvement — or new areas that have shown unsatisfactory results.

This continuous cycle of analysis, action and evaluation is crucial for continuous improvement and maintaining a fleet that is efficient and reliable.

My tips for more accurate analyses

To ensure more accurate maintenance indicator analyses, you need efficient, accurate data collection. This means using suitable tools and having cooperation from drivers and the maintenance team.

So my tip is: 1) carefully assess your fleet’s needs and choose tools that meet your requirements.

And 2) train drivers continuously, along with the maintenance team, so they are always aware of the importance of their roles in fleet management and achieving more positive results. This also prevents complaints and low adoption of new tools and technologies.

Another worthwhile consideration, when possible, is to involve different departments in your analysis of maintenance indicators. People from areas such as operations and finance can enrich the analysis with different perspectives, identifying hidden issues and developing broader, more effective solutions.

Finally, I could not leave out using a maintenance management system. Adapting to management technologies was fundamental to my development and standing out in the field, because it gave me the most precious thing in our lives: time.

By automating various previously laborious tasks, such as transferring data to a spreadsheet and creating reports, I gained much more time to focus on analysis and seek the solutions needed to optimize my fleet management.

In fact, Prolog was one of the main technologies I worked with, and it had such an impact that I now work here to try to contribute even more to improving the solutions developed and bringing them to other managers who I am sure can benefit from them.

Get to know the maintenance management solution in a free demonstration with one of our specialists. Just click here and fill out the form, and we will contact you.