What is the difference between planned and scheduled maintenance?

Planning decides what will be done and how: the job plan, the hours per craft, parts, tools and permits. Scheduling decides when and by whom: the day, the production window and the people, inside the hours each craft has. A job should be planned before it is scheduled.

What makes a maintenance job ready to schedule?

The job plan is written, hours are estimated for each craft, parts are kitted or reserved, special tools and permits are arranged, a downtime window is agreed with production if the machine has to stop, and the job is approved with a priority. The Excel version marks a job ready when the craft, hours and kitted parts are filled in and a window is agreed where downtime is needed.

How do you calculate maintenance schedule compliance?

Jobs done as scheduled ÷ jobs scheduled, and the same with hours: the estimated hours of the jobs done as scheduled ÷ the hours scheduled. 14 of 16 jobs is 87.5%. Sites differ on whether a job must be done on its day or only in its week, so write your rule down and keep it the same every week.

How much of the available hours should you schedule?

Practice varies. Some sites schedule close to all the available hours and let break-ins push out the lowest priority jobs; others leave a share free for break-ins. The template uses 80% as an example loading target: set yours from the break-in hours you see each week.

How is this different from a PM checklist, a lubrication schedule, a work order form or a KPI tracker?

The preventive maintenance checklist and the lubrication schedule list the tasks and due dates for a machine, the work order form records one job, and the maintenance KPI tracker shows MTBF, MTTR and PM compliance by month. The weekly schedule takes the jobs from all of those and decides which ones get done next week, on which day and by whom, inside the hours each craft has.

Free template

Updated October 2, 2026

Weekly maintenance schedule template

A weekly maintenance schedule says which maintenance jobs will be done next week, on which day, in which production window and by whom, inside the hours each craft actually has. It comes after planning: planning decides what and how (the job plan, hours, parts and tools), scheduling decides when and who, and only jobs that are ready go on the schedule. Page 1 of this template lists the week's jobs (work order, asset, task, priority, craft, estimated hours, parts kitted, needs downtime, window agreed with production, day, assigned to, done as scheduled), the craft hours available each day against the hours scheduled, a week summary and a break-in log. Page 2 has what makes a job ready, the weekly scheduling meeting, break-ins, schedule compliance and a worked example. The Excel version has a 150-row job list that works out whether each job is ready and its status, craft hours for up to 6 crafts by day with the load for the chosen week and an over-load flag, a break-in log, and schedule compliance and break-ins by week for 12 weeks with charts.

Free to use: print it, copy it and edit it for your team. Enter your name and work email once to download.

Page 1 of the weekly maintenance schedule: fields for site, week, scheduler, production sign-off and loading target, a job table with work order, asset, task, priority, craft, estimated hours, parts kitted, needs downtime, window agreed with production, day, assigned to and done as scheduled, a craft hours table with available and scheduled hours for each day, a week summary and a break-in log. — Ready jobs onlyJobs by craft and dayCraft hours availableLoad against availableOver-load flagWeekly scheduling meetingBreak-insSchedule compliance

When to use it

When to use a weekly maintenance schedule

When maintenance works from a list of open work orders and picks the next job each morning.
When planned jobs keep stalling for missing parts, no downtime window or nobody free.
To agree next week's downtime windows with production before the week starts, not on the day.
To see how much of the schedule gets done, and how much breakdown work pushes out.

How to fill it in

1
Start from ready jobs
Take the jobs that are planned and approved: job plan written, hours estimated per craft, parts kitted or reserved, tools and permits known. A job that needs the machine stopped also needs a window agreed with production. Leave the rest in the backlog with what is missing.
2
Work out each craft's hours
For each craft and day: people on shift × shift hours, less meetings, training and leave. Two mechanics on 8-hour shifts with a 1-hour meeting each on Monday have 14 hours that day.
3
Load jobs by priority
Put the highest priority jobs and the PMs coming due on days first, inside the windows production agreed, and give each job a name. Stop at your loading target; the 80% on the sheet is an example, set your own.
4
Check for over-loads
Any day where the scheduled hours are more than the hours available is over-loaded. Move a job, split it or find the hours before the week starts.
5
Agree and freeze it at the weekly meeting
Go through it with the maintenance supervisors, the production planner and stores, then share it. Work that comes in during the week is a break-in, not a new schedule.
6
Score it at week end
Mark each job Y or N for done as scheduled, log the break-ins and the jobs they pushed out, and work out schedule compliance by jobs and by hours. Jobs not done go first on next week's schedule.

Two steps

Planning and scheduling: what each step decides

Planning comes first. A job goes on the schedule only when its planning is done, which is what makes it ready.

	Planning	Scheduling
Decides	What will be done and how	When it will be done and by whom
Output	The job plan: steps, safety and lockout, hours per craft, parts, tools and permits	The week's schedule: day, production window and people, inside each craft's hours
Done by	The maintenance planner	The scheduler with the maintenance supervisors and production; in smaller plants often the same person as the planner
Done when	Before the job can go on a schedule	At the weekly scheduling meeting, before the week starts

Decides
Planning
What will be done and how
Scheduling
When it will be done and by whom
Output
Planning
The job plan: steps, safety and lockout, hours per craft, parts, tools and permits
Scheduling
The week's schedule: day, production window and people, inside each craft's hours
Done by
Planning
The maintenance planner
Scheduling
The scheduler with the maintenance supervisors and production; in smaller plants often the same person as the planner
Done when
Planning
Before the job can go on a schedule
Scheduling
At the weekly scheduling meeting, before the week starts

What's on the schedule

What makes a job ready, and the weekly scheduling meeting

Seven checks a job must pass before it goes on the schedule, and an example agenda for the meeting that builds the week. They are on page 2 and on the Excel version's Rules sheet.

Ready to schedule

A job goes on the schedule only when every check is true

1Job plan written: the steps, the safety and lockout steps, and the standard to meet
2Hours estimated for each craft, with how many people
3Parts and materials kitted, or in stores and reserved for the job
4Special tools, lifting gear and any contractor arranged
5Permits known: lockout/tagout, hot work, confined space, work at height
6Downtime window agreed with production, if the machine has to stop
7Job approved, with its priority set

Weekly scheduling meeting

Example agenda: scheduler, maintenance supervisors, production planner and stores, before the week starts

8Last week: schedule compliance, break-ins and the jobs not done
9Next week's production plan and the downtime windows it allows
10Craft hours available each day, after meetings, training and leave
11Ready jobs by priority, with PMs coming due and jobs carried over
12Load jobs to days and people, up to the loading target
13Jobs not ready: what is missing, who gets it and by when
14Agree and freeze the schedule, then share it with production and stores

A filled-in example

Illustrative, not a benchmark

An example: the week of 5 October 2026 for two mechanics and one electrician (illustrative numbers).

Hours available: mechanical 2 × 8 = 16 a day, less 2 on Monday (weekly meeting), 8 on Wednesday (one at training) and 10 on Friday (one on leave, one at training) = 60 hours. Electrical 8 a day, less 1 on Monday, 1 on Thursday and 8 on Friday (leave) = 30 hours.
18 jobs were listed and 16 were ready. The Conveyor C5 drive chain was not in stores until Thursday, and the packing line encoder job had no window agreed with production, so both stayed in the backlog.
The 16 ready jobs went on the schedule: 48 mechanical hours of 60 and 24 electrical hours of 30, so 72 of 90 hours = 80% load, with no day over-loaded. Mechanical Wednesday was loaded to all 8 of its hours.
On Wednesday two break-ins came in: the shrink wrapper drive chain broke (4 hours, mechanical) and pushed out the Press 2 gearbox oil change, and a Line 2 PLC input card failed (3 hours, electrical) and pushed out the lighting job.

14 of 16 jobs were done as scheduled, 87.5%, and 64 of 72 scheduled hours, 88.9%: below the example 90% target. The two pushed-out jobs went first on the next week's schedule, and the scheduler stopped loading any day to 100% of its hours.

Common mistakes

Scheduling jobs that are not ready
A job without its parts or its downtime window stalls on the day, and the technician waits or grabs another job. Keep it in the backlog until it is ready.
Scheduling against headcount, not hours
Three people is not 120 hours a week if one is on leave and everyone is in a meeting on Monday. Take meetings, training and leave off first.
Rewriting the schedule every day
If every break-in rewrites the plan, nobody can measure it. Freeze the week, log the break-ins and the jobs they push out, and score the week as it was agreed.
No window agreed with production
A job that needs the machine stopped and has no agreed window gets cancelled when the line is busy. Agree the windows at the weekly meeting, with the production plan in front of you.

Download the template

Free to use: print it, copy it and edit it for your team. Enter your name and work email once to download.

Run this template in LeanSuite

In LeanSuite a standard maintenance procedure is written from one filmed repair, with the tools, parts, torque values and lockout steps, and it attaches to the asset record so it comes up with the PM work order.

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