What is planned preventative maintenance (PPM)?

PPM, defined

A PPM programme is a calendar of maintenance tasks built from three inputs: the building's asset register (what's actually installed), manufacturer servicing requirements (what each asset needs to stay reliable and warrantied), and statutory obligations (what the law requires, on what cycle). Each visit is scheduled in advance, carried out to a defined scope, and recorded against the asset.

PPM vs reactive maintenance

Reactive maintenance fixes things after they fail. Every building needs some of it — no schedule predicts a storm or a burst pipe. But a building run mainly on reactive maintenance pays three times: breakdowns cost more to fix than services cost to run, failures choose their own timing (usually out of hours, usually mid-winter), and every failure of a statutory system is a compliance gap with a date on it.

The realistic goal isn't eliminating reactive work — it's shifting the balance until reactive is the exception. A well-run commercial building pairs a disciplined PPM programme with 24/7 reactive cover for the remainder.

What a PPM programme typically includes

• Asset register — every maintainable asset, uniquely identified
• Statutory calendar — EICR cycles, fire alarm and emergency lighting tests, legionella monitoring, fire door checks, gas safety
• Manufacturer-led servicing — boilers, AHUs, cooling, pumps, lifts on their required frequencies
• Condition inspections — roofs, fabric, communal areas on planned cycles
• Records — every visit logged against the asset, building a compliance file that stands up to audit

What good looks like

The test of a PPM programme isn't the spreadsheet — it's whether the visits happen on the dates, whether small faults found during servicing actually get fixed, and whether you could hand an auditor the records tomorrow. Missed visits, open remedials and gaps in the log are how 'planned' maintenance quietly becomes reactive maintenance with better branding.

Setting one up for a commercial building

Start with a survey to build or verify the asset register. Map every statutory obligation with its frequency and next due date. Layer in manufacturer servicing. Then run it with discipline: schedule ahead of deadlines, close out remedials, and report so the building owner always knows what happened and when.

That's the shape of every PPM programme Precise FM runs — for commercial landlords, property managers and managing agents across Bristol, the South West and London, with 24/7 reactive cover for everything the schedule can't predict.