Work orders and preventive maintenance software
Planned maintenance generates its own work orders on due dates, completion is verified with checklists and photographs, and cost accumulates against the asset rather than against a month.
Preventive maintenance software schedules recurring work against each asset — lifts, pumps, DG sets, fire systems — and raises work orders automatically on their due dates. Technicians complete checklists with photos and meter readings, and cost and compliance are tracked per asset.
Fix things before residents notice them
A society running entirely on complaints is running its maintenance reactively by definition. The first signal that a pump is failing is no water on the eleventh floor; the first signal that a DG set has a problem is that it does not start during an outage. By then the cheap intervention has passed and what remains is an emergency call-out at a premium.
Most properties do have AMCs covering this equipment, and most cannot say whether the visits under those contracts actually happened. The vendor invoices quarterly, somebody approves it, and the service report — if there is one — goes into a file nobody opens. The contract is being paid for; whether it is being delivered is unknown.
Preventive maintenance is the discipline of putting the work on a calendar and verifying it happened. It is unglamorous and it is the single largest determinant of whether a building’s equipment reaches its expected life or two-thirds of it.
A preventive maintenance calendar for a housing society
Every asset carries its own schedule. The frequency comes from the manufacturer’s recommendation or the AMC terms, set once at onboarding.
| Asset | Typical PPM frequency |
|---|---|
| Lifts | Monthly service |
| Water pumps | Fortnightly inspection |
| DG sets | Monthly load test |
| Fire extinguishers | Quarterly inspection |
| Water tanks | Cleaning every six months |
From due date to work order, without anyone remembering
The schedule chases the vendor, rather than the facility manager chasing both.
Asset-linked work orders
On the due date the system raises a work order against a specific asset — lift 2 in tower B, not “the lifts” — so the service history belongs to the equipment. When that lift is eventually replaced, the case for replacement is its own history rather than an argument.
Ad-hoc work orders raised from a resident complaint attach to the same asset, so planned and unplanned work sit in one history. The ratio between them is one of the more useful maintenance metrics a committee can look at, and it is how a lift generating six complaints a month turns out to be a lift whose last two scheduled services were missed.
Vendor and technician assignment
Work orders route to whoever holds the contract for that asset, whether an AMC vendor or an in-house technician, and they are notified ahead of the due date. The vendor sees only their own work orders, and their completion record accumulates against them.
Verifying that PPM work was actually done
Checklists and meter readings at the asset
Each maintenance type carries the checklist that job requires, completed on the technician’s phone standing at the equipment. A DG service records fuel level, running hours, oil pressure and battery condition; a lift service records the specific checks the vendor’s protocol calls for. Photographs close the job.
Readings captured over time become the trend that predicts failure. DG running hours between services, or a pump’s current draw creeping up month on month, are the signals that let a society replace equipment on a plan rather than on an emergency.
AMC visits checked against the contract
Where an AMC covers the asset, the work order references the contract. That is what allows a quarterly invoice to be checked against the visits actually performed before it is approved — rather than approved because it arrived.
Cost tracking per asset, and the repair-or-replace argument
Every work order carries its cost — labour, parts, vendor charges — and accumulates against the asset. Over a few years that produces the number that matters for a capital decision: total cost of ownership per asset per year. Approved costs post to the ledger against the right expense head and period.
This is the analysis that resolves the recurring AGM argument about whether to repair or replace. An eleven-year-old pump that has cost more in repairs over two years than a new one would cost is a decision, not a debate.
PPM compliance reports
Scheduled against completed, per asset and per vendor, with overdue items named. That report is what makes an AMC renewal an informed conversation, and it is what a society needs when an insurer or an auditor asks whether the fire systems have been maintained.
Statutory items — fire equipment, lift inspections, structural audits — are flagged separately, because a missed service there is a compliance exposure rather than an operational one.