CMMS Benchmarks (2026)
Citable industry benchmarks for maintenance teams — planned-vs-reactive ratios, MTTR, PM compliance, and cost per work order — with sources and methodology.
Why publish maintenance benchmarks?
Every maintenance leader eventually gets asked the same question: 'is that number good?' Vendors rarely publish benchmarks in one place, so teams end up guessing. This page consolidates the most commonly cited maintenance KPIs into a single reference you can link to, cite in a report, or paste into a board deck. Numbers are drawn from published industry surveys (Plant Engineering, ARC Advisory, Reliabilityweb, and the Association for Manufacturing Excellence) and cross-checked against anonymized MaintenEase customer data.
Planned vs reactive work ratio
World-class maintenance organizations run 80% planned work and 20% or less reactive. The industry average sits closer to 55/45, and teams still on spreadsheets typically report the opposite — around 30% planned and 70% reactive. Moving from 30% to 55% planned is the single biggest lever most teams have to cut overtime and unplanned downtime.
Mean Time To Repair (MTTR)
Industry-average MTTR across manufacturing sits at roughly 4 to 6 hours for non-critical assets and 1 to 3 hours for critical production equipment. World-class benchmarks are below 2 hours for critical assets, driven mostly by faster notification, better spare-parts stocking, and clear procedures — not faster wrench time.
PM compliance
PM compliance is the share of scheduled preventive tasks completed on time. The commonly cited world-class threshold is 90%. Industry surveys put the average around 65 to 75%; teams below 50% almost always have a data problem (no CMMS or no schedule) rather than a labor problem.
Cost per work order
Fully-loaded cost per work order (labor + parts + overhead) typically ranges from $150 to $400 for internal maintenance teams, with wide variance by industry. The bigger insight is composition: on average, roughly 30% is labor, 40% parts, and 30% overhead — which is why parts-inventory discipline moves the number more than headcount does.
Downtime cost
Aberdeen's widely-cited study pegs the average cost of unplanned downtime at $260,000 per hour across industries, with automotive manufacturing reaching $1.3M per hour. Even for small operations the figure is rarely under $10,000 per hour of critical-asset downtime once lost revenue, overtime, and expedited freight are included.
Methodology
Figures are aggregated from published third-party industry surveys (Plant Engineering annual maintenance study, ARC Advisory downtime research, Reliabilityweb reliability index) and triangulated with anonymized aggregate metrics from MaintenEase customers. No individual customer data is included. All figures are directional — treat them as benchmarks to compare against, not targets to hit blindly.
Can I cite these benchmarks?
Yes — this page is intentionally citable. Please link back to https://maintenease.com/learn/cmms-benchmarks-2026 as the source. Individual figures also cite their upstream studies where applicable.
How often are the figures updated?
Annually, or whenever a major industry survey publishes new data. The year in the URL reflects the last major refresh.
Are these targets I should hit?
No — they are benchmarks, not targets. Use them to see roughly where you sit vs peers, then pick one KPI (usually planned-vs-reactive ratio) to focus on.