---
title: "PM Compliance Rate Benchmarks: Is 90% the Right Target?"
slug: pm-compliance-rate-benchmarks
url: /topics/guides/pm-compliance-rate-benchmarks/index.md
publishedAt: "2026-06-16T17:12:25"
updatedAt: "2026-06-16T17:12:25"
excerpt: "Ask around and you’ll hear the same answer: a good PM compliance rate is 90%. The figure commonly appears on CMMS dashboards and in vendor guidance. The number is real, and it comes from a real place. SMRP lists above 90% as the best-in-class target for its PM and PdM Compliance metric. The trouble starts […]"
authors:
  - Reliable Media
---

# PM Compliance Rate Benchmarks: Is 90% the Right Target?

By [Reliable Media](/authors/reliable-media/index.md)

Ask around and you’ll hear the same answer: a good PM compliance rate is 90%. The figure commonly appears on CMMS dashboards and in vendor guidance.

The number is real, and it comes from a real place. SMRP lists above 90% as the best-in-class target for its PM and PdM Compliance metric. The trouble starts with what gets left out. That target is a goal SMRP prescribes, not a median anyone measured across industry, and the same program can post very different compliance numbers depending on which on-time rule it uses.

Get the definition right and above 90% earns its place on the dashboard. Quote it without the fine print and an experienced reliability engineer will pick it apart.

## **What PM compliance measures, and where the numbers come from**

PM compliance is SMRP metric 5.4.14, “Preventive Maintenance (PM) and Predictive Maintenance (PdM) Compliance.” The formula is plain: PM and PdM work orders completed by their due date, divided by PM and PdM work orders due. It’s a work-order count, so a two-minute lubrication route and an eight-hour overhaul each count as one work order.

The part that moves the number is the definition of “on time.” The 6th-edition metric offers three completion criteria: completed by the required date, completed by the required date plus one day, or completed by the required date plus 20% of the PM interval, capped at a maximum of 28 days. Whichever criterion you pick has to be applied consistently. A monthly PM under the 20% rule gets about six extra days. The 28-day cap stops an annual PM from inheriting a 73-day grace window.

There’s a second, related SMRP metric that gets tangled up with the first. PM and PdM Work Order Compliance (metric 5.4.10) looks at each completed work order’s overdue variance and groups the results by variance range and asset criticality, rather than reporting one aggregate on-time rate. Its target section names the “10% rule” as the recommended goal: a time-based PM counts as compliant only if it’s completed within 10% of its interval. Allied Reliability illustrates the rule with a monthly PM landing within about 1.5 days on either side of its due date. Other practitioners read the 10% allowance differently (Jeff Shiver, for one, treats it as roughly plus or minus three days on a 30-day PM), which is one more reason to state your implementation.

That 10% goal sits in apparent tension with the 20% completion option in 5.4.14, and SMRP practitioners have publicly asked for the two to be reconciled. The practical fix is to state which metric and which timing rule you’re using rather than treating them as interchangeable.

One more metric to keep separate: PM and PdM Yield measures corrective-work hours found through PM and PdM, divided by PM and PdM hours. SMRP gives it no universal target number; it flags both very low and very high values as worth investigating, and the right range varies by plant.

## **The Reliable Confidence Score**

PM Compliance Rate Benchmarks: the Reliable Confidence Score

We rate the confidence in each claim, not just the number attached to it.

Claim or Source
Figure
Reliable Confidence
What It Really Means

PM & PdM Compliance formula (SMRP metric 5.4.14): work orders completed by due date ÷ work orders due
Definition
HighVerified in the metric
A work-order count, not a labor-hours figure. A home-grown hours-based version exists at some sites; it isn’t the SMRP metric.

On-time completion criteria (SMRP 5.4.14): required date, required date + 1 day, or required date + 20% of interval capped at 28 days, applied consistently
3 options
HighVerified in the metric
The same work yields different compliance numbers under each rule. A compliance figure without its stated criterion can’t be compared across sites.

SMRP best-in-class target for PM compliance (6th edition)
Above 90%
HighPrescribed target
The goal SMRP sets, not a measured industry average. The exact target value sits in the paid 6th-edition guide and is consistently reported as above 90%.

The “10% rule” (SMRP 5.4.10’s recommended goal; also illustrated by Stangier and Smith)
Within 10% of interval
HighDefined, attributed rule
Stricter than 5.4.14’s 20% option, which is a source of 10-versus-20 confusion. Interpretations of the window differ (Smith reads it as about ±1.5 days on a monthly PM, Shiver as about ±3 days), so state yours.

Critical / A-class asset target
95%+
LowVendor-stated
Sensible as a risk-based stretch goal. Stated in CMMS vendor guides (e.g., eWorkOrders), not in an SMRP metric or other standard.

“Below 80% signals problems” thresholds

LowRound numbers
From CMMS vendor guides (e.g., eWorkOrders). Directionally reasonable, no basis in the SMRP metric.

Schedule compliance vs PM compliance target philosophy
~80% vs above 90%
HighDisagreement is real
SMRP sets a high target for schedule compliance too (a different metric). Doc Palmer challenges that philosophy, arguing routinely clearing 90% means the weekly schedule was under-loaded and ~80% reflects a fully loaded one. Two named authorities, two positions.

A published industry-wide distribution of achieved PM compliance rates
None found
MediumNegative finding
In the standards and in Plant Engineering’s 2020 maintenance study (which tracks PM adoption, not achieved compliance), we found no published distribution of the rates plants actually hit.

## **The Big Takeaway**

The honest answer to “what’s a good PM compliance rate” is above 90% against a consistently applied on-time rule, read as a trend, and paired with a reliability outcome so completions can’t be gamed.

> Above 90% is SMRP’s prescribed target, measured against a fixed on-time rule. Read it as a goal, hold the on-time criterion steady, and it earns its place on the dashboard. The number that drifts is the one nobody defined.

What you can defend without flinching: the definition, the completion criteria, and the direction of travel. A program climbing from 62% to 84% over two quarters may be healthier than one parked at a flat 90% nobody trusts.

## **Why the numbers vary**

Most of the disagreement comes from four choices that rarely get stated out loud.

The completion criterion. Required date, required date plus one day, the 20% rule, or the stricter 10% goal each produce a different percentage from the same work. SMRP’s answer is to pick one and apply it consistently. A program that quietly loosens its window can post a “rising” compliance rate that reflects a definition change, not better execution.

Count versus hours. SMRP 5.4.14 counts work orders. Some sites build an hours-based version so a big overhaul carries more weight than a filter change. Both can be useful. They produce different numbers, and only the count version is the SMRP metric.

What sits in the denominator. SMRP uses “work orders due.” Rolling overdue PMs forward into next period’s count, or writing them off, are local reporting choices. Neither is the SMRP calculation, and two plants doing identical work can post very different rates if they handle overdue PMs differently.

Schedule compliance bleeding in. Teams quote a weekly schedule-compliance figure and call it PM compliance. Doc Palmer’s argument lives here: a weekly schedule that routinely clears 90% usually wasn’t fully loaded, because a normal plant absorbs around 20% urgent break-in work, so he treats roughly 80% as the realistic mark for a fully loaded schedule. SMRP sets a high target for schedule compliance, Palmer questions the wisdom of chasing it, and that debate is about schedule compliance, a separate metric from PM compliance.

## **How to use the benchmark safely**

Pick one completion criterion and lock it in the CMMS, so every site and every report means the same thing by “on time.” This is the highest-leverage move, and it’s what a CMMS is built for: the system applies the same grace-period rule to every work order automatically, rather than leaving it to whoever closes the ticket.

Then read the rate as a trend, and segment by asset criticality where you can, because a fleetwide average hides whether your important assets are the ones slipping. Pair compliance with PM and PdM Yield (the measure of what your PMs are finding) and at least one reliability outcome such as mean time between failures, so a high completion rate has to be backed by results.

## **Where teams go wrong**

Closing PMs on paper. Auto-closing overdue work orders can distort compliance if they are excluded from the calculation or recorded with inaccurate completion dates; back-dating completions directly inflates it. A 95% rate sitting next to a falling MTBF deserves a look, though the cause can be paper completions, the wrong PMs, or something outside the PM program entirely such as asset aging, an operational change, or a new failure mode.

Conflating the two metrics. Reporting schedule compliance and calling it PM compliance, or holding one to the other’s target, produces goals that fight each other.

Chasing 100%. A perfect score can signal an under-sized PM program or a window so loose that “on time” means little. Legitimate 100% is possible; it just warrants a second look.

Tracking compliance without yield. PM compliance tells you the work got done. PM and PdM Yield tells you whether the work is finding anything. Track them together or you’re measuring activity in isolation.

## **Methodology**

We rated the confidence in each claim, not just the figure. The definition, the three completion criteria, and the PM and PdM Yield formula were checked against the text of the SMRP metric and rated High. The above-90% target is rated High as a prescribed SMRP best-in-class value; it’s a target rather than an observed average, the exact value sits in the paid 6th-edition guide, and sources citing that edition report it consistently. Round-number thresholds with no basis in the metric (95% for critical assets, sub-80% “problem” lines) are rated Low even where they’re directionally sensible, and we name them as CMMS vendor conventions rather than standards.

We treat PM and PdM Compliance (the aggregate on-time rate, metric 5.4.14) and PM and PdM Work Order Compliance (the variance-based metric, 5.4.10, whose recommended goal is the 10% rule) as two distinct SMRP metrics. The negative finding is scoped on purpose: in the standards and in Plant Engineering’s 2020 maintenance study, which tracks PM adoption rather than achieved compliance, we found no published distribution of the rates plants actually hit, so it’s rated Medium rather than stated as a universal absence.

## **The Short Version**

PM compliance is the share of due PM and PdM work orders completed by their due date, the way SMRP defines it in metric 5.4.14. SMRP prescribes above 90% as best-in-class, but that’s a target, not a measured average, and it only means something once you fix the on-time rule (required date, plus one day, or plus 20% capped at 28 days) and apply it consistently. Lock one rule in your CMMS, watch the trend, segment by criticality, and pair compliance with PM and PdM Yield so completions don’t get gamed.

## **Sources**

* Society for Maintenance and Reliability Professionals (SMRP), *Best Practices, Metrics and Guidelines*, 6th Edition: PM and PdM Compliance (metric 5.4.14), PM and PdM Work Order Compliance (metric 5.4.10), and PM and PdM Yield. [https://smrp.org/Learning-Resources/SMRP-Library/Best-Practices-Metrics-Guidelines](https://smrp.org/Learning-Resources/SMRP-Library/Best-Practices-Metrics-Guidelines)
* Doc Palmer, “What does schedule compliance measure?” Plant Services. [https://www.plantservices.com/planned-maintenance/planning-and-scheduling/article/11290088/what-does-schedule-compliance-measure](https://www.plantservices.com/planned-maintenance/planning-and-scheduling/article/11290088/what-does-schedule-compliance-measure)
* Doc Palmer, “Is it okay to break the weekly maintenance schedule?” Plant Services. [https://www.plantservices.com/planned-maintenance/planning-and-scheduling/article/33004872/is-it-okay-to-break-the-weekly-maintenance-schedule](https://www.plantservices.com/planned-maintenance/planning-and-scheduling/article/33004872/is-it-okay-to-break-the-weekly-maintenance-schedule)
* Richard (Doc) Palmer, *Maintenance Planning and Scheduling Handbook*, 4th edition, McGraw-Hill.
* Jeff Shiver, “30 days’ grace? Sorry, not so with a PM,” Plant Services (on applying the 10% rule). [https://www.plantservices.com/home/blog/11300684/30-days-grace-sorry-not-so-with-a-pm](https://www.plantservices.com/home/blog/11300684/30-days-grace-sorry-not-so-with-a-pm)
* Allied Reliability, “5 Tips for Optimizing a Preventive Maintenance (PM) Program” (states the 10% rule’s ±1.5-day reading for a monthly PM). [https://www.alliedreliability.com/blog/5-tips-for-optimizing-a-preventive-maintenance-program](https://www.alliedreliability.com/blog/5-tips-for-optimizing-a-preventive-maintenance-program)
* SMRP All Member Open Forum, “Conflict between metric 5.4.10 and 5.4.14?” (members quote 5.4.10’s 10% rule and 5.4.14’s required-date-plus-20% option from the Best Practices guide). [https://exchange.smrp.org/discussion/conflict-between-metric-5410-and-5414?hlmlt=VT](https://exchange.smrp.org/discussion/conflict-between-metric-5410-and-5414?hlmlt=VT)
* eWorkOrders, “Preventive Maintenance KPIs” (source of the CMMS-vendor 95% critical-asset and sub-80% conventions noted in the table). [https://eworkorders.com/preventive-maintenance/preventive-maintenance-kpis/](https://eworkorders.com/preventive-maintenance/preventive-maintenance-kpis/)
* Plant Engineering, 2020 industrial maintenance study (documents PM adoption, e.g. 88% of facilities follow a PM strategy, not achieved compliance rates). [https://www.plantengineering.com/the-maintenance-function-like-manufacturing-itself-is-a-rapidly-changing-environment/](https://www.plantengineering.com/the-maintenance-function-like-manufacturing-itself-is-a-rapidly-changing-environment/)

## Frequently Asked Questions

### What is a good PM compliance rate?

Above 90% is the best-in-class target in SMRP's PM and PdM Compliance metric (5.4.14, 6th edition). It is a target SMRP prescribes, not a median measured across industry, and it only means something once you fix one on-time rule and apply it consistently. Read it as a trend and pair it with a reliability outcome so completions can't be gamed.

### How does SMRP define PM compliance?

Under SMRP metric 5.4.14, PM compliance is PM and PdM work orders completed by their due date divided by PM and PdM work orders due. It is a work-order count, not a labor-hours figure. "On time" can be defined three ways, applied consistently: completed by the required date, the required date plus one day, or the required date plus 20% of the interval capped at 28 days.

### What is the 10% rule for preventive maintenance?

The 10% rule counts a PM as compliant only if it is completed within 10% of its interval. It is the recommended goal in SMRP metric 5.4.10 (PM and PdM Work Order Compliance) and is also illustrated by Allied Reliability, which puts a monthly PM within about 1.5 days on either side of its due date. It is stricter than the 20% completion option in metric 5.4.14, which is a source of 10-versus-20 confusion.

### Is 90% PM compliance the same as 90% schedule compliance?

No. PM compliance and schedule compliance are separate SMRP metrics. Maintenance planning authority Doc Palmer argues that routinely clearing 90% weekly schedule compliance usually means the schedule was under-loaded, and he treats about 80% as realistic for a fully loaded schedule, because a normal plant absorbs around 20% urgent break-in work. Don't hold one metric to the other's target.

### What PM compliance rate is world-class for critical assets?

Some CMMS vendor guides, such as eWorkOrders, cite 95% or higher for critical or A-class assets. That figure is sensible as a risk-based stretch goal, but it is not traceable to the SMRP metric or another standard, so treat it as a vendor convention rather than a published benchmark.

### Why do PM compliance numbers differ between plants?

Mostly because of undeclared choices: which on-time criterion is used (required date, plus one day, plus 20%, or the stricter 10% rule), whether compliance is counted by work orders or labor hours (SMRP 5.4.14 counts work orders), and how overdue PMs are handled in the denominator. Two plants doing identical work can post very different rates, so state your definition before comparing.

### Is there an industry benchmark for actual PM compliance rates achieved?

No published distribution of achieved PM compliance rates appears in the standards or in named surveys. Plant Engineering's 2020 maintenance study tracks PM adoption (about 88% of facilities follow a preventive maintenance strategy), not the compliance rates plants reach. The above-90% figure is a prescribed target, not an observed industry median.