Industrial Maintenance Engineering Fundamentals Training Course

Course overview

Unplanned equipment failures, overdue preventive work, repeated defects and poorly prioritised backlogs can turn maintenance into a constant firefighting function. Maintenance engineers and supervisors need more than technical knowledge of assets: they must decide which work prevents risk, how to plan it, how to measure performance and how to justify resources. This course provides a practical foundation for making those decisions across production, utilities, facilities and asset-intensive operations.

Participants examine the maintenance management system from asset criticality through work identification, planning, scheduling, execution, failure analysis and performance review. They learn to build preventive maintenance tasks, apply RCM and FMEA thinking at an appropriate level, classify failures, calculate core maintenance KPIs, manage backlog and use CMMS data to improve decisions. The course also addresses spare-parts control, maintenance cost drivers, shutdown preparation and the relationship between maintenance strategy, reliability and operational risk.

Teaching combines instructor-led explanation with asset-based exercises, CMMS-style work-order data, reliability calculations and group case work. Participants develop an Asset Maintenance Improvement Plan for a selected equipment system, including a criticality ranking, maintenance strategy, KPI set, backlog priorities and a 90-day implementation roadmap. This tangible deliverable gives both the participant and their manager a structured basis for improving maintenance performance on return to work.

The programme is suited to engineers and operational leaders who already work around industrial assets and need a disciplined, common method for managing maintenance work. It is particularly valuable where teams are introducing more planned maintenance, improving CMMS data quality, reducing repeat failures or preparing to defend maintenance priorities to operations and management.

Course objectives

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

• Assess asset criticality using consequence, likelihood and operational impact criteria
• Develop preventive maintenance task lists with frequencies, job steps and acceptance standards
• Apply FMEA and basic RCM logic to select appropriate maintenance strategies
• Plan and schedule maintenance work orders using labour, duration, materials and access requirements
• Calculate MTBF, MTTR, availability, planned maintenance percentage and schedule compliance
• Conduct a structured root cause analysis using 5 Whys, causal factor mapping and corrective actions
• Prioritise maintenance backlog using risk, production impact, statutory requirements and readiness status
• Produce an Asset Maintenance Improvement Plan with KPIs, actions, owners and a 90-day roadmap

Benefits of attending

Target competencies

Who should attend

• Maintenance Engineers — who need to convert asset condition and failure information into workable maintenance plans
• Maintenance Supervisors — who must control backlog, allocate crews and improve schedule compliance
• Reliability Engineers — who need a practical operating link between reliability analysis and CMMS execution
• Plant Engineers — who are responsible for equipment availability, maintenance budgets and technical risk
• Operations Managers — who need to balance production demands with planned maintenance windows
• CMMS Planners and Coordinators — who must improve work-order quality, master data and maintenance reporting

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should have practical exposure to industrial equipment, facilities, utilities or production operations, ideally through engineering, maintenance, supervision or planning responsibilities. They should understand basic mechanical or electrical asset terminology, such as pumps, motors, drives, instrumentation, inspections and work orders, and be comfortable working with simple tables and percentages in Microsoft Excel. Familiarity with a CMMS such as IBM Maximo or SAP PM is useful but not essential. No prior qualification in reliability engineering, RCM, vibration analysis or statistical modelling is required; these specialist subjects are introduced only where they support maintenance decisions.

Training methodology

The course uses short instructor-led modules followed by applied workshops built around a representative industrial asset system. Participants interpret equipment histories, inspect sample work orders, calculate reliability and maintenance measures in Excel, and make prioritisation decisions using risk and readiness criteria. Small groups complete an FMEA, construct a weekly schedule and investigate a repeat-failure case using 5 Whys and causal factors. Throughout the week, each participant assembles an Asset Maintenance Improvement Plan and receives facilitator feedback before defining a job-based 90-day application plan.

Course outline

Day 1: Maintenance strategy and asset criticality

• Maintenance objectives: safety, availability, quality and lifecycle cost
• Corrective, preventive, predictive and condition-based maintenance strategies
• Asset hierarchy and equipment register structure
• Asset criticality matrices and consequence scoring
• Failure modes, functional failures and failure consequences
• Maintenance work-order lifecycle and status controls
• Maintenance data quality requirements in a CMMS

Workshop: Participants build an asset hierarchy and criticality ranking for a pump-and-motor system, producing a prioritised asset register.

Day 2: Preventive maintenance and reliability methods

• Preventive maintenance task development and task standards
• Time-based versus condition-based maintenance selection
• FMEA worksheets, severity, occurrence and detection scoring
• Basic Reliability-Centred Maintenance decision logic
• Inspection routes and operator care activities
• Failure coding taxonomy and bad-actor identification
• Maintenance intervals, triggers and review criteria

Workshop: Participants complete an FMEA and preventive maintenance task list for a recurring centrifugal pump failure, producing a revised maintenance strategy.

Day 3: Work planning, scheduling and materials readiness

• Work request screening and scope definition
• Job plans, task sequencing and estimated labour hours
• Maintenance planning versus weekly scheduling responsibilities
• Backlog age, readiness and risk-based prioritisation
• Weekly and daily schedule development
• Spare-parts classification, min-max levels and kitting
• Permit, isolation, access and contractor coordination requirements

Workshop: Participants convert a sample maintenance backlog into a one-week crew schedule, producing prioritised work packs and a readiness report.

Day 4: Failure analysis and maintenance performance control

• MTBF, MTTR, inherent availability and operational availability
• Planned maintenance percentage and schedule compliance
• Wrench time, rework and backlog performance measures
• Pareto analysis of downtime and maintenance cost data
• 5 Whys and causal factor mapping
• Corrective-action registers and verification of effectiveness
• Maintenance dashboards and management review routines

Workshop: Participants analyse equipment-history data in Excel and investigate a repeat failure, producing a KPI dashboard and corrective-action register.

Day 5: Maintenance improvement and implementation planning

• Maintenance maturity assessment and gap identification
• Maintenance cost drivers and budget justification
• Shutdown and turnaround work-scope development
• Risk-based maintenance improvement prioritisation
• CMMS master-data governance and work-order discipline
• ISO 55000 asset management alignment
• 90-day action planning, ownership and review cadence

Workshop: Participants consolidate the week’s analysis into an Asset Maintenance Improvement Plan, producing a management-ready 90-day roadmap.

Tools & standards covered

IBM Maximo, SAP PM, Microsoft Excel, ISO 55000

A typical training day

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in the East Africa Time zone, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

How you can take this course

Certification

Participants who complete the full five days receive the Skillset Development Certificate of Completion, stating the course title, course code, dates and delivery format — suitable for professional-development records and employer reimbursement.

Frequently asked questions