Preventive maintenance by engine hours and kilometres

Picture two identical excavators bought in the same month. One runs double shifts on a highway job. The other sits parked for three weeks between contracts. A calendar reminder treats them the same, yet their wear is nothing alike.

Hours and kilometres describe use. Engine hours suit machines such as excavators and loaders, while trucks are usually tracked in kilometres. Plans that follow those readings put the service where the wear is, not where the date happens to fall.

This is one part of maintenance software built for heavy equipment: plans, records and costs that all stay tied to the asset.

Each plan in Zerk is built from a few plain pieces of information.

Some services depend on more than one measure. A plan can be set by hours, by kilometres or by date, and whichever comes first is what counts. A machine that works hard reaches the hours threshold early. A machine that barely moves still gets attention when the date arrives.

Preventive maintenance planning is included from the Starter plan. The Free plan includes a single PM plan, which is enough to see how it works on your own equipment. Compare plans in the homepage pricing section.

A plan only helps if the due work is easy to see. Zerk shows approaching thresholds so your team can look across the fleet and decide what to schedule next, then record the service when it is done. That completed service goes into the asset’s history against its meter reading, which makes the following interval easier to set.

Due dates are one half of compliance. Inspection records and expiries sit alongside service, and you can read more about equipment inspection and certificate tracking.

Reactive maintenance means finding out about a service when a machine stops. Planned maintenance means the service was already on your list, with a reading, an interval and a warning that told you it was approaching.

The aim is not more paperwork. It is a clear view of the next service for every asset that has a plan, so a supervisor, a mechanic and an owner are all looking at the same picture. Because completed service is recorded against meter readings, each interval starts from a real number rather than an estimate. Work orders keep any repair connected to the same asset, so planned and unplanned work live in one history.

Start with the machines that matter most, set a plan for each, and add more as your team gets comfortable with the routine.