text: What Drives Your PM Metrics?
  While every organization that uses IBM Maximo is unique, there are a great many things that should remain standard. One of the biggest points of contention is, surprisingly, which dates to use for metrics. Much of this stems from a lack of understanding the purpose of the various dates that Maximo has out of the box and their benefits. I’ll seek to break down what is available out of the box and why your metrics should be standardized to these values.
  Target Start and Target Finish
  Target Start and Target Finish represent the time that a PM (Preventative Maintenance) is due to start and when it’s expected to be finished. Target Start is automatically populated to be the date that the PM is due to start. Typically, we will put in some script logic to override Target Finish to be offset to Target Start by custom criteria provided by the client to meet their definition of overdue. This makes computing your completion rate intuitive, and it avoids date gymnastics. If your Actual Finish is less than or equal to Target Finish, then your PM work was completed on time. I’ve seen far too many organizations attempt to use Reported Date for this purpose, and it’s just not a good fit, since the time a PM is generated is not necessarily when it is due to start (because of lead time).
  Scheduled Start and Scheduled Finish
  Scheduled Start and Scheduled Finish also seems to be confusing for some. While target dates set expectations for when work is available to start and when it’s required to be finished, scheduled dates indicate when you, as a team, intend to do the work. This, however, implies that there is someone who actively sets these schedules as work orders are generated. This is not always the case, so this will be dependent on your business processes. That said, proper use of these dates will set you up to use Maximo Scheduler in the future.
  Actual dates are the times that work was begun and completed. Maximo will automatically populate Actual Start when the work order is put into INPRG status, and it sets the Actual Finish date when the work order is put in COMP status. Challenges occur when synonyms of the INRPG status are created that, for all intents and purposes, should be COMP. It’s important to make decisions to create a particular synonym status based on this internal logic.
  With these dates appropriately being used, you will set yourself up for success. It will require far fewer customizations and keep you aligned to out-of-the-box Maximo reports. Furthermore, you will find it easier to drive efforts to make improvements to your PM process, and ultimately serve the customer with greater efficiency.