Question
Where is preventive maintenance time or duration defined for scheduled maintenance activities in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central’s maintenance management?
Definition of Preventive Maintenance Duration
Preventive maintenance time is defined within the routing lines of the maintenance tasks in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central. The duration for each maintenance activity is specified as the time estimate on these routing steps. This approach uses production order routings to manage the scheduled maintenance durations.
Maintenance Manager leverages this method to assign and track preventive maintenance timings. This integration aligns maintenance scheduling with overall production capacity planning.
How Preventive Maintenance Time Is Configured and Used
In native Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, preventive maintenance time is not a standalone field but is embedded within the routing of production orders. Each routing line includes setup, run, and move times that together determine the total work duration for a maintenance task. This standard mechanism enables detailed planning and resource allocation across production and maintenance activities.
The limitation of this approach is that maintenance durations must be managed using routing lines, which may not be intuitive for all maintenance users. This lack of a dedicated maintenance-specific scheduling field can pose challenges in visibility and efficiency without customization.
Maintenance Manager extends this behavior by treating maintenance work orders as production orders. It uses routing definitions assigned to maintenance tasks to specify the duration and effort required. This design allows full leverage of Business Central’s routing and capacity planning features for maintenance work scheduling.
By linking equipment and tasks to routing lines with defined durations, Maintenance Manager enables accurate scheduling and workload allocation. It also supports integration with tools like Graphical Scheduler and MxAPS to visualize and optimize maintenance timing alongside production operations.
If routing lines are not properly defined with time estimates, preventive maintenance duration defaults to zero or may be inaccurate. In setups without Maintenance Manager, maintenance tasks managed through service orders lack the same routing-based duration detail.
Preventive maintenance that depends on manual duration input outside routings may not integrate seamlessly with production scheduling or capacity planning. Maintenance durations set solely by time intervals without corresponding routing definitions will not appear in scheduling tools reliant on routings.
Related Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central Maintenance Tools
Maintenance Manager uses production order routings to define the duration of preventive maintenance tasks. It does not change the underlying Business Central routing mechanism but applies it to maintenance scheduling.
Graphical Scheduler provides visual scheduling of maintenance and production orders, showing durations derived from routing lines.
MxAPS uses defined routing times to perform advanced finite capacity scheduling, including maintenance work, ensuring realistic load balancing and timing. These tools operate within the native Business Central framework, extending maintenance task duration management through routings and schedules.