Manage Equipment Maintenance in Business Central: Plan Smarter, Prevent Downtime

Introduction and Session Overview

Hey, good morning or afternoon everyone. This is Mark Hamblin, and today I’m going to take you through using our Maintenance Manager solution within Business Central to manage your maintenance—primarily production equipment, but it can be used for almost anything you like.

Very briefly, we’ll do a quick intro to Insight Works, explain what Maintenance Manager is and what we’re trying to accomplish with it, and then we’ll jump into the demo. The bulk of this will be the software demo, so don’t worry about having to sit through a boring PowerPoint. We’ll also cover costs and licensing, and we’ll take questions as we go.

If you have questions during the session that I haven’t answered, feel free to put them into the GoToWebinar question box, and I’ll do my best to answer them as we go.

About Insight Works and Free Apps in Business Central

As promised, very briefly about us: we primarily work through our reseller partners. If you have additional questions or need more information about the products or Maintenance Manager, reach out to your Business Central partner first. If they’re not one of our resellers, give us a shout and we can work with them or help you out directly if required.

We’re pretty big in manufacturing and warehousing, and we have a lot of different applications available in the Business Central world. A lot of those apps are free—well over 30. Some of the core ones also apply to maintenance, especially when you’re thinking about production asset management.

For example, Enhanced Planning Worksheet is free for a concurrent user and is used inside Maintenance Manager for spare parts ordering and planning PMs. We also have forecasting, printing tools for things like asset tags, and Graphical Scheduler, which can be used to view your maintenance schedule and production schedule together, and it’s completely free. There are also tools like document management and WNS Express, which is a free bar-coded inventory management / warehouse management solution, and it can be used for spare parts inventory as part of maintenance management.

Another free tool is Safety Logbook, which is intended to capture HSE events, audits, certifications, spills, and other regulatory or internal compliance items. That can also be used alongside Maintenance Manager.

These apps are available on AppSource. You install them, you don’t have to register anything—just grab them and use them.

Where Maintenance Fits in Manufacturing

In a manufacturing environment, we typically think about planning, scheduling, execution, and fulfillment. We plan production and purchasing, schedule it with automated scheduling or Graphical Scheduler, execute it using tools like Quality Inspector, Safety Logbook, and Shop Floor Insight, and then we handle fulfillment, barcode scanning, and shipping.

What’s often missing in that flow is maintenance. What happens when a machine goes down, or when we need preventative maintenance on a piece of equipment? That’s where Maintenance Manager comes in. It lets you incorporate maintenance schedules, break-fix work, and PM into the production process.

Maintenance Manager can be used for any asset, but it works best when it’s part of the overall planning, scheduling, and execution ecosystem—because maintenance is often a core part of keeping production running.

What Maintenance Manager Does and Why It Uses Production Orders

Maintenance Manager lets you create maintenance schedules and break-fix work for any asset. It doesn’t have to be production equipment—you could use it for torque wrenches that require calibration, laptops, forklifts, vehicles, or whatever you like—but it’s tailored for production environments.

The key is that it works with everything in Business Central because it’s built into Business Central. It works with third-party ISV apps and other solutions because we leverage production orders as the maintenance work order.

A lot of people expect asset maintenance to be done with the Service module, and if you don’t have a dedicated tool, many people use service orders for internal asset maintenance. But production orders work better for this because they let us define work steps as routings, consume capacity on work centers and machine centers, and define spare parts/PM parts lists. So we use the production module, and that means purchasing, inventory, labor, and scheduling all work out of the box.

That approach makes it much easier to get up and running quickly with an electronic maintenance program. A lot of companies want to move off paper, spreadsheets, and “oily books,” but the setup and adoption can be difficult. By building on Business Central’s core capabilities, you can get going quickly—fully integrated with everything you need in Business Central.

I’ll also point out: we’re not an EAM (enterprise asset management) system. We’re more like a CMMS: work orders, PMs, break-fix, maintenance costs, parts management, and history. That simplicity is one of the strengths.

Licensing Requirement: Business Central Premium

A Business Central Premium license is required because we use production. Many people using the Service module for internal asset maintenance also require Premium, and even though Maintenance Manager can be used for any asset, it’s targeted to production asset maintenance—work centers, machine centers, tooling, and related equipment.

Setup Basics: Equipment, Fixed Assets, and Maintenance Equipment Items

To set up Maintenance Manager, you install it and run the setup wizard. It sets up what you need, and you typically don’t need to dig into the setup screens much. One key capability is that Maintenance Manager can work with fixed assets, but it can also use what we call maintenance equipment items.

A maintenance equipment item lets you use an item record as the thing you maintain. That means you don’t need fixed assets set up to track maintenance. The value is that you can move equipment around—transfer it between locations, count it, and manage it like inventory. If it’s tooling (like a mold), you can even use it as a constraint in scheduling. For example, if a mold is scheduled for maintenance, it’s not available for production scheduling at the same time.

You can check the knowledge base for details, but you don’t have to touch much to start. The first thing you need to set up is your equipment list.

Defining Equipment and Linking It to Work Centers or Fixed Assets

Your equipment list is simply the list of equipment you have in the system. At a bare minimum, you just need an ID and description for each piece of equipment. You can set additional options if you want.

You also have choices for how equipment is tied into Business Central. For example, a laser cutter maintenance equipment item can be tied to a specific machine center. That means maintenance will consume that machine center’s capacity, and if you’re using Graphical Scheduler you can see it. If you’re using APS (advanced planning and scheduling), it automatically accounts for maintenance and won’t schedule production during that time.

Another option is linking to a specific fixed asset. Or you can have equipment that isn’t linked to a work center/machine center or a fixed asset at all—like a lift truck or an air conditioner unit. It can be anything you like, but typically in production environments it’s tied to a machine center or work center.

When you open a maintenance equipment item, it’s basically just a normal item flagged as maintenance equipment. You can link it to a machine center, an asset, or both. You then assign maintenance tasks to it—break-fix tasks and periodic maintenance tasks. The system can show when maintenance is due and can manage different interval types.

Maintenance Intervals: Time, Runtime, Output, Distance

Maintenance tasks can be driven by different intervals. Time-based duration is common (weeks, months, years). If equipment is tied to a work center or machine center, we can automatically bring in runtime from posted production orders. So if you say, “every 1,000 hours,” the system can track that based on normal production posting.

We can also track output quantity. For example, every 10,000 cycles or outputs, you need maintenance. That can also be captured from production posting. Distance-based intervals (like mileage) require a measurement update, though you can integrate other sources as well. If you have a PLC or other integration driving counts into Business Central, you can use that to update intervals.

Once the equipment has tasks assigned, you’ll see intervals and status information for where you are with runtime, duration, or other counters.

Hierarchies, Sub-Components, and Documentation

You can set up hierarchies and group equipment in different ways—by hierarchy, item category codes, custom fields, and more. Some people use assembly BOMs to represent subcomponents, and that can work too.

For example, you can have a top-level item like a vehicle that has oil changes, but you might also have a subcomponent like a lift gate that needs its own maintenance schedule. Similarly, a laser cutter could have sub-items like the bed, the laser, and motors, each with their own maintenance tasks.

You can also attach documents and photos to equipment—troubleshooting guides, technical manuals, images, and more—using standard document attachment capabilities in Business Central.

Maintenance Parts: Managed as Items in Business Central

Maintenance parts are also just items in Business Central, flagged as maintenance parts. If you open one (like engine oil), it behaves like a normal item: inventory across locations, purchase orders, and demand from existing work orders.

Because it’s Business Central, you can set planning parameters, stocking levels, and automated purchasing. You can manage spare parts the same way you manage any other inventory. Enhanced Planning Worksheet is the ideal method, but you can also use simplified planning (min/max, demand, and so on).

You can also use non-inventory items for consumables you don’t want to stock, while still tracking usage and related information.

Maintenance Tasks: Preventative, Corrective, and Work Instructions

The key to everything is the maintenance task setup. Tasks can be preventative maintenance or corrective maintenance. Corrective maintenance can start as a work request that’s approved and then turned into a work order. Preventative maintenance tasks have intervals and scheduling rules.

A task can include a production BOM (spare parts list) and a routing (work steps and instructions). The BOM can be blank if you prefer to consume items as-needed during the maintenance. The routing contains the work steps and can incorporate multiple trades—like needing a mechanic and an electrician rather than one labor rate.

The task also defines the frequency: every week, every X hours of runtime, every X units of output, distance, and so on. You can also set effective start/end dates if you want to change frequency over time.

Once a task is created, you assign it to one or more pieces of equipment. That means you can create one “weekly laser cutter maintenance” task and assign it to multiple laser cutters, or create a periodic oil change task and assign it to a whole fleet of trucks. You can also assign multiple tasks with different schedules to the same piece of equipment—weekly plus a six-month maintenance task, for example.

Generating and Planning Maintenance Work Orders

Once tasks and assignments are set up, you can generate work orders. The system shows what’s due based on the task intervals and assignment quantity due.

You have a couple of options. You can plan what’s due now, which creates maintenance orders (production orders behind the scenes). Or you can auto-schedule tasks into the future to see what maintenance will look like over the next months.

When you auto-schedule, it shows up in the planning worksheet—because again, it’s using production orders. This plan includes spare parts demand and capacity impacts. You can review it, decide what to execute, and create work orders directly from the worksheet. You can also open Graphical Scheduler to view maintenance before taking action.

Maintenance Calendar and Graphical Scheduler Views

There’s a maintenance calendar that uses Graphical Scheduler with a view focused on maintenance orders. You can use a calendar-style view (like an Outlook view) to see what’s happening over the next week, drag and drop, and reschedule.

In production environments, the key benefit is seeing maintenance alongside production. In Graphical Scheduler, maintenance orders appear mixed into the production schedule, so you can see the impact and move maintenance to a different time or day if needed. If you’re using MX APS (automated production scheduling), it automatically accounts for maintenance and avoids scheduling production during maintenance windows.

Executing Maintenance Orders and Capturing Labor and Parts

To execute a maintenance order, you can work directly in Business Central. Maintenance orders are production orders with maintenance-specific fields visible in the Maintenance Manager role center. Otherwise, they behave like standard production orders: you can consume parts, post labor, and capture costs.

For technicians on the shop floor, you have options. You can run this on a tablet using the Business Central app. You can use our Shop Floor mobile interfaces on a tablet or phone. Or, if you’re already using Shop Floor Insight with a kiosk mode approach, you can use kiosk mode for maintenance execution too.

In kiosk mode, a technician scans a badge to identify themselves, sees assigned or available maintenance work orders, opens an order to view instructions, manuals, and photos, and then clocks onto the job to start tracking time. Multiple technicians can clock into the same job simultaneously, each with their own timecard record.

Parts can be recorded as well. Standard spare parts can be backflushed for routine maintenance, and technicians can also record additional items used during the job.

If you’re using other shop floor tools that feed information back into Business Central, it still works, because Maintenance Manager is built on core Business Central capabilities. Maintenance Manager adds task definitions, PM scheduling, and related maintenance functionality on top.

Questions: Costing, Views, Task Steps, Scheduling, and Duration

On costing: can you assign maintenance costs to production activities? Not really. Maintenance costs are independent. Costs get captured, posted to the GL, and tracked per equipment item, including parts usage and history. But we don’t prorate maintenance costs across production activities by default.

If you’re using Graphical Scheduler, you can create views to see just maintenance, or maintenance and production together. Installing Maintenance Manager includes a maintenance schedule view you can tailor.

You can add detailed task lists and steps to tasks, like in the laser cutter example. Break-fix work can have task lists too. You can also have multiple schedules assigned to the same piece of equipment (weekly plus semi-annual, for example), and different pieces of equipment can have different schedules even if they’re otherwise similar.

For how long maintenance takes: that’s handled by the routing. You specify the duration for the work steps. There are routing approaches where a placeholder work center is replaced by the machine center assigned to the task so the capacity and schedule are applied correctly. You can also list capacities like service bays, and MX APS can prevent scheduling conflicts—for example, not scheduling two forklift PMs at once if you only have one service bay.

Ad Hoc Work Orders, Requests, and Automation

Can you create an ad hoc maintenance order on the device? It depends on the interface, but the short answer is yes. On mobile, you can create an ad hoc work order from the device, and you can also create a maintenance request from the device.

The maintenance request supports a workflow where a request is submitted, optionally triggers an alert, and then someone reviews it, approves it, and creates the work order. If you prefer to create the ad hoc work order directly, that’s possible as well, and you can also automate creation using Power Automate or custom logic.

Maintenance Manager exposes an API, so it works with Power Automate for alerts, work requests, and related automation.

Posting and Reporting: Where Costs Go and How to View History

Where do costs go when you finish? That’s based on the posting groups on maintenance items. Typically, those posting groups point to the maintenance accounts you want in the GL, and you define where maintenance costs post through those posting groups assigned to the maintenance equipment item.

On reporting: we’re not going to have the same built-in reporting as a full EAM—like mean time between failure reporting. We don’t have that currently. But all the information is stored in Business Central because these are items in Business Central and maintenance is captured through standard entries.

You can view maintenance history through item ledger entries and related logs. You can see parts used, costs, and the full history associated with the maintenance item.

Pricing and Purchase Options

Maintenance Manager is available on AppSource. You need Business Central Premium. There are two ways to buy it.

Option one is to buy directly from Microsoft on AppSource. If you do that, it’s per user at $50 per user per month. That user is just the manager/administrator user—the person setting up maintenance equipment, maintenance parts, creating tasks, and so on. In most cases, that means you’re paying $50 a month and you can have lots of people using Maintenance Manager without additional Maintenance Manager licenses.

Option two is what we call a pre-purchase Maintenance Manager user plan. You still buy it from AppSource, but you pay us instead of Microsoft. That’s $200 and it’s unlimited users within that company. If you have multiple maintenance administrators, that can be the easier approach.

The easiest way to try it is to install the trial version and go.

Closing

If you have any other questions, you can check out the website and use the chat, or talk to your partner. Maintenance Manager is a great tool to fit into that scheduling and execution area that everybody needs, but many avoid because electronic maintenance programs feel hard to implement. Maintenance Manager is really the solution to that.

With that, thanks everybody. Glad you attended. Hope you have a good rest of the week.