Quoting Preventive Maintenance Windows

Every shop schedules preventive maintenance. Few shops quote around it correctly. The result? Either you bake in a fat buffer that makes you uncompetitive, or you quote tight and scramble when a CNC or printer goes down for its quarterly PM.

The fix isn’t guessing. It’s treating maintenance windows as a first-class capacity constraint — just like material lead time or operator shifts — and reflecting that in your quote engine.

Why PM Windows Break Quotes

Most quoting workflows assume 100% machine availability during the quoted lead time. Reality says otherwise. A five-axis mill might need 8 hours of PM every month. A metal PBF system might need a full day for filter changes and recoater blade swaps. If your quote promises delivery in 10 business days and the machine is down for 2 of them, you’ve already missed the date before you cut chips.

Shops handle this three ways, all flawed:

• Ignore it and hope the schedule works out.
• Add a blanket buffer (e.g., +20% lead time) that makes every quote look slower than competitors.
• Push the date after the PO lands, damaging trust.

Model Maintenance as Capacity Reduction

Instead of padding quotes, reduce available capacity in your scheduling horizon. If a machine runs 20 days a month and loses 1 day to PM, its effective capacity is 95%. Your quote engine should know which assets are affected, when their PM windows fall, and automatically exclude those hours from the available-to-promise calculation.

This requires three data points per asset:

1. PM frequency (weekly, monthly, quarterly)
2. Typical duration (hours or shifts)
3. Preferred scheduling window (e.g., first weekend of the month, or “any Saturday”)

With those, your system can show real available capacity for any quote date range.

Communicate the Constraint to the Customer

Transparency wins. When a quote reflects a known PM window, note it on the quote: “Lead time accounts for scheduled preventive maintenance on [Machine] during week of [date].” Customers appreciate honesty more than a missed promise. It also creates a natural upsell: “We can expedite by running on [alternative asset] — adds $X.”

Handle Unplanned Maintenance Separately

Preventive maintenance is predictable. Breakdowns aren’t. Don’t conflate them. Keep a separate risk buffer (typically 5-10% of machine time) for unplanned downtime. That buffer belongs in your cost model, not the lead-time promise.

Automate the Calendar Sync

Manual PM tracking in spreadsheets fails. Connect your CMMS or maintenance log to your quoting system so PM windows flow in automatically. When the maintenance team reschedules a PM, the next quote reflects the new reality instantly.

Result: Quotes You Can Keep

Factoring PM windows into capacity — not as a fudge factor — means your quoted lead times are achievable. You win more RFQs because your dates are realistic, not padded. You lose fewer jobs to expedite fees. And the shop floor stops fighting the schedule.

Solvi’s quoting engine lets you define maintenance calendars per asset and automatically excludes those windows from capacity calculations. See how it works at https://www.solvi.io.