Facility maintenance is the work that keeps a building doing what it already does: the plant running, the fabric watertight, the systems safe and available. It is not improvement, and the distinction matters more than it sounds, because improvements are funded as projects and maintenance is funded from an operating budget that everybody wants to cut. Understanding what falls inside the definition is the first step to defending it, and the schedule is where the definition becomes a plan.
The three kinds of work, and the fourth that is not work yet
Preventive work is done to an interval to stop failures. Corrective work fixes what has failed. Condition-based work is triggered by an inspection finding rather than a date. The fourth category is deferred: work that was needed, was not done, and has not gone away. Counting it is what separates a managed building from a neglected one, because a deferral with a date and a price stays in the accounting instead of in somebody's head.
What a facility maintenance schedule holds
A schedule is not a calendar. It is a list of assets, each carrying its own interval or intervals, from which the next due date is derived rather than typed. That single behavior is what makes it survive contact with a real year: when a quarterly service happens two weeks late, the next one moves with it, and nobody has to remember to update anything. A calendar of dates goes stale in the first month it is not perfectly followed.
Where the intervals come from
Not from software, and not from a benchmark. They come from the duty the equipment is under, the manufacturer's requirements, your insurer's conditions, the statutory regime the asset sits in and your own competent person's judgement. Software holds the interval you set and makes everything downstream follow from it, which is a smaller claim than most marketing makes and the only one that survives a real building.
Questions people ask about what is facility maintenance
Is cleaning facility maintenance?
Usually it is managed separately, as a service contract rather than as maintenance against assets. The line worth drawing is whether the work keeps an asset in service or keeps the space presentable; they are different budgets and usually different suppliers.
How much preventive work is the right amount?
The amount at which the cost of the program is below the cost of the breakdowns it avoids, on your own figures. The free preventive versus reactive worksheet sets one against the other from your asset count, your visit cost and your own avoidance assumption.
What if there is no schedule at all yet?
Start with the assets whose failure closes the building or costs the most, put an interval on each, and let the list grow. A short schedule that is followed is worth more than a complete one nobody reads.