In most manufacturing environments, maintenance and production compete for the same resource: machine time. And when maintenance isn’t scheduled smartly, it causes overtime, delays, and workflow disruptions. The problem? Business Central doesn’t treat maintenance like production—and that creates blind spots.
Here’s how manufacturers are solving that by scheduling maintenance as if it were production—so it’s visible, trackable, and collision-free.
Why does maintenance keep clashing with production?
By default, Business Central doesn’t block machine time for service tasks. That means a planner might schedule production on a machine that’s already booked for maintenance—because the system doesn’t see it as unavailable.
When maintenance isn’t represented in the schedule, it gets missed, rushed, or causes last-minute changes that ripple through your shop floor.
Can maintenance be scheduled like production orders?
Yes. With the right setup, maintenance can be entered as its own order—linked to work centers, routings, and even components. When this happens, Business Central automatically reduces available capacity for that equipment during the scheduled maintenance window.
Scheduling tools like MxAPS and graphical interfaces can then factor in these blocks, just like any other job, keeping production and maintenance from overlapping.
How do I trigger maintenance based on actual machine usage?
Instead of relying on calendar dates, you can track runtime, output, or distance for each asset—and trigger maintenance when real usage crosses a threshold. These values update automatically when production is posted, so there’s no need for manual logs or guesswork.
This makes scheduling more responsive, and ensures that high-use equipment is maintained based on need, not estimates.
What kind of visibility does this give planners and technicians?
Maintenance orders become just as visible as production orders—start time, end time, work center, components, and triggering conditions are all logged and tracked. That means technicians know what’s coming, planners avoid conflicts, and purchasing can prepare for needed parts in advance.
It also ensures every maintenance action is traceable, auditable, and linked to your ERP’s scheduling and inventory systems.
You can explore how this works in this blog post.
Disclosure: This post summarizes functionality available to Business Central users through structured maintenance scheduling. No paid links or promotions included.
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