Free preventive maintenance software
Set a PM plan once and every due date lands on the maintenance calendar and on the technician's work card, with its checklist. No spreadsheet reminders, no account.
The short answer
- The free CMMS app at OEE Lab puts periodic PM plans at its centre: every so many days, weeks or months, for a machine or asset, with a checklist, the people who do it and an estimated time.
- Each due PM shows up on the maintenance calendar and on the work card of the person assigned, and late ones are flagged as missed or delayed.
- Data stays in this browser on this device, with no account, and the app installs on a shop-floor tablet. It does not sync between devices.
- When PMs are catching real problems and you want machine data next to them, that is where Fabrico takes over.
Check whether a free PM tool stays free and whether PM schedules sit at the centre of it. In the free OEE Lab app, a PM plan is its own record: grease the bearings on Filler F-200 every 30 days, with a five-step checklist and the technician who owns it. The app generates each due task on the calendar, so nobody tracks dates by hand.
Not sure which tasks belong in the plan? The preventive maintenance checklist template lists daily to annual tasks for 10 machine types. It pairs naturally with the CMMS ROI calculator if you are trying to justify a maintenance program, and with the downtime cost calculator to show what a missed PM costs when the asset fails instead.
The honest limit: this is manual and single-device. You still walk the floor and check things off, and the data lives in one browser. See how to choose OEE and CMMS software for how to think about when to graduate.
What you get, free
Periodic PM plans
Repeat a plan every so many days, weeks or months from a start date, for one machine or asset, and pause it when the machine is out of service.
Checklist on every task
Write the steps once on the plan; every task it creates carries the same checklist for the technician to tick off.
Calendar and work cards
Due PMs sit on a month or week calendar next to reactive work, and each person sees their own on their work card.
History per machine
Completed PMs and repairs build up on each machine's page, so you can see what was done and when.
No account to start
Open the app and start planning straight away: no signup, no credit card, no trial clock.
Installs on a tablet
Add it to a shop-floor tablet's home screen, and print QR labels that open each machine's page in the app.
Open the app with a sample plant to see a month of PM plans on the calendar, then clear it and add your own machines and plans.
Where free stops, and Fabrico begins
The free app is built for getting started fast, for one plant on one shared device. When a site gets serious about its losses, the manual steps start to cost more than they save. This is where Fabrico takes over.
| Capability | Free OEE Lab app | Fabrico |
|---|---|---|
| PM scheduling | Plans repeat by days, weeks or months; you check them off by hand. | Maintenance in the same system that tracks OEE and downtime live from PLCs, IoT sensors or AI cameras. |
| From loss to fix | You spot the loss, then raise the work order yourself. | A technician opens the work order from the stop, in the same system. |
| Short stop causes | You investigate short stops yourself and note the reason. | Where cameras are fitted, the video of a stop sits next to its machine data, with AI-suggested likely causes the team validates. |
| Scope | One plant in one browser on one device; no sync between devices. | Plant-wide and across sites, for the whole team on their own devices. |
| People and roles | People and roles on that one device. | Role-based access across the plant, with an audit log of changes. |
| Hosting and certificates | Nothing leaves your browser unless you export it. | Data hosted in the AWS EU region; ISO 27001, ISO 9001 and ISO/IEC 20000-1 certified. |
Frequently asked questions
Is this preventive maintenance software actually free, or a trial?
It is free today, not a time-limited trial: no account, no card and no expiring clock. The honest tradeoff is that it runs in one browser on one device rather than syncing across a plant.
Can I set PM schedules by run hours instead of calendar time?
Not in the free app: its PM plans repeat every so many days, weeks or months from a start date. The free OEE tracker can count a PM against the run hours you log from your shifts, if that fits the asset better.
What happens when a PM task comes due?
It appears on the maintenance calendar and on the work card of the person assigned, with the plan's checklist. When it passes its due date without being done, it is flagged as missed or delayed.
Does it push reminders automatically?
No. Due tasks show inside the app, so you see them when you open it. There are no emails or phone notifications in the free app.
Will this work across multiple machines and a full asset register?
Yes, within one plant on one device. Build out the machine and asset register, attach PM plans to each machine, and the history builds up per machine, but it does not sync across devices or sites.
When should we move past a free PM tool to something like Fabrico?
When manual entry and manual PM walk-throughs become the bottleneck, or when you want machine data next to maintenance: Fabrico tracks OEE and downtime live from PLCs, IoT sensors or AI cameras, and a technician opens the work order from the stop. That is when a Fabrico demo makes sense.
When free is not enough, Fabrico is the upgrade
The free PM app is built for one plant on one device: you set the plans and the calendar shows what is due. Once preventive maintenance is catching real problems and the plant wants machine data next to its maintenance, Fabrico tracks OEE and downtime live from PLCs, IoT sensors or AI cameras; where cameras are fitted, the video of a stop sits next to its machine data, and a technician opens the work order from the stop, with data hosted in the AWS EU region.
Book a Fabrico demoMore free software: All free software · Free CMMS App You Install Right On the Shop Floor · How to Migrate From Spreadsheets to a Free CMMS · Free CMMS + OEE Software: the Loss and the Work Order in One Tool · Free downtime tracking software: log stops by reason, get a downtime Pareto instantly
Open the free PM app · Free OEE tracker · Free CMMS software · CMMS ROI calculator · Maintenance KPIs and metrics guide · Free maintenance management software · How to choose OEE and CMMS software