Elements of Great Maintenance Management
Elements of Great Maintenance Management
Who on your crew doesn't know maintenance basics?
Every day, maintenance employees make decisions that affect reliability, safety, quality, and uptime. Many were never taught the fundamentals, and skipped steps can lead to costly errors. We fix that, one hour at a time, for your whole crew.
Joel Levitt
CMRP · CRL · CPMM
Joel spent more than 30 years training the people who keep the world running. He has trained over 20,000 maintenance professionals in 43 countries and authored more than 20 books, considered references around the world. His programs are used in maintenance management certification at the University of Alabama, the University of Kansas & Dalhousie University.
One-Hour Private Training
Any Maintenance Basics topic
US$699
/ up to 10 people
US$899 / up to 20 people · one book per person
- Live 1-hour private webinar with Q&A
- Illustrated graphic novel workbook for each participant
- Full team access — everyone trains together
- Scheduled any time, any timezone
- Delivered virtually — no travel costs
🔒 Free advice from Joel. No spam. No obligation.
Start Here
Four core programs that give your crew the fundamentals
Each is a one-hour private event with an illustrated workbook. Click any course to see the full book description.
Defect Elimination
Good starting point because it gets people in action
Sample topics covered in your private event
- What are defects? Where do they come from?
- Brainstorm defect lists
- How to choose a project
- Rules of DE projects
- Carry out the project
Lubrication
Quick maintenance improvement and stop breakdowns before they happen
- Get the right attitude
- How lubrication works
- What is a good lubricant
- How to use lubrication
- Properties and additives
- How to improve your effort
Reliability
Get people engaged — focus the action on improving reliability
- Most common causes: looseness, dirt, lube issues
- TLC to the rescue — Tighten, Lubricate, Clean
- TLC and DE are fraternal twins
- Carry out a TLC project
Preventive Maintenance (PM)
Institutionalize the gains
- The 4½ dimensions of PM
- Postpone failure or detect failure
- Nature of failure, failure mode
- Unfunded liabilities
- How PM is organized
- Inspections of all kinds
- Tasks and frequencies
- Corrective maintenance & short repairs
What maintenance leaders say
What happens when people don't know the basics?
Your crew may be creating failures they don’t even understand. The costs add up quietly — and compound every month.
- Repeat breakdowns that keep coming back
- Poor CMMS use and resistance
- Weak troubleshooting skills
- Excess overtime
- PMs not getting done properly
- New employees who don't understand maintenance
- Lost production and downtime
- Safety incidents
The solution: Maintenance Basics
A one-hour private virtual training paired with an illustrated graphic novel workbook — teaching the essential skills every maintenance employee needs to work safely, prevent failures, and build reliability.
Why this beats traditional training
Most maintenance training is boring, slide-heavy, expensive, and pulls people away for days — and only one or two people ever hear the message.
- Everyone hears the same message at once
- 1-hour live training — no days lost to travel
- Graphic novel workbooks reinforce every lesson
- Live Q&A with the instructor
- Whole-crew pricing — train everyone together
- Virtual delivery, anywhere in the world
Fun & engaging
Graphic novel format with stories, humor, and characters. People actually want to read these.
Immediately practical
Fundamentals your crew can use on the job the same week — no abstract theory.
Built for teams
Whole-crew pricing builds a common language across your entire maintenance organization.
The return on investment
Use our training and what you’ll get is:
Better PM
Fewer avoidable breakdowns and more reliable uptime across your equipment.
Smaller pool of defects
Improved product quality, safer operations, and stronger reliability — by eliminating defects before they cause failures.
Stronger CMMS
Improved data, better root cause analysis, more accurate cost accounting, and smarter maintenance decisions.
Engaged crew
Schedule a free 15-minute consultation
No pressure, no obligation. Just a conversation about your crew and the right place to start.
- Your crew's experience level
- Reliability challenges
- Training priorities
- A recommended program
© 2026 Joel Levitt · Elements of Great Maintenance Management Series