Maintenance Maturity Insights: Research Report on State of Digital Adoption
Maintenance operations are changing fast, but not evenly. Some organizations are moving ahead with connected, data-driven systems, while others are still relying on phone calls, spreadsheets, and gut feeling.
To understand where the industry really stands, Zapium surveyed over 1,000 maintenance leaders across manufacturing, utilities, facilities management, and infrastructure sectors.
The findings reveal not just how maintenance is managed today, but also how unevenly organizations have adopted modern maintenance maturity models.
Here’s a summary of the key insights, organized across the major categories explored in the study.
Maintenance Requests
When asked how maintenance work is typically requested, 37% said they use a dedicated software system. About a quarter (25%) rely on verbal communication or WhatsApp messages, while 20% use paper or Excel-based forms. Another 18% use shared digital forms.
That means more than half of maintenance teams still operate without structured digital workflows, which can lead to the risk of missing requests, delayed responses, and limited visibility. There is still a scope for many organizations to achieve consistent, trackable request management.
Preventive Maintenance
Across facilities, preventive maintenance remains limited. Our findings show that 30% of respondents do not conduct preventive maintenance and only repair equipment after it breaks down. About 28% follow static monthly or quarterly schedules recorded in Excel, and 22% rely on reminders or calendars. Only 20% of facilities have fully automated systems that schedule maintenance.
Around 80% of teams either rely on reactive maintenance or follow basic manual processes. They leave their assets vulnerable to unplanned failures, which can take a toll on maintenance costs. The reliance on static schedules or simple reminders can be a stumbling block that prevents organizations from aligning maintenance with actual equipment usage.
Spare Parts Tracking
Our research shows that for spare parts tracking, most maintenance professionals still rely on manual or traditional tracking methods. These methods include noting parts and materials manually after the job (27%) and using spreadsheets or systems for manual entry (30%).
22 percent of professionals do not track spare parts at all, and 21% leverage integrated work orders that auto-deduct inventory. So, around 80% are still stuck in inefficient workflow, and those of them not tracking spare parts should immediately implement a tracking process.
Collaboration
Coordination between maintenance, inventory, and finance teams paints a fragmented picture. About 28% of respondents still resort to calls or emails to stay in sync, while 25% hold weekly coordination meetings. Shared documentation, such as Google Sheets, guides 22% of teams, and only a quarter (25%) operate with integrated systems offering real-time updates.
Nearly three out of four facilities rely on human effort or semi-digital methods to keep teams aligned. Delays in approvals, duplicated efforts, and limited transparency into maintenance activities will be common for them. On the other hand where integration exists, stakeholders can access live updates and can track progress.
Measuring Productivity
Findings reveal that most facilities remain in the dark about actual team performance. Around 26% of respondents rely purely on gut feeling or manager feedback to judge productivity. Another 25% sift through completed jobs manually every week, while 24% use rudimentary tracking of work orders and technician hours. And again only a quarter of organizations (25%) have dashboards providing real-time visibility into tasks and KPIs.
The majority of maintenance teams operate without reliable performance insight. Productivity remains more assumed than measured. Facilities integrating analytics and machine learning into maintenance operations can gain measurable productivity insights, and can easily optimize their workflows and resource allocation.
Fault Detection
Insights show that failure detection moves at a sluggish pace in many facilities. Because, according to the survey, 35% of teams act only when someone notices a problem, and 27% rely on daily or weekly inspections. Combined, over 60% of organizations depend on outdated, slow methods that delay response and prolong downtime.
Next, semi-regular sensor logs guide 20%, while just 18% of teams receive instant alerts through IoT or computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) integration. Modernizing detection can shift teams from reactive approaches to condition-based or proactive maintenance.
Asset History
Only 26% of respondents use automation for updating asset maintenance logs. Of the rest, 20% don’t have records on assets, 26% use paper records or static files, and 28% do use digital logs but update them manually.
More than half of facilities navigate without a complete history of their assets. With poor asset management, patterns of wear and recurring failures remain hidden, planning maintenance cycles becomes guesswork, and the opportunity to prevent repeated downtime slips away.
Work Order Assignment
Research finds that different businesses use different approaches to assign work orders and there is no specific trend that is common. 24% find it better to call or message their technicians directly. For 29%, manual assignment by supervisor takes place.
The remaining 47% use digital systems but with variations. 26% use the system for suggestions but still finalize the decision manually. The remaining 21% rely on system for auto-assigning work orders based of factors like skills, availability, and proximity. Using a comprehensive maintenance software is a key to efficiency here, as it will improve work order assignment accuracy and reduce response time.
Vendor Management
Most organizations still rely on cumbersome methods to track vendors and contractors. Manual updates through contractor portals account for 28% of respondents, while 27% depend on emails and follow-ups, and 25% use shared documents or Excel trackers. Only 20% of teams use fully integrated digital platforms.
With outsourced work on the rise, this is a clear area that needs modernization. Because in over 80% of organizations, manual or semi-digital methods dominate, which can turn vendor and contractor management into a bottleneck that will increase delays and escalate costs. Facilities should set a digital roadmap and digitize vendor management by covering one process at a time. The easiest way is to use a maintenance software with the feature readily available.
Using Data to Make Decisions
A growing share of teams – around one in four – now review dashboards regularly to guide decisions. But around half still use reactive approaches, with 23% rarely using data and 26% using it only during audits or major failures. 25% follow a moderate approach where they go through reports monthly.
Moving from reactive to data-driven maintenance is the next step in reaching the highest level of maintenance maturity. Regular data use can enable them to build robust predictive maintenance strategies and move towards prescriptive maintenance. Facilities that adopt these practices are well-positioned for continuous improvement.
The Divide Is Clear
Maintenance practices differ across organisations and the results reveal a split between organizations that have digitized maintenance end-to-end and those still managing with spreadsheets and phone calls.
Automation, IoT integration, and data-driven planning are helping leaders reduce downtime and control costs, but large portions of the industry have yet to catch up. These adoptions are essential as they help fast scale higher levels of maintenance maturity and build a world-class maintenance practice.
Across each of the categories, we do not see any particular trend dominating, and businesses have scope to improve their maintenance maturity level by equipping themselves with technology.
However, in this venture, facilities leaders will need to understand that digital transformation in maintenance is not just a technology upgrade, rather it is also a shift in culture and control. Considering these factors, facilities that make the transition now will gain a real edge in reliability, asset performance, and cost efficiency.
About the Report
The 2025 Maintenance Maturity Insights Report is based on a survey of over 1,000 maintenance leaders conducted by Zapium. The report explores how maintenance teams operate today, where digital adoption stands, and what trends are shaping the future of maintenance management.
Curious how your operations compare – or ready to close the gap?