Planned maintenance is a maintenance philosophy in which businesses plan and schedule their repair work, ensuring that all employees know when they need to repair or fix equipment. This can be planned in many ways, but it normally depends on how long the equipment has been running and similar factors. With planned maintenance, it normally is easier to buy equipment and to predict such purchases in the future, and it may be easier for employees to perform their work. At the same time, this maintenance method can be more expensive and less reliable than other methods.