When managing multiple assets, you need to constantly monitor them to avoid unplanned downtime, delayed maintenance, operational risks, and overspending.
Asset criticality assessment helps you identify, prioritise, and manage vital assets. By focusing on maintenance, spending, and risk management of these key machines, you can reduce downtime, design smarter service contracts, use resources wisely, and meet safety and legal requirements.
In this article, we’ll share the asset criticality assessment template, how to use it step-by-step, and explain how it can work with tools like Makula to make your maintenance planning faster.
What Is Asset Criticality?
Asset criticality is a simple way of measuring how important a piece of equipment is to your operations. In other words, it tells you how much trouble it would cause if that machine stopped working.
Knowing how critical each asset is helps you make smarter decisions about maintenance planning, spare parts stocking, and managing risks. Instead of treating every machine the same, you can reduce downtime and allocate resources like energy or labour to the right ones.
For example, if a cooling system on a manufacturing line breaks, production could stop completely, costing time and capital. But if a printer goes down, it’s inconvenient, but it won’t shut down your entire operation.
That’s why assessing asset criticality is so important. It helps you focus on your critical assets.
Why Asset Criticality Assessment Matters
Asset criticality assessment evaluates assets based on the worst-likely case of failure. It focuses on what would happen if a machine, system, or location went down.
Ranking assets based on production, safety, and maintenance workload helps you schedule maintenance activities, manage spare parts, and avoid service disruptions.
Asset criticality allows you to:
- Prioritise maintenance budgets and schedules on machines where failure would cause serious production losses, safety concerns, or expensive repairs. You can also determine if an asset requires preventive or reactive maintenance based on its risk level.
- Identify critical assets early to schedule inspections, preventive maintenance, and repairs before failures interrupt production.
- Target resources by deploying technicians, spare parts, and repair efforts based on the operational impact of each asset, rather than spreading maintenance thin across all equipment.
- Support compliance and safety planning by building maintenance programmes that meet compliance standards.
To make criticality assessments even faster, Makula’s Asset Hub centralizes your complete installed base. This gives your technicians and customers instant access to maintenance records, parts lists, and asset data. Your teams can share and make better scheduling decisions based on real-time visibility across all assets.
What Factors Should You Consider in Asset Criticality?
The following are the factors you should consider when performing an asset criticality assessment:
Operational Impact
Consider if equipment failure would interrupt your core production processes. If the machine is essential for manufacturing output or a major production line, it should be prioritized for maintenance.
Safety Risk
Assess whether asset failure could endanger employees, contractors, or the environment. Assets linked to high safety risks must receive higher priority to protect staff and maintain health and safety compliance.
Repair Costs
Look at how expensive it would be to repair or replace the asset if it fails. Assets with high repair or replacement costs should be monitored closely to manage maintenance budgets.
Downtime Impact
Evaluate how long it would take to restore operations if the asset fails. Longer downtime delays production and affects your entire supply chain.
Frequency of Failure
Review the historical reliability of the asset. Machines that break down frequently or show repeated issues need more preventive attention.
Detection Difficulty
See how easily you can detect early signs of failure. If failure is hard to detect, the asset needs closer monitoring and preventive maintenance.
How to Score Asset Criticality
Manufacturers should use an average score to judge the criticality level. This method helps you rank assets based on clear priorities rather than relying on judgment alone.
Here's how it works:
Score Each Factor on a 1–5 Scale
Rate every asset for operational impact, safety risk, repair cost, downtime impact, frequency of failure, and detection difficulty, with 1 being the lowest and 5 being the highest.
Calculate the Average Score
Add each score and divide by the total number of factors. This gives you a final number that ranks the asset’s overall criticality.
Categorise Assets
Based on the total average score, group assets into Low, Medium, or High criticality categories. This makes it easier to prioritise maintenance planning and resource allocation.
Download the Asset Criticality Assessment Template
To make it easy for you to get started, we’ve created a Google Sheet template for asset criticality assessment that helps you score and rank your assets quickly.
This template is perfect for factories and OEMs who need to assess their valuable machines, equipment, and other assets. You can also customise this template to fit your business needs.
Here’s what it includes:
- Asset details: Add each asset’s name, description, and location for easy tracking.
- Criticality scoring columns: You can rate each asset across all key factors: operational impact, safety risk, repair cost, downtime impact, failure frequency, and detection difficulty.
- Auto-calculated average score: The sheet automatically adds your factor scores and divides by the total number of factors, giving each asset a final criticality score.
- Criticality level: You can instantly calculate and see assets by Low, Medium, or High criticality to prioritise maintenance planning.
Make a copy of the free template here.
Best Practices for Using the Asset Criticality Assessment Template
Here are the best practices for using the asset criticality assessment template:
- Start with your top 20 assets: Focus first on the most expensive or operationally critical machines to get the biggest impact quickly.
- Involve both maintenance and operations teams: Gather input from those who run and service the equipment daily to get a complete, accurate view.
- Review and update scores regularly: Reassess criticality at least quarterly, or immediately after major incidents, production changes, or new safety findings.
- Use the results to drive maintenance planning: Build preventive maintenance schedules and prioritise spare parts inventory based on the criticality rankings.
- Import criticality data with your asset management system: Use tools like Makula’s Asset Hub to keep asset records, maintenance plans, and parts lists aligned with your criticality assessments.
Get your free copy of the Asset Criticality Assessment Template [here]
