Every asset management framework — ISO 55001, the IIMM, PAS 55, our own PAMF — has a maturity model. Most of them describe the stages in abstract language. This article does it differently. Here are the five maturity stages of the NJN Practical Asset Management Framework, illustrated with what each stage actually looks like on a mining operation.
If you've ever wondered "are we Stage 2 or Stage 3?", this should help.
The five stages
| Stage | Name | Focus |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Firefighting | Survive — establish basic safety and minimum systems |
| 2 | Stabilization | Break the firefighting cycle; establish discipline |
| 3 | Prevention | Prevent failures before they occur |
| 4 | Efficiency | Reduce maintenance cost while maintaining reliability |
| 5 | World Class | Continuous improvement and maintenance reduction |
Stage 1 — Firefighting
No systems. Constant breakdowns. Blame culture. No forward planning.
Walk into the maintenance workshop at 7 AM. The board has yesterday's failures still on it. The morning meeting is dominated by what broke overnight and who's blamed. The maintenance manager is on the phone with the operations superintendent arguing about who owns the lost shift.
The CMMS exists, but it's a graveyard. Notifications are mostly missing. Work orders that do exist have minimal data — no actuals, no findings, no parts captured.
The plant runs because the artisans are good. They're heroes. They put in 14-hour days, work weekends, fix things at 3 AM.
The Stage 1 priority: Stop the bleeding. Get the basic safety case right first. Then put a minimum viable Operating Model in place: roles, RACI, a working morning meeting, a credible PM compliance number.
Stage 2 — Stabilization
Basic maintenance schedules implemented. OEM recommendations followed. Planning starts. 5S in workshops.
The morning meeting has an agenda. The maintenance manager opens with the schedule and the planner walks through the day's work. PM compliance is being measured honestly and sits in the 60–80% range.
But: PMs are mostly time-based. Tactic decisions follow the OEM manual, not a risk-based methodology. Reactive ratio has dropped, but it's still high (40–60%). Same defects keep recurring.
The Stage 2 priority: Get from time-based to risk-based. Build the criticality register. Run FMECA workshops on Class A assets. Stand up a Defect Elimination programme.
Stage 3 — Prevention
RCM-based PM program. Planned work greater than reactive. CMMS fully utilized. Training plans in place.
The PMs being executed today are derived from FMECA, not OEM. The artisans know which tactic applies to which failure mode and why. The morning meeting reviews PM01 work orders not as failures to be fixed but as feedback into the tactic.
Reactive ratio is below 40% and still falling. There's a working Reliability Engineering function. The DE Management Team meets monthly. CBM is in use. The maintenance budget is stable or trending down.
Globally, perhaps 20–25% of mining operations are at or above Stage 3.
Stage 4 — Efficiency
Condition-Based Maintenance mature. Multi-skilled artisans. Cost-optimized PM. Reliability metrics improving.
The maintenance organisation is small and effective. Artisans are multi-skilled. CBM is dominant. Tactic effectiveness is reviewed quarterly. Reliability metrics — MTBF, MTTR, OEE — are at or above industry benchmarks.
Stage 4 is rare in mining, more common in continuous-process industries (refining, chemicals, power generation).
Stage 5 — World Class
All losses eliminated. Continuous CM. Self-directed teams. 10-year budget horizon. Full risk management.
I have to be honest. Few operations in the world are genuinely Stage 5. The ones I've seen are remarkable.
The maintenance team is small and self-directing. Predictive analytics is real. The asset replacement plan looks 10 years ahead. The Sustainment Rhythm is embedded so deeply that nobody thinks about it as a programme; it's just how work gets done.
"Stage 5 is not an end state; it's a discipline."
So where are you?
If you've read this far, you probably have a sense already. Most operations underestimate by half a stage — they think they're Stage 3 when they're actually Stage 2.5; they think they're Stage 2 when honest scoring puts them at 1.7.
The Maturity Audit workbook scores all eight pillars individually, so you don't end up with one summary number that hides large variation. A typical pattern: Stage 2 on Operating Model, Stage 1 on Defect Elimination, Stage 3 on Asset Performance Management — same site.
Want to know exactly where your operation sits? The NJN Maturity Audit scores you against all eight pillars in a single workbook — Quick Self-Assessment in 10 minutes, Deep Audit in 1–3 hours per pillar. Auto-populated dashboard, gap analysis, and 12-quarter improvement roadmap.