- A PPM contract without an asset register is a visit calendar; the register is what makes every other clause enforceable.
- SFG20, maintained by the Building Engineering Services Association, is the building-services reference for maintenance task schedules by asset type.
- Discipline standards sit underneath it: NFPA 25 for water-based fire protection and ANSI/ASHRAE/ACCA 180 for commercial HVAC.
- Ask where each interval came from — if nobody can say, it was chosen for cost of delivery rather than derived from the equipment.
- A survey costs money before any maintenance happens, which is why small, simple properties can reasonably skip it.
A facilities manager in a Dubai mixed-use tower asked his provider for the PPM schedule. What came back was a calendar: twelve rows, one per month, each saying "PPM visit". No task list. No asset register. No frequencies against equipment. Twelve rows and a signature block.
That is a visit calendar wearing a schedule's name.
In short: planned preventive maintenance is a set of tasks attached to specific assets at stated frequencies. Without an asset register underneath it there is nothing to plan against, which is why most contracts sold as PPM in this market are reactive cover with a visit calendar attached. The tell is simple: if the document does not list tasks against assets, it is not PPM.
An annual PPM contract Dubai buildings actually benefit from starts somewhere else entirely: with a list of what is installed. Planned preventive maintenance is a set of tasks, each attached to a specific asset, each with a stated frequency. Without the asset register underneath it, there is nothing to plan against.
What PPM means, and what it is not
Three maintenance models get confused in Dubai quotations, and the difference decides what you are buying.
- Reactive. Something fails, somebody calls, an engineer attends. Cheapest to sign, most expensive to run.
- Planned preventive (PPM). Tasks carried out at set intervals whether or not anything has failed, to stop failures happening. This is what an annual PPM contract should be.
- Condition-based. Intervals adjusted by measurement: pressure drop, vibration, thermographic survey, water quality. More sophisticated, and it needs the PPM baseline first.
Most contracts sold as PPM in this market are reactive cover with a visit schedule attached. The tell is simple. If the document does not list tasks against assets, it is not a PPM contract.
The reference the good contracts are written against
The building-services industry standard for maintenance specification is SFG20, maintained by the Building Engineering Services Association. It is a library of maintenance task schedules by asset type, each task carrying a frequency and a skill level. Serious FM providers in the Gulf write their PPM scope from it, or from something equivalent, rather than inventing a task list per client.
Discipline-specific standards then sit underneath it:
- NFPA 25 for the inspection, testing and maintenance of water-based fire protection systems: sprinklers, standpipes, pumps, valves, tanks.
- ANSI/ASHRAE/ACCA Standard 180 for commercial HVAC inspection and maintenance.
- EN 81-20 and EN 81-80 for lifts as installed and as they age, and EN 115 for escalators and moving walks, which are a separate discipline rather than a lift variant.
None of these is Dubai law. They are the documents a competent scope is built from, and asking which one a provider used is a fast way to find out whether they wrote a scope or a sales sheet.
QSERV surveys what is actually installed across fire, HVAC, lifts and emergency lighting, then builds the PPM schedule from the register rather than from a template.
The asset register is the contract
Here is the stance, and it is the thing we argue about most often at takeover. The asset register is the deliverable that makes every other part of a PPM contract enforceable. Everything else is downstream of it.
Without it you cannot answer basic questions. How many fire dampers are in the building? Which floors have FCUs and which have ducted splits? What is the age of the emergency lighting batteries? When a provider says a task was done, done to what, and how would you know if one unit was skipped every visit for two years?
A register does not need to be elaborate. It needs asset, location, make and model where known, quantity, and an identifier that survives between visits. Once that exists, the PPM schedule is just tasks and frequencies mapped onto it, and a monthly report can be checked rather than believed.
> A maintenance report you cannot audit against an asset list is a receipt, not a record.
What a real annual PPM schedule looks like
The shape below is a starting structure across the disciplines a Dubai building typically carries. Frequencies come from the equipment, the standard and the duty, so treat this as the frame rather than the answer.
| Discipline | Representative planned tasks | Typical driver of frequency |
|---|---|---|
| Fire detection & alarm | Device testing by zone, panel and battery checks, cause-and-effect verification, log review | Code requirement and DCD expectation, plus system size |
| Fire fighting & water systems | Pump running tests, valve exercising, sprinkler inspection, riser and hydrant testing | NFPA 25 task intervals |
| HVAC | Filter action, coil cleaning, drain clearing, refrigerant and electrical checks, readings logged | Equipment type, dust and salt exposure, runtime |
| Lifts | Safety function proof tests, rope and brake inspection, door and interlock checks | Manufacturer requirement, duty and age |
| Escalators | Step chain elongation measured, brake stopping distance, handrail speed, comb and skirt clearance | EN 115 provisions, duty and passenger volume |
| Emergency lighting | Function tests and full duration discharge tests, lux verification where specified | Design standard and battery type |
| Electrical distribution | Thermographic survey, torque checks, RCD testing, panel inspection | Load criticality and insurer requirement |
Two columns matter more than the visit count: what is done, and what evidence lands afterwards.
Building the register without stopping everything
The objection to an asset register is always the survey cost, and on a large estate that objection is reasonable. It does not have to be done in one exercise.
A workable order, if budget forces phasing:
Start with the compliance-critical assets. Anything a certificate depends on, or that an inspector will ask about: fire detection and alarm devices, pumps, risers, extinguishers, emergency lighting. These carry the most consequence and are usually the smallest count.
Then the high-cost failures. Chillers, lifts, main switchgear. Few in number, expensive when neglected, and the ones where a maintenance history changes replacement decisions later.
Then the distributed items. FCUs, split units, detectors by floor. Highest count, lowest individual consequence, and the part most sensibly captured floor by floor as the maintenance rounds happen anyway.
Two practical points. Capture location in whatever way the building actually uses — floor and room reference, not a coordinate system nobody recognises. And give every asset an identifier that survives, physically tagged where possible, because a register that cannot be matched back to the equipment on site degrades into a spreadsheet within two years.
Phased is slower and it beats the alternative, which is deferring the register indefinitely because the full survey never fits into a budget cycle.
What moves the price
- Asset count and mix. A tower with lifts, chillers, a wet riser and a fire pump is a different contract from a warehouse with splits and extinguishers.
- How many disciplines sit under one provider. Consolidating reduces coordination cost, and it also removes the gap where each contractor assumes another one is covering something.
- Evidence standard. Photographic records, asset-level sign-off and a digital logbook cost more to produce than a paper sheet, and they are worth more at audit.
- Response cover. Reactive attendance bundled into the PPM fee, and the hours it applies.
- Condition of the estate at takeover. A backlog is real work and pretending otherwise just moves the cost into variations later.
- Number of sites. Multi-site changes mobilisation economics in your favour.
The honest trade-off: a PPM contract built from a proper asset survey costs more up front, and the survey itself is a cost you pay before any maintenance happens. On a small, simple property with few assets that overhead may genuinely not repay itself, and a straightforward scoped contract is the better buy. On anything with mixed disciplines, multiple floors, or a compliance obligation attached, the register is what turns the contract from a promise into something you can hold somebody to.
Explore the Integrated PPM & AMC Cluster
Each page below covers one part of running planned maintenance across a Dubai building.
Related reading: what an AC and HVAC AMC covers, and the fire AMC contract terms worth reading closely before signing.
Next step, and it takes ten minutes: ask your current provider for the asset register their PPM schedule is built on. Not the visit calendar, the register. If it arrives quickly you have a real contract. If the answer is a monthly grid with "PPM visit" in each row, you have found what you are actually paying for.
