What is preventive maintenance?
Preventive maintenance (or preventative maintenance) is regularly and routinely performed on physical assets to reduce the chances of equipment failure and unplanned machine downtime. Effective preventive maintenance is planned and scheduled based on real-time data insights, often using software like a CMMS. A preventive maintenance task is performed while the equipment is still working to prevent unexpected breakdowns. A preventive maintenance strategy is a commonly used approach that falls between reactive maintenance (or run-to-failure) and predictive maintenance.
Build your own preventive maintenance schedule with this template
Table of contents
- Why is preventive maintenance important?
- Why do you need a preventive maintenance schedule?
- Types of preventive maintenance
- When should I use preventive maintenance?
- Advantages of preventive maintenance
- Challenges of preventive maintenance
- Preventive maintenance makes a big impact
Why is preventive maintenance important?
Preventive maintenance is important because it lays the foundation for successful facility management. Preventive maintenance keeps equipment and assets running efficiently, maintains a high safety level for your employees, and helps you avoid large and costly repairs down the road. Overall, a properly functioning preventive maintenance program ensures operational disruptions are kept to a minimum.
Why do you need a preventive maintenance schedule?
A preventive maintenance schedule helps you organize and prioritize your maintenance tasks (like creating a work order) so that a maintenance technician can create the best working condition and life span for the equipment. By conducting regular preventive maintenance, you can ensure your equipment continues to operate efficiently and safely.
Maintaining a preventive maintenance schedule can be very complex when dealing with lots of equipment, so maintenance personnel often use preventive maintenance software to organize their preventive maintenance tasks.
Use this template to build your own preventive maintenance schedule
Types of preventive maintenance
There are many different types of preventive maintenance. A variation of these types of preventive maintenance should ideally be scheduled and performed on all equipment items to prevent unplanned failure. Below are examples of each type of preventive maintenance.
- Time-based maintenance (TBM): A time-based approach schedules a preventive maintenance task using a set time interval, such as every 10 days. Other examples include triggering preventive maintenance (like a regular inspection of critical equipment) on the first day of every month or once in a three-month period.
- Usage-based maintenance (UBM): Usage-based preventive maintenance triggers a maintenance action when asset usage hits a certain benchmark. This can include after a certain number of kilometers, hours, or production cycles. An example of this trigger is routine maintenance being scheduled on a motor vehicle every 10,000km.
- Condition-based maintenance (CBM): Condition-based maintenance is a form of proactive maintenance. It's a maintenance strategy that monitors the actual condition of an asset to determine what maintenance tasks need to be done. Condition-based maintenance dictates that maintenance should only be performed when specific indicators show signs of decreasing performance or upcoming failure. For example, preventive maintenance will be scheduled when vibration on a certain component reaches a certain threshold, indicating that it should be replaced or lubricated.
- Predictive maintenance (PdM): Uses condition-monitoring tools and techniques to track the performance and condition of equipment. Maintenance is then performed when certain thresholds or parameters are breached. Examples include monitoring vibration in bearings or checking for thermal hotspots in electrical systems.
