What is preventive maintenance?
Preventive maintenance is work performed on a fixed schedule, by time or usage, to reduce the chance of failure: inspections, servicing, and component replacement before things break. Done well and on the right assets, it lowers unplanned downtime and total cost.
Benchmark
| Benchmark | |
|---|---|
| Good | A right-sized program on critical assets with high PM compliance. |
| Warning sign | Either too little PM, so assets fail, or blanket PM on everything, which wastes labour. |
Why it matters
Preventive maintenance is the main tool for shifting work from reactive to planned, but only if it targets the right assets and is actually completed on time. Over-maintaining trivial assets wastes the very labour that should protect the critical ones.
How to improve it
Right-size the program using criticality, protect PM time so compliance stays high, and review whether each task is actually preventing failures or just consuming hours.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between preventive and predictive maintenance?
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