What is reactive maintenance percentage?
Reactive maintenance percentage is the share of total maintenance work, usually measured in labour hours, that is unplanned and done in response to a failure rather than scheduled in advance. A healthy plant runs below about 20 to 30 percent reactive; many under-managed sites sit above 50 percent.
Benchmark
| Benchmark | |
|---|---|
| Good | Below 20 to 30 percent reactive is widely treated as a well-managed target. |
| Warning sign | Above 50 percent reactive means the plant is largely fighting fires, and planned work is being crowded out. |
Why it matters
Reactive work is the most expensive way to maintain a plant. It pairs lost production with premium labour, expedited parts, and collateral damage, and it starves the planned work that would prevent the next failure. The reactive percentage is the single best one-number indicator of how much money a maintenance function is leaking.
How to improve it
Measure the reactive share honestly from work-order data, ring-fence protected time for planned work, run defect elimination on the top repeat failures by cost, and rank assets by criticality so reliability effort goes where it pays.
Frequently asked questions
What is a good reactive maintenance percentage?
How do you calculate reactive maintenance percentage?
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