Preventive Maintenance – What It Is and Why It’s Important

With preventive maintenance, many breakdowns can be avoided before they occur. This reduces maintenance costs over time and increases profitability, as machines and assets can be used throughout their full lifecycle. A maintenance system that supports preventive maintenance helps streamline production across your organization. Investments in maintenance work lead to improved employee safety, more reliable deliveries and higher customer satisfaction.

The Difference Between Preventive and Corrective Maintenance

Maintenance can generally be divided into three categories: corrective, preventive and improvement maintenance. Corrective maintenance refers to urgent or reactive actions, such as replacing a machine component after it has already failed.

Preventive maintenance, on the other hand, refers to proactive actions, such as inspections of machines or replacing worn components before they break down. The goal is to eliminate future faults and problems before they occur.

Types of Preventive Maintenance

Within maintenance management, there are several different terms and concepts. Here are some of the most common ones:

• Predictive Maintenance
  Predictive maintenance aims to prevent equipment failures and downtime by identifying and addressing problems before they occur.
• Scheduled Maintenance (Time-Based Preventive Maintenance)
  Scheduled maintenance includes actions performed at predefined intervals without assessing the current condition of the machine. These tasks may be performed monthly, quarterly or annually and can include lubrication, cleaning or replacement of spare parts. Scheduled maintenance increases operational reliability and reduces the need for urgent repairs. However, one challenge is that machines may sometimes be serviced more often than necessary, which can generate unnecessary maintenance costs.
• Condition-Based Maintenance
  Condition-based maintenance monitors the condition of machines and helps identify the correct maintenance actions at the right time. With this method, faults can be detected early and addressed before urgent repairs become necessary. This approach requires expertise within the organization to ensure that maintenance is not performed too early.
• Predictable Maintenance
  Predictable maintenance is a form of condition-based maintenance. By analyzing and evaluating machine data, necessary repairs can be identified quickly. Better insight into when repairs are needed leads to longer equipment lifespan and increased efficiency.  However, relying entirely on data can involve higher initial costs in order for this maintenance method to be successful.
• Risk-Based Maintenance
  Risk-based maintenance is performed by analyzing, measuring and conducting periodic tests in connection with standard preventive maintenance practices.
• Need-Based Maintenance
  Maintenance based on equipment performance monitoring and control of corrective actions. This approach is similar to predictive maintenance.
• Prescriptive Maintenance
  Prescriptive maintenance is a relatively new concept that builds upon predictive maintenance. By using data analysis and AI, systems can not only predict when a failure may occur, but also recommend which actions should be taken to avoid downtime or optimize maintenance.

Maintenance Planning

Planning forms the foundation of an effective maintenance department. It means using your maintenance resources in the best possible way based on current needs and priorities. By involving production staff in daily operator maintenance, you can further strengthen the team and allow specialists from the maintenance department (such as service technicians and electricians) to focus on larger and higher-priority tasks.

The Importance of Maintenance for a Safe Work Environment

Regular inspections and maintenance of machines, facilities, vehicles and ventilation systems are essential for a safe workplace. From a health and safety perspective, proper maintenance is crucial. Poor maintenance can lead to unsafe working environments and, in the worst case, accidents that result in injuries.

Managing Preventive Maintenance with Mainter

Mainter’s maintenance system is a cloud-based platform that helps you digitize the entire preventive maintenance process – from registration and execution to follow-up and completed tasks.

Involve Maintenance and Production Teams

Because our preventive maintenance system is cloud-based, it can be accessed easily from anywhere. Here you can create and share work orders and checklists with other users, ensuring full control over all parts of the maintenance process.

When maintenance work needs to be performed, you can plan and register the task from your computer. A maintenance technician can then open the work order and complete it directly from their mobile device.

Digital Maintenance System for Mobile and Desktop

With Mainter as your platform, it becomes easier to manage maintenance work and create structured routines for recurring tasks. You get a complete overview at a glance.

Register the work that needs to be done, choose a date or interval for when it should be carried out, and let the system handle the rest. No paperwork or binders are needed, and you can avoid email threads and scattered conversations about maintenance. Everything is managed in Mainter – from your computer, mobile phone or tablet.