What is Maintenance?
Maintenance, otherwise known as technical maintenance, refers to a set of processes and practices which aim to ensure the continuous and efficient operation of machinery, equipment, and other types of assets typically used in business. Diligence in implementing an effective maintenance program is essential to the successful performance and longevity of machinery, assets, facilities, and entire businesses.
Types of Maintenance :
There are different types of maintenance work, each designed for specific scenarios.
1. Breakdown Maintenance
2. Planned Maintenance
A. Preventive Maintenance
B. Predictive maintenance
C. Corrective Maintenance
3. Routine Maintenance
1. Breakdown Maintenance
Breakdown maintenance, sometimes called run-to-failure maintenance, occurs when an asset completely breaks down and needs repair to resume operation.
The breakdown maintenance is a type of maintenance that involves using a machine until it completely breaks down and then repairing it to working order.For example, this type of maintenance would occur if you wait until a machine stops working before fixing it.
Breakdown maintenance is triggered by either:
☆ A planned event, such as run-to-failure maintenance.
☆ An unplanned event, such as the need for reactive or corrective maintenance.
2. Planned Maintenance
Where routine maintenance may happen on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis, planned maintenance may be scheduled once per year or as needed. This is because planned maintenance is more time-consuming, expensive, and thorough—often requiring the services of a specialist. In the context of maintaining an air-conditioning unit, routine maintenance is taking out and washing the filters once per month, while planned maintenance is hiring an HVAC professional to check refrigerant levels, possible leaks, and measure airflow through the evaporator coil.
A. Preventive Maintenance
Preventive maintenance (PM) is the regular and routine maintenance of equipment and assets in order to keep them running and prevent any costly unplanned downtime from unexpected equipment failure.Preventive maintenance is the act of performing regularly scheduled maintenance activities to help prevent unexpected failures in the future. Put simply, it's about fixing things before they break.
Preventive maintenance (PM) is a simple and popular maintenance strategy. Preventive maintenance, also known as preventative maintenance, can help extend asset life, increase productivity, and ultimately decrease maintenance spending.
B. Predictive Maintenance
This maintenance type focuses on techniques used to determine the appropriate schedule for planned and corrective maintenance. Its primary goal is to predict, through a variety of testing methods, when a machine will start experiencing severe wear and tear so corrective maintenance can be scheduled without affecting productivity goals and before the machine breaks down.
C. Corrective Maintenance
Corrective maintenance is a maintenance task performed to identify, isolate, and rectify a fault so that the failed equipment, machine, or system can be restored to an operational condition within the tolerances or limits established for in-service operations.
Corrective maintenance covers maintenance tasks that are undertaken to identify, isolate and repair a fault in order to restore equipment, a machine or a system to an operational condition so it can perform its intended function.
Corrective maintenance is often associated to breakdowns or reactive maintenance and can include troubleshooting, disassembly, adjustment, repair, replacement and realignment.
3. Routine Maintenance
This type of maintenance, also referred to as preventive maintenance, is implemented on a fixed schedule and typically includes activities such as inspecting, cleaning, washing, replacing, and checking. It is typically performed in the downtime between shifts or on weekends to avoid affecting productivity goals. Routine maintenance has two objectives; to identify existing issues so they can be corrected ASAP and to prevent possible issues from becoming a reality through consistent care.