Industrial operations typically employ several types of maintenance strategies to keep assets running. While many businesses rely on four key types of industrial maintenance, there are several different maintenance strategies to keep in mind:
-
Reactive maintenance
-
Preventive maintenance
-
Predictive maintenance (PdM)
-
Reliability-centered maintenance (RCM)
-
Condition-based maintenance
-
Risk-based maintenance
-
Emergency maintenance
-
Routine maintenance
-
Planned maintenance
-
Total productive maintenance
-
Prescriptive maintenance
-
Opportunistic maintenance
The best maintenance strategy to use will depend on your organization’s operational needs. This article provides an overview of each type of maintenance you can leverage to keep assets in good working order.
Reactive Maintenance (RM)
Reactive maintenance — also known as run-to-failure or corrective maintenance — involves repairing equipment after it has reached the point of failure. Companies may intentionally employ reactive maintenance as a cost-cutting maintenance strategy for non-repairable and inessential equipment.
However, this type of maintenance is not the most advantageous approach for critical assets, since repairing them reactively will cause unexpected and costly slowdowns in production.
Preventive Maintenance (PM)
Preventive maintenance refers to proactively repairing machinery and other assets before failure occurs. Other maintenance categories exist within preventative maintenance such as time-based (e.g., every six months or even on a weekly basis) or usage-based maintenance. This kind of routine maintenance helps teams get ahead of issues during planned visits.
Businesses may choose this option for low- to medium-priority assets that would be too expensive repair after failure. But when used broadly, this maintenance strategy could also contribute to unnecessary labor and costs.
Predictive Maintenance (PdM)
Predictive maintenance employs condition-based monitoring via connected sensors to forecast potential equipment failures. When connected to condition-monitoring software like a computerized maintenance management system (CMMS), teams can use predictive maintenance data to optimize the allocation of physical resources. Closely monitoring equipment can help detect failures before they escalate into imminent risks.
Predictive maintenance requires upfront financial investment in Internet of Things (IoT) technology. But in the long term, PdM delivers a high return on investment (ROI) by allowing for precise and timely maintenance.
Reliability-Centered Maintenance (RCM)
Reliability-centered maintenance stems from a top-down management approach to improve the reliability of the whole system.
Using RCM, businesses develop a custom plan or roadmap to analyze the potential failures of each individual asset in the operation and strategize maintenance solutions based on how critical each piece of equipment is to the larger facility. These plans tend to be highly complex and may require partners or consultants outside the business to manage and execute them across a large industrial system.
Condition-Based Maintenance (CBM)
Unlike time-based maintenance strategies that implement maintenance on a fixed schedule, condition-based strategies move forward with maintenance only if the asset’s condition warrants it. CBM is also a more proactive approach than reactive maintenance as it relies on visual inspection and close monitoring of key indicators of failure.
While condition-based maintenance is a realistic and inexpensive maintenance strategy, it is not as reliable as predictive smart technologies when it comes to detecting potential failures.
Risk-Based Maintenance (RBM)
Risk-based maintenance strategies take a data-based, strategic approach to asset failure. Using risk-based assessments of machine data, businesses will calculate the probability of failure for each unit. Then, employees will allocate more time and resources toward monitoring and maintaining equipment with the highest risk of breakdown.
Like other maintenance strategies, risk-based tactics seek to minimize downtime and reduce the likelihood of asset failures significantly impacting industrial operations.
Emergency Maintenance
When equipment breaks down and poses an immediate risk to employee safety and operations, repair teams will conduct emergency maintenance. Sometimes, sensors or other automated systems will signal the alarm for emergency maintenance, but other times, workers will flag the imminent risk.
Businesses should develop protocols for emergency maintenance to prevent equipment failure from causing further damage or downtime in other parts of the operation.
Routine Maintenance
Routine maintenance encompasses any periodic maintenance tasks that are scheduled in advance. These tasks are performed after a set amount of time, and happen regardless of whether an asset actively needs to be repaired. Routine maintenance can be carried out on a daily, weekly, monthly, or annual basis. It can range from simple surface cleaning to more complex machine servicing.
Planned Maintenance
Most organizations plan ahead to stay on top of maintenance problems and keep their operations on track. Planned maintenance refers to all maintenance activities that are planned and scheduled in advance. Within planned maintenance, there are two subcategories: planned preventive and planned unscheduled maintenance work.
Planned preventive maintenance relies on a schedule to maintain assets whether or not they are damaged. On the other hand, companies also need a plan in place should an asset unexpectedly fail. When this failure happens, businesses fall back on unscheduled maintenance strategies they have made in advance.
Total Productive Maintenance
Total productive maintenance (TPM) differs from other types of maintenance by involving employees at all levels in the process of asset management. This strategy instructs workers to observe and maintain their own equipment, and TPM reduces the burden on the maintenance crew and makes it possible for issues to be caught and repaired faster. Companies that employ TPM strive to maximize and achieve near-perfect productivity by eliminating errors and preventing unnecessary repairs.
Prescriptive Maintenance
Machine learning has altered the playing field for many types of maintenance strategies. Under prescriptive maintenance, artificial intelligence (AI) analyzes data from the equipment to recommend specific maintenance actions and adjustments to operations.
This type of smart maintenance strategy offers businesses flexible options for keeping equipment in pristine condition, building upon predictive maintenance to not only predict potential failures but also identify fixes.
Opportunistic Maintenance
Opportunistic maintenance, or opportunity maintenance, is a preventive strategy that takes advantage of downtime to make repairs. If one unit experiences a planned or unplanned shutdown, teams can take advantage of repair time and available resources to work on other important assets.
Opportunistic maintenance stands in contrast to conventional types of maintenance, which focus on fixing one unit of equipment at a time. Companies may utilize algorithms to determine what is the maintenance best suited for opportunistic methods.