What is Preventive Maintenance?

To maintain the equipment and materials on a regular basis in order to maintain those running conditions and reduce unnecessary shutdowns due to unexpected equipment failure is called Preventive Maintenance (PM).

A successful maintenance strategy requires planning and scheduling equipment repairs before a problem occurs. A robust preventative maintenance plan also includes maintaining track of previous inspections and equipment maintenance.

Preventive maintenance consists of taking the correct precautions and actions to avoid accidents or equipment failures before they occur. Regular inspection of company and equipment, cleaning, and lubricating critical equipment are all examples of preventive maintenance.

Due to the challenges of establishing a preventive maintenance schedule for a large number of equipment, many companies use preventive maintenance software to arrange their required preventive maintenance work.

Types of Preventive maintenance

• Time-based maintenance
• Usage-based maintenance

Time-based maintenance

Time-based maintenance is defined as the maintenance to keep on track, make a monthly or annual maintenance schedule that follows the manufacturer's guidelines for examining and cleaning the equipment. Time-based maintenance is also called Calendar-based maintenance.

Calendar-based maintenance includes things like servicing air conditioning a month or two before summer, replacing salt for soft water systems, and cleaning vents at least twice a year to meet health regulations.

With the use of preventive maintenance software, certain forms of preventive maintenance are conducted at regular or scheduled periods. While all critical equipment should have PM, monitoring equipment that is critical to production on a frequent basis will help reduce breakdowns.

Every four months, a motor pool may be necessary to do fleet maintenance. This is an excellent example of preventive maintenance.

Usage-based maintenance

It is one of the types of Preventive maintenance, It's a good idea to measure usage i.e. equipment monitors, operating hours, production cycles. Usage statistics can include cycle counts, runtime, miles/kilometers traveled, or hours, among others.

An industrial maintenance technician, for example, may perform preventive maintenance by analyzing machine usage information. Maintenance can then be scheduled based on the measurements and readings collected in rounds.

Benefits of Preventive Maintenance

• Save Money: Because of preventive maintenance there is no need to change any machine or equipment and there is no shutdown occurs due to this money is saved and profit also increases.

• Longer equipment and building life: In preventive maintenance, the material gives the same output throughout the year because when equipment performs badly or poorly then it is repaired so the lifespan of the material is high or long.

• Minimum Wastage of energy: Preventive maintenance permits power faults and it is quickly repaired due to this power loss is minimum and low energy bill.

• Fewer disturbances: There is regular checking so there are no type disturbances occur.

• Safe work environment : The risk of unexpected failures, medical problems, and responsibility actions is reduced when preventative maintenance plans are followed.

• Increase productivity, production and profit: There is no possibility of shutdown due to this increase in production and profit.

Disadvantages of Preventive Maintenance

• More workers required: There must have regular checking so more workers are required in Preventive Maintenance

• Over maintenance: Here maintenance schedule is regular, so there is a need to check equipment regularly.

• More money upfront: The starting schedule of Preventive Maintenance is costly to maintain equipment and build regularly. The cost is more than simply a breakdown that occurs in the company.

Designing of Preventive Maintenance Program

Decide which sections of the company and equipment to target for preventative maintenance before you finish the process. Follow the instructions listed below.

• To determine preventative maintenance goals each item should have. Make sure to record these goals in a spreadsheet.
• To plan and schedule of maintenance. Choose a day or time that will have the least impact on company's production.
• Train the team member to operate equipment and handle all machinery or technology properly and safely.

These three steps of procedures will serve as the foundation for a preventive maintenance program.

Preventive maintenance software

Maintenance has been recorded and tracked using pen and paper, both are manual so it takes more time, and may not necessarily result in accurate analysis. So the Preventive Maintenance software is used. Let’s see the preventive Maintenance software.

Preventive maintenance software is an excellent tool, this is used for preparing and scheduling work orders for preventive maintenance and gives output in a digital format. These have some advantages and time-saving solutions that are otherwise more time-consuming in manually tracking systems. As well as, there are many software providers at a reasonable price, and they preserve all maintenance records in one location.

The organization or company benefits from preventive maintenance software allow for the filing of digital work order forms in one simplified process, as well as the modification of finished or in-progress repairs and maintenance. Also, most of these applications free technicians of the majority of responsibilities so they can concentrate more on examining and maintaining equipment.

Technicians can have accessibility to all preventive maintenance work orders they have to complete, as well as notifications and reminders whenever the next inspection is scheduled. Get details on operating downtime, cost of maintenance, and even the actual cause of issues, and also the ability to track repair orders from beginning to end.

Common Mistakes

• Poor data and planning: Before starting the preventive maintenance process, should have all the reports that are maintenance records, breakdown data, also need to check original manufacturing suggestions which are useful guidelines to schedule preventive maintenance.

• Selecting the incorrect equipment to perform Preventive Maintenance: Before starting the preventive maintenance schedule, the first step should be to select the correct equipment, and when this is done that will save the money.

• Maintenance workers are poorly trained: Most of the time many projects are failed due to improperly trained staff or workers. If maintenance workers are not well trained, then told about the new concepts and best methods of preventive maintenance.

• Poor quality of software is used: If the maintenance technology is improperly designed and difficult to use, it can result in performance problems, members of the team demotivation, and change resistance.

Related Concepts

There are many types of maintenance used in the industry. We see the Preventive maintenance now we see the Predictive maintenance.

Predictive maintenance is simply advanced preventative maintenance aided by artificial intelligence (AI), the Internet of Things (IIoT), and other smart manufacturing tools. Predictive maintenance, in particular, automates and analyzes maintenance requirements by using equipment readings, historical data, and industry data.

Compared to preventive maintenance the predictive maintenance is more difficult, requiring more data and Internet of Things as well as more expensive, with a greater initial setup fee and a larger variable cost over time also it is riskier with a greater chance of first failures.

Context and Applications

Preventive maintenance is periodic, systematic, and scheduled equipment and facilities maintenance that is required to decrease equipment failure, reduce prices, and improve efficiency and service quality.

• For research and management work in the field of electrical engineering.
• Assets or components cleaning
• Equipment lubrication
• Replacement or repair of parts
• Asset overhauls, partial or comprehensive
• Assuring that the production line's equipment is in good operating order
• Heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems, as well as air conditioning elements, are all subject to inspection
• Electrical system inspection and repair
• Examining the doors, the flooring, and the illumination
• Examining the water supply, these are the example of preventive maintenance.

In each of the expert exams for undergraduate and graduate publications, this topic is huge and is mainly used for:

• Bachelor of technology in Electrical Engineering
• Master's of technology in Electrical Engineering

Practice Problems

Q1. ____________ is to maintain the equipment’s and materials on regular basis to reduce unnecessary shutdowns due to unexpected equipment failure.

1. Breakdown Maintenance
2. Predictive Maintenance
3. Preventive Maintenance
4. Corrective Maintenance

Answer: (B)

Explanation: To maintain the equipment and materials on a regular basis in order to maintain those running conditions and reduce unnecessary shutdowns due to unexpected equipment failure is called Preventive Maintenance (PM).

Q2. Types of Preventive Maintenance are ______________

A. Time-based and Usage-based Maintenance

B. Breakdown and Corrective Maintenance

C. Adaptive and Predictive Maintenance

D. None of These 

Answer: (A)

Explanation: Time-based and Usage-based Maintenance are types of Preventive Maintenance.

Q3. When the cost of Preventive Maintenance is increasing then the cost of Breakdown Maintenance is _____________.

A. Increases

B. Decreases

C. No change

D. Increase at the faster range

Answer: (B)

Explanation: Because preventive maintenance prevents the machine or equipment before a fault occurs.

Q4. Why maintenance is required?

A. To replace equipment with a new one

B. To increase servicing cost

C. To increase efficiency

D. To reduce the production rate

Answer: (C)

Explanation: To avoid losses and increase efficiency preventive maintenance is used.

Q5. Advantages of Preventive Maintenance is ____________.

A. Saving Cost

B. Long life of the equipment

C. Safe work environment

D. All of these      

Answer: (D)

Explanation: All are the advantages of Preventive Maintenance.