4 Maintenance Strategies for Asset Management | Fiix

Maintenance
strategies: 4
approaches to asset
management
Last Updated: February 1, 2019
Greg Arbour
5 min read

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Maintenance strategies: Which one should you

choose?
If youuses
This website spend any time
cookies reading
to ensure you about
get theindustry trends, you’ll
best experience. know
Learn more that predictive
maintenance is getting more popular every day. The rise of the industrial internet
of things (IIoT) is making it possibleOk,
forgot it!
organizations to use intelligent
maintenance software to collect data and integrate with connected devices to get

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4 Maintenance Strategies for Asset Management | Fiix

smarter about manufacturing.

While this particular type of maintenance has been gaining popularity, it’s far
from the only solution available to equipment-heavy organizations. There are a
host of other maintenance types that work well for all kinds of organizations, from
small shops drowning in paper work orders to data-driven enterprise operations for
whom predictive maintenance is a reality. Let’s compare these types of
maintenance to see which ones work best for different scenarios.

Table of contents

1 Types of maintenance

a Run-to-failure (breakdown maintenance)

b Preventive (scheduled) maintenance

c Predictive maintenance (PdM)

d Reliability-centered maintenance (RCM)

2 Comparing maintenance management strategies

We spend a lot of time extolling the virtues of preventive maintenance, but it’s far
from the only maintenance strategy out there. There are many different
approaches that you can mix and match, depending on your assets, your industry,
and the size and experience of your maintenance team. Today we’re going to
compare the four most common types of maintenance strategies, their pros and
cons, and when they are most effective.

This article covers the most common strategies, but it’s hardly an exhaustive list.
For more ideas, head over to our maintenance strategies and planning
resources page.

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4 Maintenance Strategies for Asset Management | Fiix

Types of maintenance

1. Reactive maintenance (breakdown maintenance)

Also known as breakdown or run-to-failure, reactive maintenance is pretty simple:
fix things when they break. Since repairs are not planned, it’s a good method to
employ for equipment that is not essential for operations or has a low cost (think
anything that’s rarely used or duplicates the function of other equipment).

For example, think of a $1000 belt feeder, whose lifetime value can be extended
by 10% by servicing it every 3 months. How hard are you willing to work to save
$100? For a non-critical piece of machinery, the answer should be “not hard”.”

While it requires minimal planning, the drawbacks of reactive maintenance can be

substantial if it’s not carried out correctly. If the approach is used for all
equipment, there can be huge delays in production when a critical piece of
equipment fails. Further, if you don’t have the right parts and supplies on hand, the
costs for rushed shipping can become significant. In short, reactive maintenance
often means more downtime and higher maintenance costs when it’s not used
strategically.

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4 Maintenance Strategies for Asset Management | Fiix

Learn how to build a

balanced maintenance
strategy

Read more

2. Preventive maintenance (scheduled)

Also known as proactive maintenance, this method involves periodically taking
assets offline and inspecting or repairing them at predetermined intervals (usually
time or event-based triggers). The goal of this approach is to extend the useful life
of an asset and prevent breakdowns from occurring.

Many organizations employing preventive maintenance use CMMS software to

trigger work orders when a PM is due. This allows a facility to automate much of
its scheduling efforts, which is a key ingredient of this preventive approach.
Because planning is done in advance, it’s much easier to have the right parts and
resources on hand to complete each task.

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4 Maintenance Strategies for Asset Management | Fiix

As with all maintenance types, there are potential drawbacks to relying solely on
preventive maintenance. If the PM schedule isn’t regularly monitored, audited,
and improved, “PM creep” can occur. This is when technicians get bogged down
by unnecessary tasks and cost the organization time and money.

Similarly, performing too many PMs can open the door for post-PM breakdowns.
There are a number of ways to prevent this, but the risk gets higher as PMs get
more frequent. The bottom line is, if a preventive maintenance program is used, it
should go hand in hand with PM optimization.

3. Predictive maintenance (PdM)

Predictive maintenance (PdM) aims to predict failures before they happen so
maintenance can occur at just the right time. PdM uses data from machine sensors
and smart technology to alert the maintenance team when a piece of equipment is
at risk of failing. For example, a sensor may use vibration analysis to alert the

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4 Maintenance Strategies for Asset Management | Fiix

maintenance team that a piece of equipment is at risk of failing, at which point it

will be taken offline, inspected, and repaired accordingly.

It is possible to carry out PdM via visual inspections of equipment, but the easiest
way to establish a predictive maintenance strategy is by using a CMMS to track
meter readings. The advantage of PdM (over PM) is the potential for cost savings
from reduced man-hours spent on maintenance, and more insight as to the
performance and potential issues arising with the machine. Additionally, a reliance
on data and sensor information means maintenance is determined by the actual
condition of equipment, rather than a best-guess schedule or gut feel.

Of course, relying so heavily on data means that there is a higher up-front cost to
ensuring this maintenance approach can thrive. Another thing to keep in mind with
predictive maintenance is that you have to walk before you can run. For an
organization coming from a pen-and-paper or Excel-based maintenance program,
you have to first build on the processes and insights that preventive maintenance
provides in order to build an effective predictive maintenance plan.

4. Reliability-centred maintenance (RCM)

Reliability-centered maintenance (RCM) addresses the fact that failure is not
always linear. RCM is a highly-involved process that seeks to analyze all the
possible failure modes for each piece of equipment and customize a maintenance
plan for each individual machine. The ultimate goal of RCM is to increase
equipment availability or reliability.

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4 Maintenance Strategies for Asset Management | Fiix

RCM is considered complex because each individual asset must be analyzed and
prioritized based on criticality. The most critical assets are those that are likely to
fail often or will result in large consequences in the event of failure. Because each
piece of equipment is analyzed on its own, it’s possible that the end result of
embarking on an RCM effort is having as many different maintenance plans as
you do pieces of equipment.

RCM is very sophisticated, to the extent where it is not a realistic or necessary

technique for every organization. It’s requires a very mature maintenance team
that has mastered prevention, basic inspections, predictive maintenance, and has
access to lots of existing data on their assets.

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4 Maintenance Strategies for Asset Management | Fiix

What is the backbone of

RCM?

Read more

Maintenance management strategies comparison chart

Need a quick comparison of these four strategies? Check out the chart below for a
quick rundown of each approach.

Maintenance strategy comparison chart

Strategy Summary Cost to Pros Cons

Implement

Reactive Fix it when it Low Ideal for low- Can lead to

breaks priority runaway repair
equipment costs

Preventive Maintenance on Average Best strategy to Without

a predetermined implement optimization,
schedule without expertise “PM creep” can
occur

Predictive Condition-based High Timely and Can be

monitoring informed expensive to set
triggering work monitoring. up
orders More insight
into causes of
breakdowns

RCM Investigation of Highest If executed Requires time,

failure modes to properly, skill and
determine best provides the financial

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4 Maintenance Strategies for Asset Management | Fiix

maintenance most efficient resources to be

strategy maintenance effective
schedule

The bottom line: There is no “one size fits all”

approach to maintenance
As you can see, each type of maintenance has its own unique benefits and
shortcomings, depending on which asset we’re talking about, what stage of the
reliability journey your organization is at, and the impact of downtime at your
facility. Our recommendation is to start at the place that makes sense for your set
of circumstances and keep growing from there. Eventually, you’ll get to a place
where you can use a balanced maintenance program that takes all methods into
account.

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