REACTIVE MAINTENANCE VS. PREVENTIVE MAINTENANCE VS. PREDICTIVE MAINTENANCE

In facilities management, maintenance can be said to fall into four main categories. While all of them have their place in an FM strategy, failure to maintain a proper balance by leaning too hard on reactive maintenance can be detrimental to a retail business. In addition to reducing operational capacity, it can result in higher maintenance costs, lower employee retention, higher incidence of equipment downtime, shorter asset life, and customer experience issues.

Today we’ll cover the four types of maintenance and offer some insights into how FM leaders can take a more proactive approach to facilities management.

Reactive Maintenance

A reactive maintenance approach means just that — reacting to issues or breakdowns after they happen. When equipment breaks down, a service technician will diagnose the issue and then take the proper steps to repair the machine. While reactive maintenance is a vital part of an FM strategy, as equipment does break down over time even with strong PM programs, operating fully on a “run it ‘til it breaks” mentality inevitably leads to higher costs down the road as well as higher stress levels.

“One of the main problems with reactive maintenance is that it’s something of a universal rule that unexpected breakdowns occur at the least convenient times,” says George Campbell, who oversees service delivery for City as Director of Technical Services. This can lead to overwhelmed technicians, overtime hours, as well as costly emergency service calls.

A culture of reactive maintenance can also result in:

• Frequent and unexpected equipment breakdowns due to lack of regular preventive maintenance

• Service delays

• Food product loss

• Lower customer satisfaction

• Preventive maintenance

Preventive maintenance is a proactive approach to facilities management, which involves regular inspection, detection, prevention, and correction before issues become serious problems and result in breakdowns. Assets are monitored in real time and predictive technology is used to identify mechanical issues and discrepancies, and steps are taken to make corrections.

A solid preventive maintenance program brings lower costs and higher employee retention. Other benefits include:

• Increasing the lifespan and productivity of assets

• Minimizing equipment depreciation

• Reducing emergency maintenance costs

• Enhancing work-life balance with fewer overtime and weekend hours

• Higher customer satisfaction and loyalty

• Reactive maintenance vs. preventive maintenance

The two main approaches to facilities management are reactive maintenance and preventive maintenance. Reactive maintenance is a necessary part of the job, as unplanned issues and breakdowns will inevitably occur even with solid preventive measures in place. However, by taking a proactive approach with preventive maintenance, the goal is to reduce the number of unexpected service calls as much as possible.

You could say George’s mission is to make preventive maintenance the dominant approach to facilities management. “The preventive world has been overlooked for too long,” he says. “But if you spend the time today to prevent the time you’ll spend tomorrow when equipment breaks down unexpectedly, you’ll actually end up saving more time, and of course, money.” He adds that 30 percent of food in U.S. grocery stores is thrown away, amounting to 16 billion pounds of food waste every year.

“While it might appear that reactive maintenance saves money and time compared to a preventative approach, in the end you’ll end up spending more on service calls, replacing parts, and shorter asset life spans,” George says.

Preventive maintenance vs. predictive maintenance