Types of Maintenance

Different assets break down for various reasons and in different ways, but the maintenance activity falls under the above two strategies, either planned or unplanned. Further, to narrow down the classification, we have categorized the maintenance task into the following types based on the nature of the occurrence.

• Breakdown - Breakdown maintenance is performed when an asset completely breaks down and needs repair to resume operation. It is crucial when equipment failure threatens the safety and disrupts business operations.

  Example: Sometimes, assets can fail unexpectedly, which may lead to unscheduled downtime and unplanned breakdown maintenance.

• Compliance - Compliance maintenance ensures whether a facility adheres to all relevant statutory and regulatory requirements, industry standards, and best practices related to its operations or activities. It involves monitoring and updating policies and procedures to comply with changing regulations and standards. There are different types of compliance, such as safety, labor, information security, and others.

  Example: Compliance requirements for fire safety need the facility managers to ensure that the facility follows regulations for fire safety. It involves inspecting the facility regularly to ensure it meets the required standards.

• Corrective - Corrective maintenance is a methodology to detect and fix faults before they become critical, which helps to minimize downtime and extend the lifespan of the equipment. It takes place on equipment functioning to some extent but will not function at optimal capacity without maintenance.

  Example: Technician responds to an emergency HVAC system repair in the middle of winter and notices partially clogged filters. This situation can trigger a corrective maintenance request to clean filters to improve efficiency.

• Predictive - Predictive maintenance is a type of condition-based maintenance to monitor the performance of assets during operations. The recorded information is used to predict the future failure point of the asset being monitored, and thus prevents equipment failure.

  Example: Alarm triggered when the readings of an asset begin to fall out of the safe limit set in the manufacturer guidelines. This alert does not indicate the occurrence of a failure, but intimates that the condition is approaching a range where sudden breakdown can occur.

• Preventive - Preventive maintenance involves inspecting and performing maintenance on an asset at regular intervals, whether required or not. The maintenance intervals are determined from the average life cycle of the asset.

  Example: Lubricating rotating parts of an equipment to prevent premature wear of the associated equipment.

• Rounds - Rounds are routine checks to identify defective equipment, technical issues, and other failures. During a round the facility managers should identify, document, resolve, and escalate any deviations observed.

  Example: The facility manager moves around the floor or facility to inspect and monitor the condition of assets and equipment. Also, he records the details and corresponding action items to be carried out.