Preventive vs reactive maintenance: how to balance both

Reactive maintenance means fixing things after they break. Preventive maintenance means doing planned work so they break less often. Every plant does both. The question is the balance, and whether you can see it.

The two in plain words

• Reactive: the machine stops, you repair it. Unavoidable sometimes, but it is the most disruptive and often the most expensive kind of work.
• Preventive: planned inspections, lubrication, cleaning and replacements on a schedule, so problems are found before they stop production.

Why firefighting crowds out planned work

When breakdowns arrive, the planned tasks are the first to be pushed. A week that looked fine on Monday is overloaded by Wednesday, PM tasks slip into overdue, and the next breakdown becomes more likely. This is the cycle most maintenance teams want to break.

A simple way to start shifting the balance

• List the machines that stop production when they fail and make sure they have the right PM tasks.
• Set realistic frequencies. A task you can actually keep is better than an ambitious one that is always late.
• Plan by the week and compare the work due against the hours your team really has.
• Record every breakdown as a work order. After a few months you will see which machines repeat, and which PM task should be added.
• Track overdue PMs. The number of overdue preventive tasks is an early warning.

Do you need a CMMS for this?

You can start with a spreadsheet. The problems begin when due dates have to be updated by hand, when the plan does not show your team's capacity, or when nobody can quickly say what is overdue. A CMMS does these three things automatically: due dates, the weekly plan against capacity, and an overdue view.

With Riffhelm you do not have to enter the data yourself. Send us your machines and PM lists, we prepare the system, and you review and approve it. The 30-day free trial starts only after approval.