What Is Preventive Maintenance?

 What Is Preventive maintenance? 

Preventive maintenance (PM) is the proactive side of facility management. It encompasses all the steps taken to reduce downtime, avoid unpleasant and expensive surprises, and ensure compliance with regulatory bodies.

A common preventative maintenance definition is “a scheduled set of activities designed to prevent equipment failure.” This involves systematically inspecting, cleaning, replacing, and repairing equipment, systems, and infrastructure on planned schedules. The goal isn’t just to prevent breakdowns; it’s to optimize asset performance, extend its life, and create predictable maintenance budgets while preventing unplanned capital expenditures and costly emergency repairs.

Below, we deal with the most common questions asked about preventive maintenance:

• What is preventative maintenance for, and when can you do regular maintenance instead?
• How can I implement a preventative maintenance program for my business?
• What is preventative maintenance on a day-to-day basis?
• Can software solutions keep preventive maintenance on track at my facility?

 What is Preventative Maintenance For?  

Rather than reacting to a problem after it happens, preventative maintenance aims to ensure the problem never happens in the first place. Although there are ongoing expenses associated with preventative maintenance, it has numerous benefits, all of which save the business money in the long run, while improving safety and predictability for workers. These benefits include:

• Less unplanned downtime, which means orders go out as scheduled, facilities remain open to staff/customers/members of the public, and workers don’t have to worry about equipment-related layoffs.
• Extended asset life and lower long-term maintenance costs.
• Improved safety and compliance.
• Fewer sudden capital expenditures, allowing for better budgeting and financial control.
• Reduced impact on the environment and more sustainable practices.
• No rush delivery fees for parts or high rates for urgent repairs.
• Increased productivity by reducing emergency work stoppages.
• Promoting a culture of catching problems before they become difficult and costly to fix.

What is Preventative Maintenance Not For?

Not all equipment, systems, and infrastructure need to be put on a preventative maintenance schedule. While preventative maintenance offers major benefits for many types of assets, it’s not a one-size-fits-all solution.

Preventive maintenance is not ideal for assets that:

• Have unpredictable or random failure patterns. If there’s no clear way to anticipate when an asset might break down, time-based maintenance may be inefficient or even ineffective.
• Are inexpensive or non-critical. For low-cost items that can be replaced quickly without disrupting operations, using it until it fails might be more economical.
• Have maintenance costs that exceed the cost of replacement. If servicing an asset routinely is more expensive over time than simply replacing it when it fails, preventative maintenance may not be justified.
• Are rarely used. Idle or rarely operated equipment may not need regular upkeep on the same schedule as high-use assets.

Preventive maintenance should be reserved for assets that are:

• Operationally critical.
• Prone to wear and tear with use.
• Costly or time-consuming to repair or replace.
• Required to meet compliance or safety standards.

Put simply, preventative maintenance is a strategic choice and should not be a blanket policy. Choosing where to apply it is key to maximizing its value.

Preventative Maintenance Schedules

Preventive maintenance can be scheduled based on time (ex, monthly, quarterly, or according to the season), usage (ex, hours in use, cycles completed), or they can be compliance-driven.

The type of preventive maintenance schedule depends on the type of equipment or machinery, manufacturers’ recommendations, and how critical that asset is to daily operations. For some equipment and machinery, a time-based schedule is enough, while others may need maintenance after a certain number of operating hours or production cycles. Many facilities managers rely on maintenance management software to automate task timing, track asset usage, and adjust schedules based on real-time data and operational priorities.

What is Preventative Maintenance in Practice?

Preventive maintenance looks different depending on the industry and the specific assets on site. Here are some examples of how preventative maintenance plays out in real-world settings:

• Healthcare: Equipment and machinery failure in health care settings can put patient lives at risk. Routine inspections and calibration of medical equipment help ensure patient safety and regulatory compliance. Tasks might include checking electrical connections, ensuring sterilization equipment is compliant, or servicing HVAC systems in operating rooms.
• Hospitality: Equipment breakdowns in the hospitality sector can lead directly to losses in the form of refunds and cancelled bookings, not to mention poor reviews and ongoing reputational damage. Scheduled preventative maintenance tasks include regular inspections of HVAC systems, elevators, pools, and kitchen equipment to avoid service disruptions and disappointed guests.
• Manufacturing: In this sector, downtime can result in delayed orders, staff layoffs, and production bottlenecks. Preventive maintenance tasks include scheduled lubrication, recalibration, and parts replacement.
• Educational Institutions: Schools and universities comprise diverse facilities, including classrooms, laboratories, dormitories, and athletic facilities. Preventive maintenance helps educational institutions make the most of limited budgets while ensuring campus life, learning, and research go on uninterrupted.

Regardless of the industry, preventive maintenance tasks typically include:

• Filter replacements.
• HVAC system inspections.
• Fire alarm and sprinkler checks.
• Lubrication of moving parts.
• Electrical panel inspections.
• Elevator and escalator servicing.
• Lighting and safety signage checks.
• Cleaning and sanitizing high-touch or critical areas.
• System resets and software updates for connected equipment.

By implementing a consistent preventative maintenance routine, organizations can reduce reactive work orders, extend the life of their assets, and ensure operations run smoothly day to day.

What is Preventative Maintenance’s Biggest Obstacle?

Preventive maintenance is standard for any well-run business, but it doesn’t always happen. What stands in the way of comprehensive preventive maintenance programs?

First, they take time and planning to implement, and not everyone has the skill or experience to do that effectively. Second, there are up-front costs for training and software. Staffing can also be an issue; extra full-time employees with a thorough understanding of the principles of preventive maintenance and the specific assets involved are necessary for a good preventive maintenance program, and training may present additional costs. Without the right tools, software and personnel in place, setting up and maintaining a resilient preventive maintenance system can be a challenge.

How to Set Up a Preventive Maintenance Program

What is preventative maintenance when it first gets off the ground? An effective preventative maintenance program starts with a series of crucial steps. The goal is to create a system that prioritizes your most critical assets, schedules tasks at the right intervals, and coordinates your preventive maintenance teams.

Identify Your Assets

Make a list of the equipment, systems, and infrastructure that are under your facility’s umbrella and that require ongoing maintenance. Focus first on high-value or critical assets: those that are expensive to replace, heavily used, or essential to daily operations.

Review Manufacturers’ Guidelines and Collect Service Records

Use equipment manuals, service histories, and downtime reports to figure out what type of maintenance is needed and how often. This helps you choose the right maintenance triggers, whether time-, usage-, condition-, or compliance-based.

Determine Maintenance Tasks and Frequency

Whether equipment needs attention weekly, monthly, or seasonally, having a centralized scheduling system ensures nothing falls through the cracks. Outline detailed tasks for each asset (ex, inspect belts, clean filters, lubricate joints) and schedule them at reasonable intervals. Don’t throw everything you have at your preventive maintenance program: maintain a balance between cost and projected risk.

Assign Responsibility for Each Task

Decide who is responsible for each task and outline expectations clearly.

Track and Document Everything

Keep detailed records of completed tasks, findings, and parts and supplies used for the task. This helps with budgeting, compliance, and adjusting the program along the way. Also, keep complete records of equipment specifications, maintenance history, failure patterns, and performance metrics. Historical data will help your preventive maintenance teams make smart decisions about maintenance frequency, part replacement schedules, and long-term asset management.

Monitor and Adjust your Preventive Maintenance Program

Monitor performance, track failures, and adjust your schedule as needed. A good PM program evolves over time to stay effective and efficient.

Keep an Eye on the Future

Review new asset acquisitions with an eye to how they will fit into your preventive maintenance program. Look for new technologies that will make maintenance more predictable. Work with a vendor that provides plenty of information and support, including training, implementation guidance, and ongoing technical assistance.

What is Preventive Maintenance Software?

Preventive maintenance software, like a Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS), simplifies the planning, scheduling, and execution of your preventive maintenance program. A CMMS can do all of the following:

• Automate scheduling by creating recurring tasks based on triggers that you specify for each asset.
• Increase team efficiency by assigning tasks to the right person at the right time and keep teams informed with centralized task updates.
• Monitor open, completed, and upcoming tasks from a single dashboard. You can also use calendar or list views to see what’s due and when.
• Add detailed instructions, notes, and scheduling triggers
• Keep your business compliant and audit-ready by maintaining detailed records and generating reports.
• Allow mobile access to let technicians view and complete tasks in the field and record notes, photos, and completions in real time.
• Filter tasks by location, priority, asset type, or department.
• Adjust tasks for holidays, peak times, and technician availability.
• Provide data-driven insights by analyzing trends in performance, repairs, and downtime, allowing facilities managers to make more accurate predictions and decisions based on real figures.
• Integrate with other software tools, including inventory management systems, for smoother workflows and immediate information about spare parts and supplies.
• Interface with sensor technology for better predictive maintenance.

What is Preventive Maintenance’s Future?

Expect preventative maintenance to continue to evolve into the area of predictive maintenance, an emerging strategy that builds on the foundation of preventative maintenance. By using sensors, performance data, and analytics, predictive maintenance aims to forecast when equipment is likely to fail so that maintenance can happen just in time.

While it offers the potential for greater efficiency, predictive maintenance can be more complex and resource-intensive to implement and may not be cost-effective for all types of facilities. For many, a well-executed preventative maintenance program is a solid starting point. The right system can even support a future shift toward predictive strategies by helping you collect consistent, reliable maintenance data over time.

About Maintenance Care

With Maintenance Care’s powerful CMMS platform, setting up and managing your preventative maintenance program has never been easier. From automated scheduling and mobile access to custom task views and real-time reporting, our software helps you stay ahead of facility-related issues to keep operations running smoothly and safely.

As your preventive maintenance program adapts to new standards and technologies, count on Maintenance Care to grow along with you. At the forefront of preventative maintenance software, we offer solutions that are scalable and designed to interface cleanly with predictive maintenance tools.

Whether you’re managing a recreational facility, a government complex, a transportation hub, or you’re a small business owner, Maintenance Care gives you the tools to coordinate your technicians, get the most out of your assets over the long term, and reduce unplanned downtime.

Contact us to request a demo or learn more about how Maintenance Care can work for your facility.