Fix It Before It's Broke

"Unlike routinely scheduled preventive maintenance, predictive maintenance enables shutdowns with minimal process disruption."

Since when was preventative maintenance not done in a non-disruptive manner?

"Unlike routinely scheduled preventive maintenance, predictive maintenance enables shutdowns with minimal process disruption." unless it shuts you down more often than routine maintenance would do.

It all sounds pretty easy, but:

A failure history is required in order to predict a such breakdown/ failure.

In many cases a failure history is available. It is a relatively easy matter statistically then to determine the amount of downtime that occurs from a failure, the amount of lost production and lost profits, then the true corporate costs can be estimated.

They made a movie about that 'fix it before it's broke' concept.

Turns out, there was a problem with that philosophy...

I got so tired of "don't fix it" becoming "ignore it", that I came up with "If it ain't broke, maintain it." I had bumper stickers printed for anyone interested.

The easy example is the family car:

Engine or transmission wear and oil quality are difficult to detect, so we preventively change the oil.

We depend on operator-based maintenance -- listening and feeling -- to detect on-line conditions, like alignment problems.

Some inspections are off-line, like tire pressure and tread condition.

The key is awareness, having the instruments or the human "monitor the changing behavior of machines for possible trouble."