Preventive And Corrective Maintenance: How Do They Differ?

Whatever our professional sector, we are surrounded by machines and devices on which we depend directly for the performance of our activities. In order to be able to rely on these machines, to ensure that production is not slowed down or even stopped and to reduce waste, it is necessary to organize proper management of maintenance activities.

However, there is not a single type of maintenance of plants, machinery and devices: in fact we are dealing with two main possibilities, namely preventive maintenance and corrective maintenance. What are the differences between these two interventions?

Different types of maintenance for specific needs

Preventive maintenance

As the term itself suggests, preventive maintenance is carried out, as the name suggests, to prevent a breakdown. There are many components of each machine which are composed of wear and which must therefore be monitored, adjusted and / or replaced over time to avoid failures: in this sense, correct management of preventive maintenance allows you to avoid wasting money and time, but not only. Correctly organize this type of intervention - relying on maintenance management software able to plan all activities - it means actually reducing corrective maintenance actions (which we will see in the next point), decreasing any excessive consumption of machinery (in terms of electricity, fuel or lubricants) and improving working conditions .

Having to deal day after day with machines that produce dust, which go beyond the permitted noise threshold or which oscillate, in fact, can only make the activities of the workers more difficult, consequently slowing down production. The same preventive maintenance is then divided into different types of activities .

systematic maintenance : it is the most intuitive, based on the life of an element itself, such as the belt of a car, which must be changed after a total of kilometers spent;

predictive maintenance : it is carried out on the basis of the identification of precise parameters: the changes in the temperature of lubricants of a machine, the vibrations of an axle or of the particulates present in the oil, can in fact be as many signs of wear or faults arriving;

conditional maintenance : it is necessary when the machinery starts to present defects which, in the long run, could lead to real damages. All these activities can be planned in the best possible way with a plant maintenance software, to guarantee optimal management of maintenance activities.

Corrective maintenance

Corrective maintenance is completely different: in this case, in fact, maintenance is necessary following an evident failure. The first step is to diagnose the problem. Once the fault has been identified, the maintenance technician can proceed with the repair, which can be complete (in this case we speak of curative corrective maintenance ) or incomplete and temporary ( palliative corrective maintenance ).

In fact, it should be stressed that sometimes, due to the impossibility of stopping the production cycle, waiting for spare parts or for other reasons, total repair of the machinery becomes impossible: in such situations, therefore, a temporary repair is carried out, aimed at guarantee the operation of the device until it is possible to carry out an intervention aimed at restoring the perfect and complete functionality of the machine.