What is preventive maintenance?
Also called: preventative maintenance, planned maintenance
Last updated
Preventive maintenance is servicing equipment, buildings and systems on a regular schedule, before anything fails, to keep them safe and working and to make them last longer. It covers inspections, cleaning, lubrication, adjustments, part replacements and software updates, planned by time or by use, such as every month or every 500 hours.
In more detail
The alternative is reactive maintenance: fixing things when they break. That costs less in the short term but brings unplanned downtime, emergency call-outs and safety risks. Most organisations use a mix, with preventive maintenance for anything whose failure would be costly or dangerous.
A preventive maintenance programme needs a list of assets, a task list and interval for each, someone responsible, and a record of every visit, including readings and any faults found. Many tasks are also required by law or by insurers, so the record matters as much as the work.
Example
A facilities team services each air handling unit every quarter: replace the filters, check the belts and bearings, record the pressure readings and photograph the unit. Any fault found raises a repair task, and the record is kept for the building’s insurer.
Preventive maintenance in CheckFlow
In CheckFlow a schedule starts each maintenance checklist daily, weekly, monthly or yearly, assigned to the right team with its due date. Readings and photos are recorded in fields, a failed check can show repair steps through conditional logic, and overdue alerts go to the assignees.
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