Maintenance can be broken into categories – Proactive and Reactive. Proactive is further divided into two classes- Preventive and Predictive while Reactive can be split into – Corrective and Emergency.
Reactive maintenance, the easiest approach, the oft-used approach, the out-of-sheer-habit approach. But look closer and you will find that the worst thing that a company can do is spend a lot of time in reactive maintenance.
Reactive approach includes a lot of unplanned downtime in contrast to planned downtime.
Often many reasons incline a company towards reactive way of maintenance. Like:
1. High pressure environment
2. Rigorous production schedules
3. Heavy targets
4. Top Management’s attitude
5. Poor record-keeping making proactive approach infeasible
6. Lack of automation in production-records and scheduling documents
7. Lack of awareness of means and methods of non-disruptive maintenance
8. Ease of application and out of regime
But, this kind of a company is not always a world-class company. Because world-class companies only apportion about 5 per cent of maintenance time to the reactive approach. The major part is done the preventive way. The reasons for doing that are born out of a long-term mindset, focus on sustainability, regard for safety, well-planned direction and a clear vision.
