What is the Difference Between Reactive and Preventive Maintenance?

When it comes to facility management, most maintenance works are categorized as either “reactive” or “preventive.” It’s very important for every facility manager to know the difference between the two. Why? Because if you rely more on reactive maintenance your team will feel stressed, and too much preventive maintenance will increase downtime and cost. That’s why facility managers always try to maintain a healthy balance between reactive and preventive maintenance.

Reactive Maintenance

Reactive maintenance is the process of reacting to an ineffective, failed, or damaged asset. For example: instead of performing regular HVAC system maintenance, until there is a problem with it. Its biggest advantages are the low initial cost and minimized maintenance staff requirements. Maintenance activities are only initiated when issues are identified, and unnecessary preventive activities won’t be necessary. However, as the risks get higher with more complex and expensive machinery — that may require more time to repair or to find parts and have a greater impact on production and performance — reactive maintenance falls short and the limitations outweigh the benefits.

Preventive Maintenance

In layman’s term, maintenance performed on a regular basis to reduce the likelihood of machine failure is called preventive maintenance. It is sometimes also called planned maintenance; preventive maintenance is conducted throughout an asset’s normal operating lifetime. This helps avoid unexpected breakdowns and their pricey consequences, such as unplanned downtime. Preventive maintenance extends asset life and equipment uptime which helps with enhanced productivity and efficiency. However, too much preventive maintenance leads to poor quality, hurried maintenance, and excessive delays in production.

The basic difference between Reactive and Preventive maintenance

Reactive maintenance means that “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Sometimes it may seem like a less expensive type of maintenance, but let’s not forget that it is also the most disruptive to the efficient operation of the facilities and the people in them. Preventive maintenance, however, can save a lot of money by fixing your machinery before there is a more costly problem.

Simplify Maintenance with CloudApper CMMS

Do you really have to choose between reactive maintenance vs. preventive maintenance? As we can see from the above discussion, one method isn’t always better than the other. However, most organizations can reduce unexpected downtime, decrease maintenance costs, avoid backlogs, and prolong asset life by adopting CloudApper CMMS. This mobile and cloud-based application simplify the maintenance management of business assets and equipment, maintenance schedules, inventory, work order routing, and reporting. The solution helps employees to strike the perfect balance between reactive and preventive maintenance management and provides management with real-time visibility into the status of their assets and maintenance plans.