Preventive Maintenance PM

As often cited, preventive maintenance can be described as "preventive medicine". Like human's prevention against disease, this is a method where failure is prevented by replacing an old item by a new spare item before some failure occur. Daily maintenance (cleaning, fueling, modest modification, etc.) is necessary to prevent the deterioration of facilities while best efforts not to make mistakes in operation and some training are also required. Furthermore, regular check should be performed to grasp the deterioration status, and the repair/replacement of parts and tools, as well as the preparation for spare items are conducted according to the plan. Generally speaking, the preventive maintenance is usually good moneywise, compared with the breakdown maintenance where the repair is made after an accident occurs. In the preventive maintenance, it is possible to increase economy by minimizing the sum of the maintenance cost and the loss caused by deterioration.

The idea of preventive maintenance (PM) was introduced from America in 1951, and has developed into the productive maintenance (PM).


Related term: Facility Maintenance