In many cases, reactive maintenance is more costly - and less efficient - than preventive maintenance. Here's how to eliminate unnecessary reactive work.
Moving from reactive to predictive maintenance means replacing repairs made after a failure with repairs scheduled from equipment condition data. Facility teams make the shift in stages: planned preventive maintenance first, then predictive maintenance, supported by Internet of Things (IoT) remote monitoring that supplies the equipment data predictions depend on.
In an analysis of Accruent customer data, we found that reactive maintenance was 10 times as expensive as planned preventive maintenance.
This is based on the typical costs around reactive maintenance. When a piece of equipment fails, emergency costs, downtime, additional parts and labor and lost revenue can stack up quickly. Planned preventive maintenance schedules are useful here. These plans can help facility managers get ahead of downtime by implementing check-ins on pieces of equipment for repairs. A fixed schedule can be helpful, but potentially wasteful, due to a one-size-fits-all approach to maintenance.
Key takeaways
- Reactive maintenance often costs more than planned work, because every failure adds emergency repair costs, parts, labor and downtime.
- Planned preventive maintenance cuts reactive work but follows a fixed calendar, so it can service equipment too early or too late.
- Predictive maintenance times each repair to equipment condition, such as how hard a heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) unit is working.
- IoT remote monitoring supplies the condition data, so technicians reach a unit before it fails.
Predictive maintenance vs. reactive maintenance: how the strategies differ
Reactive, preventive and predictive maintenance differ in what triggers the work:
- Reactive maintenance repairs equipment after it fails. Every repair is unplanned, and each one brings emergency costs and downtime.
- Planned preventive maintenance services equipment on a fixed schedule, such as a filter change every quarter.
- Predictive maintenance services equipment when condition data shows a problem developing, so technicians visit only the units that need attention.
Reactive vs. predictive maintenance comes down to timing. A reactive team learns about a problem when equipment stops, and a predictive team learns about it while the equipment is still running. Our guide to preventive vs. predictive maintenance compares the two proactive approaches in more detail.
From reactive to planned preventive maintenance
Consider scheduled HVAC filter changes, an example of a planned preventive maintenance schedule. If your business concludes that four filter changes a year is average, then you can design contracts to ensure a technician is on-site replacing an HVAC filter four times a year, or once a quarter. This will naturally cut down on reactive work orders due to regular HVAC filter replacements and reduce the prevalence of overworked HVAC units. Check out this infographic on the differences between reactive and preventive maintenance.
Watch our webinar "Gain a Competitive Edge by Moving from Reactive to Predictive Maintenance with IoT" to see the shift in practice.
From planned preventive maintenance to predictive and prescriptive maintenance
Predictive maintenance schedules repairs from the measured condition of equipment, so a unit gets service when its data shows a problem developing. Prescriptive maintenance goes a step further and recommends the repair to make.
What these planned preventive maintenance schedules do not account for are regional climate differences, weather events, store location or if filters themselves are in need of replacement.
If you have a store in Arizona in the middle of the summer, where there is often an abundance of dust and debris, you may need to change HVAC filters more often than once per quarter. Alternatively, if you have a store in a temperate location like Kansas, you may only need to change your HVAC filter twice per year. This is where remote monitoring can cut the waste out of planned preventive maintenance plans. By remotely monitoring your HVAC units, you can see when a unit is overworking or operating at baseline. That way you will know when to replace filters at both stores, as your HVAC systems can relay their statuses via the remote monitoring platform.
IoT remote monitoring for HVAC predictive maintenance
IoT remote monitoring is about 10% of the cost of a planned preventive maintenance schedule and it can save you numerous costly work orders and naturally eliminate waste from your planned preventive maintenance plans. By remote monitoring key pieces of equipment, organizations can see when equipment is struggling to operate and send a technician out in advance to fix the problem before the unit fails and disrupts the site.
For HVAC predictive maintenance, an IoT monitoring platform tracks energy use and equipment health for each unit and flags early signs of abnormal behavior. The team can then schedule a repair while the unit is still running.
How do you move from reactive to predictive maintenance?
Facility teams can migrate from reactive to predictive maintenance in four steps:
- Rank equipment by the cost of a failure. Start with the units that disrupt a site most when they stop, such as the rooftop HVAC units at high-traffic stores.
- Pilot monitoring on a small group of units. A pilot shows the savings before the team installs sensors at every site.
- Set a baseline and alert thresholds. Record normal readings for each unit, then flag any reading outside that range.
- Connect alerts to work orders. IoT remote monitoring software can create work orders automatically from rules the team sets, so each alert leads to a scheduled repair.
Schedule a demo to see how Accruent Maintenance Connection helps your team plan preventive maintenance and manage work orders.
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