The cost of PMs vs unexpected failures

The difference is timing

Reactive work starts with a failure, preventive work starts with a date. Reactive maintenance costs more per repair than preventive maintenance, and the extra cost reaches past the repair bill. Start preventive maintenance with your most critical assets, once you know what you have.

What is Reactive Maintenance?

Reactive maintenance (also called run-to-failure or breakdown maintenance) means you fix equipment after it breaks. There’s no scheduled inspection or servicing. You wait for the failure, then respond.

This approach feels cheaper in the short term because you’re not spending money on maintenance until something breaks. But the hidden costs are significant.

What is Preventive Maintenance?

Preventive maintenance (PM) means you service equipment on a regular schedule, before it fails. This includes inspections, lubrication, filter changes, calibration, and component replacement at manufacturer-recommended intervals.

The goal is simple: catch problems early when they’re cheap to fix, instead of waiting for catastrophic failures that are expensive to repair.

What is Predictive Maintenance?

Predictive maintenance services equipment when measurements show it is wearing, such as vibration, temperature, or oil condition. Reactive maintenance waits for the failure, preventive maintenance follows the calendar, and predictive maintenance follows the equipment’s measured condition.

Direct costs

A reactive repair carries these direct costs:

• Emergency labor: unplanned repairs often require overtime or emergency callouts
• Expedited parts: rush shipping for replacement parts costs significantly more
• Collateral damage: a failing bearing can damage the shaft, housing, and seals if not caught early
• Production losses: every hour of unplanned downtime costs production revenue

Indirect costs

Beyond the repair bill, reactive maintenance creates hidden costs:

• Reduced equipment lifespan: equipment that isn’t maintained wears out faster
• Safety risks: failed equipment can injure workers and create liability
• Quality issues: degraded equipment produces lower-quality output
• Team stress: constant firefighting burns out your maintenance team
• Lost knowledge: without documented procedures, repairs depend on individual expertise

How to transition to preventive maintenance

You don’t need to switch overnight. Know what you have first, then start with your most critical assets.

1. Identify critical assets. Which equipment would cause the most downtime if it failed? Which failures would be the most expensive? Start your PM program with these assets first.
2. Establish baselines. Check manufacturer recommendations for service intervals. Review your breakdown history, if you have one, to identify failure patterns. If a motor fails every 6 months, schedule inspection at 4 months.
3. Create schedules. Set up recurring maintenance schedules: daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, or yearly. A CMMS creates each work order before its due date.
4. Define procedures. Create standardized checklists for each maintenance task. This ensures consistent quality regardless of which technician performs the work.
5. Track compliance. Monitor your PM compliance rate, the percentage of scheduled maintenance completed on time, and find the cause of each missed task.

Measuring the impact

After implementing preventive maintenance, track these metrics:

• Unplanned downtime: should decrease
• Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF): should increase as equipment is maintained properly
• Mean Time To Repair (MTTR): should decrease as problems are caught earlier
• Maintenance cost per asset: may increase initially, then decrease as reactive repairs drop
• PM compliance rate: should stay high once the schedules are running

Getting started today

The biggest barrier to preventive maintenance isn’t technology. It’s the decision to start. Pick your 10 most critical assets, set up basic PM schedules, and track compliance for 90 days. The data will make the case for expanding the program.