Preventive Maintenance (PM)

Preventive maintenance is maintenance carried out at predetermined intervals or according to prescribed criteria, such as calendar time, operating hours or cycles, to reduce the likelihood of failure or degradation of equipment.

In time-based or usage-based preventive maintenance, tasks such as inspection, lubrication, adjustment, cleaning and replacement of wear parts are scheduled from the calendar or from meters such as running hours, cycles, distance or throughput. Intervals are usually derived from manufacturer recommendations, regulations, experience and failure data. A computerised maintenance management system generates work orders when tasks fall due and records what was done.

Preventive maintenance is the most common planned maintenance approach in manufacturing, utilities, fleets and buildings. It suits failure modes that are age-related, where the probability of failure clearly increases with use, and tasks that are cheap relative to the consequences of failure. Statutory inspections of items such as pressure equipment and lifting equipment are often time-based by regulation.

Fixed intervals can lead to over-maintenance, replacing parts that still had useful life, and to maintenance-induced failures caused by intrusive work. They also do little for random failures, which are common in complex equipment. For this reason, reliability-centred maintenance analysis often replaces some time-based tasks with condition-based ones. EN 13306 defines maintenance terminology, including preventive and predetermined maintenance.

Key points

Scheduled by calendar time or by usage such as hours or cycles.
Suits age-related failure modes where tasks are cheap relative to failure.
Risks over-maintenance and maintenance-induced failures.
EN 13306 defines preventive and predetermined maintenance.

Where AiVibe comes in

AiAmbA AI Factory use cases include predictive maintenance and visual inspection on textile, automotive and electronics lines. AiAmbA IoT normalises industrial signals from protocols such as OPC UA and MQTT, with driver availability confirmed per installation.

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Related terms

Terms that refer to Preventive Maintenance (PM)

Weibull AnalysisQuality, Reliability & Maintenance