Breakdown maintenance is maintenance performed on equipment that has

broken down and is unusable. It is based on a breakdown maintenance trigger.

It may be either planned or unplanned.

Examples of breakdown
maintenance
An example of planned breakdown maintenance is run-to-failure maintenance,
where an organization has decided that letting a piece of equipment break
down before servicing is the most cost-effective and least disruptive option.
Examples of unplanned breakdown maintenance include corrective
maintenance and reactive maintenance. Corrective maintenance is performed
when a breakdown occurs between scheduled preventive maintenance
occurrences. Reactive maintenance is performed if a breakdown occurs
because a maintenance strategy has not yet been put in place.
Advantages of breakdown
maintenance
Using breakdown maintenance when it makes sense can help organizations
focus on optimizing PM programs for critical equipment.

Disadvantages of
breakdown maintenance
Unplanned breakdown maintenance can be more costly than preventive
maintenance, because it typically causes downtime and interrupts production. It
can also be difficult to find the root cause of a breakdown when no
maintenance strategy is in place. Finally, breakdown maintenance can raise
health and safety issues if technicians are rushing to fix a problem and taking
risks to do so.

The bottom line:

Breakdown maintenance
can be a good thing—
when it’s planned
Though the term “breakdown maintenance” sounds catastrophic, if it’s part of
a planned maintenance strategy, it can often make a lot of sense for certain
pieces of machinery. When breakdown maintenance is unplanned, though, it
can lead to costly downtime, health and safety risks, and halted production.
https://www.fiixsoftware.com/breakdown-maintenance/
What is planned
maintenance?
Planned maintenance refers to any maintenance activity that is planned,
documented, and scheduled. The aim of planned maintenance is to reduce
downtime by having all necessary resources on hand, such as labour and
parts, and a strategy to use these resources.
There are two main types of planned maintenance. The first is
planned preventive maintenance, which is scheduled maintenance aimed at
repairing assets before they fail. An example would be conducting
maintenance on a forklift after every 150 hours of operation.
The second is planned and unscheduled maintenance, which is based on having
a strategy in place to repair or replace an asset as quickly as possible when it
fails. An example would be planning to have a sufficient number of easily
accessible power drills on hand so replacing a broken one is quick and easy
for a technician.

Scheduled maintenance
Scheduled maintenance activities are tasks that are set up to occur ahead of
time. They are done so assets can remain functional for as long as possible
without any unplanned downtime. Scheduled maintenance is determined
by maintenance triggers, including time, usage, event, and condition.

Advantages of scheduled
maintenance
Know what to expect

Planning maintenance in advance allows you to properly allocate resources to

the job, so that you have the time, personnel, and tools you need, when you
need them.

Manage your calendar

Some scheduled maintenance can be planned years in advance, like

changing the tires on an industrial transport vehicle every winter. Other tasks
require shorter lead times, such as swapping out air compressors after 100
hours of use. Planning maintenance in advance lets you look ahead in your
calendar and see what’s coming up, so you are rarely caught reacting to
breakdowns and spreading your resources too thin.

Get work done faster

Planned maintenance allows the maintenance team to focus on efficiency.

Technicians can gather all the parts they need, review all best practices and
procedures, and shut down the asset safely before starting work. Because all
this work has been done beforehand, the actual maintenance can be finished
quicker, easier, safer, and more effectively than if an asset goes down
unexpectedly.

Planned unscheduled
maintenance
Also known as run-to-failure maintenance, planned but unscheduled
maintenance occurs in situations where the maintenance plan for an asset is
to wait for it to break.
This approach is typically reserved for assets that have little or no impact on
production. Tools, such as power drills and measuring instruments, are a
good example. It’s wasteful to preemptively replace these tools, as they
inexpensive and are not critical to production. Instead, organizations keep
extra tools on hand so they are available when one fails.

This is still considered planned maintenance (rather than reactive) because

the assets are tracked and a strategy to repair them is in place when they
wear out, instead of being caught off guard by failure.

How to implement planned

maintenance
There is no one-size-fits-all approach to implementing planned maintenance.
Every facility is different and requires a slightly different approach. However,
there are few basic steps maintenance teams can take to build a foundation
for planned maintenance success.

Using planned maintenance software

Technology is an important ingredient for implementing planned maintenance.

Leveraging planned maintenance software, such as a CMMS, allows you to
organize all the resources necessary to plan maintenance, like labour and
parts. Planned maintenance software makes it easy to handle schedules,
inventory, work orders and reports. This ensure triggers are set up properly,
technicians can respond to work quickly, and the right parts are always in
stock so maintenance can be completed with little disruption.

Organizing your assets

The first step is to take a survey of your assets and figure out which ones fit
into each category of planned maintenance. Remember, there is planned
preventive maintenance and planned unscheduled maintenance. Conducting
a criticality analysis can help you determine which assets require the most
attention and which ones lend themselves to a preventive approach.

Training and executing the strategy

Planned maintenance requires the entire team to participate and be aware of

their responsibilities. It’s crucial to ensure everyone is trained on new
technology, processes and procedures. When everyone knows exactly how
they fit into a planned maintenance strategy and the resources available to
them, it makes implementation much smoother and more effective. If planned
maintenance is completely new for your team, consider testing the strategy to
help them adjust to a new way of doing things.

Building planned maintenance checklists

Keep an eye on how your planned maintenance strategy is working after it

has launched. Planned maintenance checklists help track maintenance KPIs,
which can give you a good idea of the program is impacting efficiency at your
operation. Identify where the plan is working and where it can be improved.
Take advantage of data capture and reporting tools to make insights
actionable. When fine-tuning the planned maintenance strategy, consult all
stakeholders. Technicians, operators and others can provide unique feedback
on tweaking the strategy for optimal results.

The bottom line: the

impact of planned
maintenance
Planned maintenance is a useful tool for making your maintenance operation
more efficient. It guarantees you have the right strategy and resources in
place to tackle any kind of maintenance quickly and easily, whether it’s
scheduled or not. Implementing planned maintenance will be different for
every facility, but some tried and true ways to be successful include
organizing your assets, using planned maintenance software, training and
executing properly and building planned maintenance checklists. With these
tools and methods, your team will spend less time putting out fires and more
time looking for opportunities to improve.
https://www.fiixsoftware.com/planned-maintenance/

What is unplanned
maintenance?
Unplanned maintenance is any maintenance task that occurs unexpectedly. It
happens when there is no formal strategy in place to address a repair,
replacement, or inspection before it’s needed. Unplanned maintenance is
commonly the result of equipment failure that was not anticipated.

Unplanned maintenance
vs. unscheduled
maintenance
Although they sound similar and are often used interchangeably, unplanned
maintenance and unscheduled maintenance have a few key differences.
Unplanned maintenance is maintenance that is totally unexpected. There's no
plan in place to complete it. Unscheduled maintenance is maintenance that is
planned, but is not scheduled for specific time and has not been assigned to a
technician.

Maintenance can be planned and unscheduled, but not the other way around.
Here's an example of that: You know that a conveyor system needs
maintenance every 50 hours of operation. You know how long maintenance
will take, what tasks need to be completed as part of that maintenance, how
much it will cost, and what parts you will need for the job. In other words, you
have a plan for it. However, you don't know when the system will hit 50 hours
of use. It might be in one week or in three. In other words, it's unscheduled.

Types of unplanned
maintenance
There are three main types of unplanned maintenance:

1. Reactive maintenance
Reactive maintenance is any maintenance done to fix equipment after it breaks
down unexpectedly. Repairs are done as a reaction to the failure and haven’t
been planned for. Reactive maintenance can also be called breakdown
maintenance.

2. Corrective maintenance
Corrective maintenance gets equipment working again after it stops operating
properly. Corrective maintenance ranges from fixing a minor defect that’s
causing an asset to run slowly, to repairs on a machine that has completely
broken down. This type of maintenance corrects unforeseen problems that
haven’t been planned for.
 3. Opportunistic maintenance
Opportunistic maintenance takes advantage of an unexpected stoppage in
production to perform preventive maintenance on equipment or assets. Because
the stoppage was not scheduled, the corresponding maintenance is unplanned.

Examples of unplanned
maintenance
Reactive maintenance

Let’s say that an asset relies on a motor to operate properly. Because the
motor has been so reliable, there’s no plan in place for when it fails. But one
day, the unexpected happens and the motor breaks, causing production to
stop. A technician must set aside everything in their schedule to fix the motor.
There’s no time allotted to the job and no formal guidelines. Because
maintenance is done in reaction to a problem, this is an example of reactive
maintenance.

Corrective maintenance

Think about an asset at your facility that undergoes regular preventive

maintenance. There’s a plan to identify and fix small problems with this asset
before they lead to failure. However, between PMs, an operator notices the
asset isn’t functioning as it should be, which is affecting production. A
technician now needs to repair the asset before the scheduled PM to correct
the problem. Since the technician is doing unplanned work to correct a
problem, this is an example of corrective maintenance.
Opportunistic maintenance

Imagine you’re performing preventive maintenance on an asset and notice

that another part of the machine is deteriorating. You take the time to do some
maintenance on that other part so it doesn’t cause failure in the future.
Because this maintenance wasn’t planned along with the original work order
and was identified during another task, this is an example of opportunistic
maintenance.

When to use unplanned

maintenance?
Here are some situations when unplanned maintenance can be an effective
part of a balanced maintenance strategy:
 When equipment is not designed to be repairable or is located where
repairs are not possible
 When equipment is not production-critical and is quick, safe, and
inexpensive to repair or replace
 When equipment is designed to be replaced at the end of its lifespan
 When failed equipment can be easily bypassed, or redundant systems are
in place
It’s important to think about the impact of failure on specific assets when
including unplanned maintenance in a broader maintenance strategy. A
broken piece of equipment in one facility might not affect production or
workers at all, but the same part might be crucial to staying productive and
compliant at another facility. Unplanned maintenance should never be
considered when the safety of people is at stake.
Summary
Unplanned maintenance can be a useful part of a broader maintenance
strategy, but only if an organization has carefully assessed the equipment and
assets involved, and understands the impact that an unplanned failure will
have on production. However, steering clear from unplanned maintenance
and toward a preventive approach is key to eliminating some of the biggest
inefficiencies at your operation.
https://www.fiixsoftware.com/unplanned-maintenance/

What is a CMMS?
A CMMS is software that helps organizations plan, track, measure, and optimize
everything to do with maintenance on a digital platform.

A computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) helps facilities organize

and manage preventive maintenance tasks, inventory, safety, and more. It’s a big part
of developing better maintenance practices, proving the value of maintenance, and the
fuel used by production facilities to drive better results.

What is a CMMS?
A CMMS is software that helps organizations plan, track, measure, and optimize
everything to do with maintenance on a digital platform.

A computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) helps facilities organize

and manage preventive maintenance tasks, inventory, safety, and more. It’s a big part
of developing better maintenance practices, proving the value of maintenance, and the
fuel used by production facilities to drive better results.
https://www.fiixsoftware.com/cmms/

What does MRO Stand for?

The MRO acronym is used to refer to the maintenance, repair, and operations used by
a company to create an end product.

What is MRO?
MRO may include spare parts, equipment such as pumps and valves, consumables
such as cleaning supplies, plant upkeep supplies such as lubricants, and activities
completed to restore or maintain the functioning of needed equipment. Anything used in
the manufacturing of, but not employed in, a final product may be considered MRO.

https://www.thomasnet.com/articles/procurement/what-is-mro/