Preventing and inspecting is considered preventive maintenance, while planning, scheduling and execution is corrective maintenance. Together they form a complete view of how we succeed in maintenance management. Preventive maintenance and work management processes can be viewed as a chain that must not be broken.

Planning and scheduling is at the center of good maintenance management. Here we arrive at what is “corrective maintenance” as part of our chain that must not be broken. It is important to understand the difference between planning and scheduling. These two elements of maintenance work management are essential and are too often mixed up.

Teaching operators and maintenance craftspeople basic inspection techniques and then deciding who is going the do the inspections in a route-based system is a very cost-effective way as a first step to reduce reactive maintenance. In several studies we have found that most problems are, in fact, detected through basic inspections.