Maintaining business premises
Predictive maintenance
Predictive maintenance decides when to step in from the actual condition of the equipment, measured with readings such as temperature, vibration or power draw. It does not wait for a breakdown, like corrective work, or for a fixed date, like preventive work: it acts when a reading says a fault is coming.
Also known asPdM · condition-based maintenance · condition monitoring · predictive
How it works: measuring before it breaks
The idea is simple: almost every fault gives warning before it arrives. A motor that is about to seize vibrates differently, an electrical panel with a loose connection heats up, a tired compressor takes longer to bring the temperature down. Predictive maintenance puts a measurement in front of each of those symptoms and compares today's reading with the usual one. When the curve bends, the work is scheduled before the equipment stops.
The techniques range from the very simple to the highly specialised: thermography (a camera that sees heat) on an electrical panel, vibration analysis on a motor, oil analysis on a large machine or, quite simply, the daily temperature log of a cold room read with care. The ISO 17359 standard sets out general guidelines for monitoring the condition of machines.
A gym example: treadmills have an hour counter and a motor that draws more power when it starts to fail. If that draw is noted every month and one treadmill's rises while the rest hold steady, the belt is changed or the motor checked that week, rather than finding out from a member on a Monday at seven in the evening. To judge whether it pays off, MTBF helps: how long each machine lasts on average between one breakdown and the next.
Worth knowing
Predictive does not mean connected sensors or artificial intelligence: a sheet of readings always taken the same way can be enough. Nor does it replace the preventive maintenance the law sets. The fire extinguisher is inspected on its due date even if no reading says anything, and whatever cannot be measured still goes by the calendar or by corrective work.
Sources
Related terms
- Preventive maintenancePreventive maintenance is the work done before something breaks: inspections, servicing and certificates with a due date (lifts, air conditioning, gas or electrical installations) that a residence has to complete so its equipment keeps working and stays compliant.
- Corrective maintenanceCorrective maintenance is the work done once something has already failed: repairing the cold room that will not cool, replacing the blown fluorescent tube, unblocking the changing-room drain. It differs from preventive maintenance, done on a set date, and from predictive maintenance, done when a reading gives warning.
- MTBFMTBF (mean time between failures) is how long a repairable piece of equipment runs, on average, between one breakdown and the next. It is worked out by dividing the operating hours in a period by the number of failures recorded in that same period.