What is the difference between maintenance and repair?
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What is the difference between maintenance and repair?
Long term maintenance and repair costs
Maintenance and repair are two very important terms in the asset management space.
Whether we’re talking about the maintenance and repair of commercial aircraft, fleets on the road, large manufacturing equipment or that small suburban property we rent, it’s how each physical asset works optimally and can achieve his goal.
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What is the difference between maintenance and repairs?
In essence, maintenance has the same ultimate goal: to get the most useful life out of the tools, equipment and infrastructure in use.
However, the path they take to achieve this goal is very different.
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Definition of repair:
Repair is an action we take to restore an asset to working condition.
The level of repair we need to do depends on the level of damage that caused the asset to malfunction.
We can divide equipment failure into two different types:
✔ Minor breakdown
The asset can generally continue to be used, but does not provide full functionality (like a car with a flat tire) and may be unsafe. Oftentimes, the maintenance team can take quick corrective action to restore the equipment to full operation before the problem becomes a complete failure.
✔ Complete failure
It is not possible to use the asset until it is fixed. The amount of money spent on the repair depends on the main reason for the failure. If we go back to the car example, there is a big difference between changing a tire and changing a car engine. Both cause total failure, but the time and cost to repair is very different.
Equipment failure can be very expensive. Some of them are the result of human errors, unauthorized accidents, and natural wear and tear that occurs over long years of use. It is impossible to control these factors. As mentioned, most breakdowns and subsequent major repairs are preventable, thus leading us to preventive maintenance.
Maintenance is often used like an umbrella for all equipment.
The easiest way to distinguish between maintenance and repairs is that “repair” is the set of actions that occur after an asset has failed or failed, while “maintenance” is the action taken to keep the asset healthy and Unexpected failures are prevented.
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Long term maintenance and repair costs
The consensus in the maintenance industry is that it is better to focus on preventive maintenance strategies because every Rial invested in preventing breakdowns leads to savings of more than 3 Rial in repair costs. To reduce operating costs, maintenance and facility managers run CMMS systems faster.
Regardless of how much time and money we spend on maintenance, sooner or later it may not be economically viable to maintain assets. When an asset is at the end of its life cycle, it should be noted that buying a new asset makes more sense than trying to keep the old asset alive. When working with older assets, maintenance professionals should conduct a repair versus replacement analysis in order to reduce maintenance costs.
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It’s never too late to start maintenance
Maintenance and repairs are an integral part of the life cycle of most physical assets. Those looking to maximize the useful life of their equipment and infrastructure should focus on maintenance and repairs. It is true that repairs cannot be completely eliminated, but the number of repairs can be reduced.
Those interested in using cloud-based maintenance and repair operating systems to organize, automate and simplify their maintenance and repair work, contact us for any questions.
