Preventive vs Predictive Maintenance. What’s the difference?
These two terms are discussed in conjunction regularly, but what’s the difference between them? Many thought leaders discuss the benefits and downsides of maintenance types on our podcast - The Smart Building Podcast. You can listen to episodes here or where ever you get your podcasts.
In general, both of these forms of maintenance aim to improve reliability and reduce possible failures throughout an office building, manufacturing facility, hospital or other application areas.
Preventive Maintenance
Preventive maintenance refers to steps that are taken to prevent problems from occurring. It is planned at regular intervals, requires downtime to carry out tests, and consists of checklists/inspections/tests/repairs or replacements.
These tests allow facilities managers to fix issues before they become big problems; however, it does require a lot of resources as tests are being carried out 'just in case' some maintenance is required.
Predictive Maintenance
Predictive maintenance refers to connected components and devices that provide data showing their status and whether a potential issue is developing. The McKinsey Global Institute reports that implementing predictive maintenance practices across manufacturing will save $240-$627 billion across the industry (Advancedtech).
Predictive maintenance uses condition-monitoring equipment to access data feedback in real-time, therefore identifying issues before they occur. This systematic analysis of equipment allows potential malfunctions to be detected and corrected to prevent equipment failure. In addition, as this data is collected while equipment is in operational use, it dramatically reduces downtime. It can also provide a more reliable scheduling tool for routine preventive maintenance tasks. There will always be an element of preventive maintenance, such as visual inspections, but coupled with predictive maintenance practices, efficiency and accuracy can be dramatically improved.
One aspect of disaster prevention that particularly benefits from predictive maintenance is emergency lighting. There are standards that must be adhered to in order to remain compliant, and it can therefore be quite a laborious process. Having data feedback and a reliable emergency lighting control system allows certain tests to be automated and it provides constant data feedback as well as accurate reports containing current and historical results.