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The philosophy of not fixing what did not break, which is applicable to the industrial world, was killed a long time ago. It was substituted by the calendar a strict maintenance Plan of avoiding failure before it occurred. However, with new technological development and rivalry, working with the calendar alone is not enough anymore.
We are now experiencing the biggest paradigm shift in reliability engineering. We are leaving behind the hard and wasteful way of the old and are going to the smarter, more data-driven world. It is the tale of the old preventive maintenance (Old Preventive Maintenance, or OPM) leaving and the New Preventive Maintenance (New Preventive Maintenance, or NPM) coming into the place.
But what is it that distinguishes these two periods and what is the bottom line of your establishment that makes the switch necessary?
The traditional, time-based manner of the maintenance of the machinery is old preventive maintenance (OPM). It works on the assumption that wear in equipment is purely linear and can be predicted with regards to time.
In an OPM model, maintenance tasks are triggered by the calendar or a basic usage meter—not by the actual condition of the machine. Whether a conveyor belt has run heavy loads for 500 hours or sat idle for 400 of them, the OPM schedule dictates that service must be performed at the 500-hour mark.
While OPM is better than running a machine to failure, it has a fatal flaw: Blindness. It cannot see the actual stress a machine is under, leading to the "renewal" of parts that are still perfectly healthy.
New Preventative Maintenance (NPM) is a change in the assumption to accuracy. It is a stress-based, condition-driven and data-driven methodology.
NPM rejects the calendar. Rather, it uses technology, e.g. sensors, the Internet of Things (IoT) and predictive analytics, to step in when needed.
Old Preventive Maintenance (OPM) and New Preventive Maintenance (NPM) represent two distinct eras in industrial reliability. Here is how they compare across four critical dimensions:
Transitioning from OPM to NPM isn't just a technical upgrade; it is a financial strategy. By moving away from the "just-in-case" model of OPM, organizations can unlock four critical business benefits:
OPM is expensive. It forces you to replace parts that have significant remaining useful life and waste skilled labor on unnecessary inspections. NPM stops this cash bleed by ensuring you only spend money on assets that actually require attention.
OPM creates a false sense of security; machines can and do fail between scheduled checks. NPM provides real-time visibility. Case studies show that implementing modern, data-driven maintenance programs can reduce downtime rates from 90% to less than 15%.
Warehousing spare parts costs money. Under OPM, you need a full stock for routine swap-outs. With NPM, you can predict when a part will succumb to stress, allowing you to order spares only when needed, freeing up capital tied to inventory.
Manual OPM processes cannot scale. As your facility grows, the "paper shuffle" becomes unmanageable. NPM centralizes knowledge, creating a single source of truth that allows you to manage hundreds of assets across multiple sites remotely.
New Preventive Maintenance cannot be implemented with a clipboard. It involves the transfer to a digital backbone. And this is where Cryotos CMMS comes in.
Cryotos fills the disjunction between the philosophy of NPM and the reality of your shop floor:
The days when people change oil just because the calendar does are long gone. Old Preventive Maintenance (OPM) was dependable at its point of inception, but today is too expensive and inefficient to utilize in the industrial environment.
A smarter way ahead isNew Preventive Maintenance (NPM) a way which is characterized by no breakdowns, cost optimization and data-driven decisions. With the aid of such tools as Cryotos CMMS, you will be able to drop the practice of shuffling the papers and enter a new reality in which maintaining your facilities becomes a competitive advantage, rather than a business expense.
Ready to walk out of the paper shuffle? Discover how Cryotos has the potential to standardize your asset data so that you can automate your work orders and predict failures before they occur.
