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It is a sinking feeling you may get when managing a facility when important equipment is out of commission at the worst time. Such unexpected downtime puts your team in an uncertain mode of firefighting that burns your budget almost instantly and interrupts production timelines.
This is referred to as Reactive Maintenance, which is a method where the repair is done when the machinery has failed or completely broken down. Although it is usually perceived as a problem, the knowledge of the correct time to apply this technique and how to cope with it is the answer to a proper and cost-efficient working process.
Reactive maintenance has the philosophy of fixing when it breaks. It is a maintenance plan where a repair is only undertaken when a piece of equipment or process has broken or even not working as per its required specifications.
Consider it to be the beginning of the Maintenance Maturity Curve. Reactive maintenance is on the wait a bit unlike preventive or predictive strategies which attempt to identify issues earlier. It is based on the argument: "When it is not broken, leave it as it is.
This may sound easy, but it has its features:
Not any reactive maintenance is similar. Experts in the industry describe five types of it relative to urgency and purpose.
This is the situation of the panic mode. It occurs after an incident that threatens to harm or bring to a halt a critical process. It is a response to a critical breakdown, such as the burst of a hydraulic hose on a primary lift, which is a last minute action.
This is a little more regulated. In this case, you detect a failure in something that is under operation (such as an overheating engine) and repair it to get it back to its optimum state. This is aimed at catching the defect before the wheels fall off, but you are still responding to an issue and not preventing it.
It is an intentional strategic decision. You do not fix the asset until it fails to work. This is typical of low priority items where failure does not cause any disruption to operations (e.g. allowing a light bulb to burn out before it is replaced).
At times, you feel that something is not okay, but you have no time to repair it. It is also referred to as backlog maintenance, this happens when there is a delay in the repair process because of budgetary constraints, manpower shortage and unavailability of spare parts.
This is by locating the source of a particular fault and correcting it. It is reactive as you are responding after the damage is already done and basically closing the stable door after the horse has been stolen.
Is reactive maintenance the villain of the industry, or does it serve a necessary purpose in specific operational scenarios? The answer depends entirely on how you apply it, as the strategy offers distinct financial benefits for low-priority items while posing significant risks for critical assets.
For critical machinery, relying on this approach is dangerous.
You don't need to eliminate reactive maintenance entirely. In fact, a healthy maintenance mix includes it. You should use it when:
When you are in a loop of repairing, then you have to shift the maintenance maturity curve.
It is necessary to have the tools to move to proactive. Cryotos CMMS is aimed at closing that gap to enable you to stabilize your reactive chaos and construct a preventative future.
Cryotos employs Generative AI to allow technicians to generate precise work orders on the spot either through the use of voice commands or through the recognition of annotated photos of faults.
The system is also capable of automatically creating alerts and scheduling automatically depending on the usage or time, so you can notice possible problems before they turn into breaking down.
Cryotos measures the downtimes in real-time with metrics such as the MTTR and the MTBF and supports the Root Cause Analysis (RCA) to avoid the repetitive failures.
Real-time tracking and low-stock orders are used to guarantee that the technicians never lose track of the location and availability of the key parts.
The system will integrate smoothly with IoT sensors to automatically raise work orders based on real-time performance information and prevent failure before it occurs.
Reactive maintenance can be a legitimate approach to non-critical resources, but it should not be utilized only as it can pose a financial threat to your operation. Cryotos CMMS assists in finding the balance which balances the unforeseen repair, as well as automating the prophylaxis of the most valuable equipment.
Would you like to know how Cryotos can help you know the precise cost of your current downtime?
