Executing a maintenance strategy can transform your business operations and profit margins. However, choosing the correct strategy means determining the long-term needs of your property and its commercial appliances.
Most maintenance plans fall under two categories: preventive maintenance and reactive maintenance.
What is Preventative Maintenance?
Preventative maintenance is a very popular maintenance strategy aimed to mitigate or completely prevent stalls in business operations by addressing potential breakdowns before they happen. Similar to how you may routinely visit your doctor for check ups to prevent being blindsided by a major health concern down the road, preventative maintenance can give you the peace of mind that your property and appliances are running as they should. Preventative maintenance consists of routinely performed inspections and corrections of equipment and the other physical attributes of your business operations.
By engaging with a preventative maintenance management system, your business operations are less likely to face shutdowns caused by machine failure, or extreme property damage. For example, preventative maintenance can consist of repairing an old roof before it starts to leak, deep cleaning grease build-ups in commercial kitchens to extend the longevity of appliances, or replacing old pipes before they burst and cause issues with flooding.
Types of preventative maintenance include predetermined maintenance, predictive maintenance, and corrective maintenance.
Predetermined maintenance is a maintenance plan that follows a preset, uniform schedule.
Predictive maintenance is a maintenance plan that uses operational analysis and conditional analysis to build a maintenance timeline. It is a data driven approach, and the need for maintenance is determined by an individualised metric, which is used to create a timeline for your individual commercial property.
Corrective maintenance does not have a timeline. Rather, it relies on the property or appliances’ advocate to request acute maintenance from a provider when they foresee a breakdown happening sometime in the near future.
A preventative maintenance strategy may be best for companies that have a lot of moving parts, rely heavily on their appliances, or who have a lot of regular strain on the foundations of their property.
Business that may benefit from a preventative maintenance strategy:
Restaurants
HMOs
Hotels
Office Buildings
What is Reactive Maintenance?
Reactive maintenance is an unplanned maintenance strategy. Reactive maintenance corrects system failures or property damage once it has already occurred. An example of reactive maintenance is replacing old pipes after they have burst, or repairing an oven after it has become non-operational.
Reactive maintenance is best for businesses that have low stakes repair issues. For instance, if your office has five printers, in the event that one malfunctions you may feel comfortable with falling back on a reactive maintenance strategy.
Business that may benefit from a preventative maintenance strategy:
Stores & Boutiques
Small Office Units
Single Home Rentals
