Getting the balance right between reactive and planned preventative maintenance

When investing money into equipment, it’s important that it works well and stays running safely for as long as possible. If you’re looking to extend the lifespan of your equipment and facilities, you may need to rethink your approach to maintenance. In this blog, we’ll guide you through the two main types of maintenance – reactive and planned preventative – and highlight their key differences.

What is planned preventative maintenance?

Planned preventative maintenance works on the same premise as servicing a car. It involves regularly scheduled check-ups with a facilities provider who ensures your equipment is in good working order, helping to prevent issues before they arise.

What is reactive maintenance?

When your facilities unexpectedly break down, you’ll likely need to call out an engineer for an emergency repair. It’s all about fixing unexpected problems urgently when something goes wrong with your equipment or buildings.

Financial differences

The costs between the two approaches can vary significantly. In the long run, planned preventative maintenance helps reduce costs by potentially avoiding expensive emergency fixes. While planned preventative maintenance may seem like a large upfront investment, reactive repairs can end up costing up to three times as much, particularly due to emergency call-out fees. With reactive maintenance, delays can also occur if specific parts are hard to source.

On the other hand, with planned preventative maintenance, you can set up a scheduled plan that suits your needs, spreading out costs over time, rather than facing large expenses all at once.

Impact on operations

We’ve all experienced how frustrating it can be when something breaks down unexpectedly. Whether it’s a boiler malfunction, leaky pipes, or electrical issues, these disruptions can increase downtime and impact workflow.

Planned preventative maintenance helps to prevent these issues from cropping up too often, reducing the likelihood of disruptions and ensuring health and safety risks are addressed in advance.

Our recommendations

We recommend that 80% of your maintenance should be planned preventative, with the remaining 20% being reactive as needed. Investing in planned preventative maintenance helps keep costs down over time and reduces the inconvenience of unexpected breakdowns. Of course, not every repair can be prevented, and there will be times when reactive maintenance is necessary. However, with a planned approach, you can minimise these risks as much as possible and keep your operations running smoothly in the long run.

If you’re in need of maintenance, get in touch with our team of experts today.