The Difference Between Predictive

Maintenance and Preventive Maintenance

Imagine you purchased a new economy car three months ago. To get around, you alternate
between riding a bike, walking, and driving your new car. So in the three months since
you’ve owned the car, you’ve driven about 1,000 miles on it. However, the car’s manual says
to get the oil replaced every three months or 3,000 miles. Since it’s been three months, you
dutifully take your car to the shop for a costly oil change that is supposed to keep your car
running in great condition. This is an example of preventive maintenance.

Now imagine, you own a luxury car. Maybe it’s a BMW that is equipped with condition-
based service indicators for your engine oil and air filters among other parts. You drive the
car six months, put around 5,000 miles on it, and then an alert comes on that says you have
500 miles left before you must change the oil. This is an example of predictive maintenance.
It prevents breakdowns and gives you service reminders that are a reflection of how much
you actually drive your car with enough advance warning to repair the issue before the
machine fails.

In manufacturing, machine, and energy companies, preventive maintenance is already

popular and can be used in conjunction with mobile workforce management software, but
predictive maintenance has its own set of values that it delivers to companies too. Here’s how
to tell the difference between the two types of maintenance:

How Maintenance is Triggered

Preventive maintenance is triggered by time, events, or meter readings. The age of a piece of
equipment in addition to manufacturer service recommendations is also taken into
consideration for preventative maintenance. Another way to say preventive maintenance is
planned scheduled maintenance. However, like in our car example, this time-based
maintenance approach may not accurately reflect the usage of a piece of equipment, and
could lead to unnecessary maintenance fixes regardless of the actual state of the equipment or
parts.

On the other hand, predictive maintenance is based on the actual condition of the equipment
rather than time or age factors. It is used to predict machine failures before they occur, and
also gives company enough time to schedule a future service appointment in advance. This
allows field service technicians the opportunity to service the machine and prevent the failure
before it actually occurs.

Differing Maintenance Techniques

With preventive maintenance, since fixing machinery is based on time and the breakdown
rates of similar parts, the field service tech will replace or repair parts based on their expected
failure dates. This date is not based on performance data of the specific machine.

For predictive maintenance, various advanced techniques including infrared thermal imaging,
vibration analysis, and oil analysis can be used to predict failures. For example, if your
business uses mechanical equipment and electrical systems, thermal infrared imaging can
scan, visualize, and analyze the equipment’s temperature. You can literally see which parts
on the equipment are “running hot,” which is invaluable information to both manufacturers
and field service technicians.
Costs and Savings
As far as maintenance costs are concerned, preventive maintenance costs $13 hourly pay per
annum while predictive maintenance costs $9 hourly pay per annum, making predictive
maintenance a cheaper option. Also, given that preventive maintenance sometimes means
parts are replaced when there is no need, if the technician happens to cause damage while
servicing the machine during an unneeded service call, unnecessary maintenance can be even
more costly.

But predictive maintenance has several cost savings that range from minimizing the time
equipment is not working to cutting down on the price of spare parts and supplies.

While the investment into a predictive maintenance program can be costly to install, it results
in reduced maintenance costs and downtime and delivers 10 times the ROI for the oil and gas
industry alone, according to research strategy consulting firm Roland Berger. For example,
predictive maintenance is often used for wind turbines since wind farms often traditionally
have high operational costs. And field service software can be used along with predictive
maintenance tools to make sure your machinery keeps running efficiently.

Predictive Maintenance and the Internet of Things

With the increased networking of machines and manufacturing facilities in the Internet of
Things, predictive maintenance is becoming more and more important. Sensors facilitate the
easy monitoring of machine conditions, cloud storage systems and data bases enable the long-
time archiving and analysis of machine data for diagnostic and maintenance purposes.
By means of real-time monitoring, a comprehensive data pool, and state-of-the-art analytical
methods, machine-specific malfunctions can be predicted by 70 %. This enables field service
technicians to intervene in time to effectively prevent failures as well as unnecessary
maintenance measures, downtimes, and costs.
However, the benefits of the Internet of Things and predictive maintenance are not confined
to new facilities. Older machines with life cycles of 50 or 60 years can also easily be
integrated into predictive maintenance schemes by means of targeted retrofit measures.

Predictive maintenance is an excellent way to reach a higher level in field service

However, offering predictive maintenance alone is not enough, as customers expect service in
real-time. The main challenge in offering predictive maintenance in real-time is in having a
workforce large and flexible enough to meet this demand.

The Evolution Of Field Service describes the innovative approach companies are using to
fulfil real-time service expectations: