It is difficult to move a maintenance system that is reactive in nature to be proactive. The difference in business impact of reactive and proactive maintenance can often be measured in millions of dollars in lost production, higher expenses, more incidents and less time planning and a lot of wasted time reacting.

There is no simple answer as to why some systems are difficult to move away from reactive behavior. The causes often involve numerous factors involving asset strategies, planning, recording, work execution, roles, technology, work practices, measures and organizational roles.

In fact it is the way these elements work together that determines how proactive a system is.

To move a system away from reactive towards proactive behavior requires an understanding of the key driving elements for each element.

Some examples of "blockers" that can act as an anchor against allowing a system to become proactive are:

• Operation's time horizon is to meet daily production plan at the expense of making equipment available for planned work.
• Work is completed but little emphasis placed on recording what work was done and why.
• Maintenance department's prime accountability is to meet budget.
• Scheduled maintenance is given lower priority than fixing faults.
• Maintenance technicians rewarded for fixing broken equipment.
• Maintenance strategies are "once off" efforts with no continuous improvement.
• Documented maintenance instructions from manufacturer are rarely challenged or changed.

In order to move a system to become more proactive sometimes requires external eyes to perform an independent audit, in order to "see" the blockers.

Sometimes in order to make lasting changes, a new set of tactics are required. Click here to listen to our iPresentation to find out some of the tactics your organization can deploy to combat reactive maintenance in your organization.

Tip provided by ARMS Reliability Engineers