A plant can report 95% preventive maintenance compliance and still experience repeated failures on conveyors, compressors, VFD-controlled motors, pumps, gearboxes and packaging equipment. Compliance confirms that scheduled work got done. It does not confirm that the work targeted the right failure mode or produced a useful result.
Steve Janow, senior reliability consultant at MVP One, addressed that gap during MVP 306: PM Development & Optimization. Janow told participants the goal of a preventive maintenance program is not to complete tasks but to improve reliability and efficiency by preventing failures, reducing downtime, and making better use of labor.
Hidden Problems Behind Strong Compliance Numbers
Several issues can hide behind a high compliance percentage. A lubrication PM might instruct technicians to grease all bearings without naming which bearings, the correct lubricant, or the required quantity. Technicians may inspect equipment without receiving acceptable operating limits, leaving judgment calls to memory rather than to data. PM frequencies often stay fixed even when history shows a task runs too often or not often enough, and abnormal conditions get logged in a comment field without triggering a corrective work order.
Janow said maintenance teams must move beyond vague instructions and build procedures that produce consistent results regardless of who performs the task. "We want to ensure that each step will be completed in the same way every time and have similar end results, whoever is performing," he said.
Three Elements Every PM Task Needs
Janow outlineds three components every condition-based or interval-based PM should include:
- Step-by-step instructions.
- Acceptable operating limits.
- Corrective action required when a reading falls outside those limits.
A belt inspection illustrates the difference. An instruction that reads "inspect belt" offers little value. An effective version directs a technician to inspect the belt for glazing, fraying, cracking, or deterioration, measure deflection with a half-inch-drive torque wrench, and confirm pivot bolts are torqued to 75 foot-pounds. Total deflection should fall between one-half and three-quarters of an inch under 5 pounds of force. Readings outside that range trigger a corrective work order.
Optimization Produces Measurable Savings
A dust collection system in one MVP 306 example showed the financial stakes. Running the system to failure caused six breakdowns a year, each requiring 16 hours of downtime at $5,000 per hour, for an annual impact of $480,000. A four-week time-based cleaning PM cut the cost to $130,000 a year. A condition-based threshold of 50 PSIG reduced cleanings to seven two-hour jobs annually and dropped the cost to $70,000, a total improvement of $410,000.
Janow said PM optimization functions as an efficiency initiative, not just a reliability one. "It is a process to increase the effectiveness of the reliability strategy," he said, while "eliminating strategies and procedures that add little or no value."
Compliance Alone Does Not Prove Success
A maintenance department does not become proactive by issuing more PMs. It becomes proactive by writing PMs that catch developing failures early enough for planners to schedule corrective work before equipment breaks down. The result is higher uptime, lower maintenance costs, less emergency work, and better use of maintenance resources.
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