Maintenance and reliability
What is Preventive maintenance?
Preventive maintenance is planned servicing at set intervals of time or usage to reduce the chance of failure. Types, how to build a PM schedule and its limits.
Quick answer
Preventive maintenance is planned servicing done at set intervals of time or usage, such as lubricating, inspecting, adjusting and replacing wear parts, to reduce the chance of a breakdown. It is scheduled in advance, so work fits into planned stops instead of interrupting production.
Updated 30 October 2026. Written by the Ajinkya Technologies engineering team, reviewed by Amey Kadle.
Preventive maintenance explained
Preventive maintenance (PM) is the backbone of most maintenance programmes. Tasks come from manufacturer recommendations, regulations and the plant’s own failure history, and are scheduled either by calendar (every month), by usage (every 500 operating hours or 100,000 strokes) or by a mix of both.
Its strength is predictability: parts, people and downtime are planned. Its weakness is that intervals are averages. Some components are replaced while still healthy, and faults that develop between services are missed. That is why mature programmes combine PM for simple, cheap tasks and statutory checks with condition based or predictive maintenance for critical assets.
A good PM programme has a complete asset register, clear task lists with standards, realistic intervals reviewed against failure data, and a way to prove the work was done. Measuring PM compliance (planned tasks completed on time) and tracking whether failures still happen on maintained assets shows whether the intervals and tasks are right.
Key concepts
- Scheduled by time, usage or both
- Work fits into planned stops
- Intervals are averages, so some waste is built in
- Combine with condition based maintenance
- Track PM compliance and failures after PM
Questions
What are examples of preventive maintenance?
Lubrication, filter changes, belt tension checks, calibration, tightening electrical terminals and replacing wear parts at set intervals.
Is preventive maintenance better than predictive maintenance?
They do different jobs. PM is cheap and simple for routine tasks; predictive maintenance is better for critical assets where faults can be detected early.
How do you set PM intervals?
Start from manufacturer guidance and regulations, then adjust using your own failure records and condition data for each asset.
References
How we help with preventive maintenance
Our maintenance systems schedule PM by time or usage from live machine counters, put checklists on a phone through QR codes on each asset, and prove every task was done.
Interactive 3D demo with simulated data: vibration rises, the alert fires, you decide.
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