Failure Based Maintenance

The classical and oldest concept of maintenance is carrying out failure based maintenance. This maintenance comes into the action when the machine fails either suddenly or gradually due to wear and tear. This philosophy is strongly, but of course wrongly believed by those industrialists who believe that maintenance time is an obstruction for the production and the time utilized for the maintenance is a wastage. They feel that their productive hours are lost due to preventive maintenance and that when the machine is running, it is not necessary. And at the same time they do not accept the fact that the proper maintenance will improve the life of their machines. There is no surprise if they say "Why should we lose today's productive hours for the want of some unknown hours that we may get tomorrow".

Perhaps, the pressure to meet the production targets might be another reason for their feelings and views. This philosophy, thus put emphasis on the short range maintenance planning such as breakdown maintenance, operate to failure and corrective maintenance. Clearly, this did give room for neither stopping future failures nor reducing the probability.

Owing to the above reason and knowing the need for prolonging the life of the equipment, a trial has been made to contract the maintenance repairs with the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) after the sale. In this connection some mediocre agencies have been developed to provide the repair, service and maintenance services (contractual maintenance).