The Difference Between Preventative and Corrective Maintenance

The Importance of Keeping Equipment in Pristine Condition

If you’re a key decision maker (KDM) or facilities manager, you’re obliged to prioritize work for environment safety. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) created guidelines to help you uphold the wellbeing of your employees. Therefore, properly functioning material handling equipment is key to safe and ideal work conditions.

Keeping up with repairs, inspections, and maintenance minimizes errors, reduces the likelihood of injuries, and keeps your operation running smoothly. Properly functioning equipment improves project efficiency and employees’ peace of mind while they’re driving or operating the machinery. When you perform your due diligence to get equipment repaired in a timely manner, it’s a direct reflection of your sense of responsibility.

Performing tasks with low-functioning equipment is dangerous and goes against industry standards. Hiring professionals to perform preventative and corrective maintenance prevents the problem from worsening; trying to fix it on your own isn’t recommended if that’s not your field of expertise. It’s true that some issues are inevitable and out of your control, but to minimize breakdowns and equipment failure, it’s important to invest in both preventative and corrective maintenance.

Preventative Maintenance 

Preventative maintenance, also known as PM, is a proactive measure taken to reduce the likelihood of equipment failure. This includes having professionals perform inspections on equipment on a routine basis, change the oil on schedule, and switch out tires when necessary. Performing preventative maintenance ensures your equipment functions properly, and extends its service life. Heavy machinery is a lofty investment, so you want the money you’ve spent to have a long-term return on investment. 

Although preventative maintenance is scheduled more frequently since it involves performing tasks to keep equipment from breaking down, it requires fewer technicians, and it decreases their workload compared to corrective maintenance. Since preventative maintenance is done before anything goes wrong, your equipment continues to perform at its best. Additionally, preventative maintenance improves productivity and bottom-line performance. Because the equipment is well maintained, a breakdown is less likely to occur. Therefore, implementing preventative maintenance is a worthy investment to avoid expensive corrective maintenance.

Corrective Maintenance 

Corrective maintenance, or CM, is the opposite of preventative because it’s a reactive measure. After equipment undergoes a diagnosis, technicians must perform corrective maintenance to fix the root cause of the failure. Although it’s an inconvenience to wait on repair, it’s important to get the equipment fixed right away. If a problem with equipment is ignored or not taken seriously and workers still use it, chances of injury increase and you will no longer meet OSHA guidelines. 

HTX Material Handling performs preventative maintenance and repairs on your equipment at your worksite for your convenience. Why Partner With Us?

 

Corrective Maintenance Costs More in the Long Run

If you want to save money, avoid the need for corrective maintenance by investing in preventative maintenance instead. While repairs restore broken-down equipment to its normal working condition, planned or preventative maintenance catches small service issues before they turn into major problems that are more costly.

Remember, corrective maintenance due to unplanned breakdowns slows your progress, costing your company money in the long run due to downtime. Work orders may take a while if technicians are backed up and you’re put on a waiting list. The tools or piece of equipment you need to fix the problem could be on backorder as well, which halts business operations for a substantial amount of time. Save money on repairs and earn more with a higher resale value for equipment that’s been well maintained. Don’t wait until a problem has gotten out of control, or worse, has caused an injury. It’s better to avoid mishaps from the beginning and protect your employees and your business from incidents due to faulty equipment.

HTX Material Handling Provides Total Maintenance and Repair

Planning and conducting maintenance offers long-term benefits. That’s why HTX Material Handling is who Houston and Dallas companies call when they need breakdown maintenance or preventative maintenance. We sell best-in-class forklifts, and we perform superior service on our products. Allow our experienced team of technicians to perform maintenance on your material handling equipment. We’re so confident in our proven capabilities, we provide guaranteed up-time with our total maintenance and repair program (TM&R). At HTX, we believe it’s our duty to keep your equipment in mint condition.

After you purchase an innovative Baoli or Linde lift truck, you need professionals to help you keep up with routine care. No need to take on the responsibility by yourself—that’s what we’re here for. Once you make a purchase from our outstanding lineup of technologically advanced equipment, we send our trained professionals out to take care of repairs, conduct inspections, and perform preventative maintenance. We make sure you get more for your money when you join our TM&R program. This helps you stabilize a reasonable monthly maintenance budget, so you don’t overspend or waste money on countless repairs that could’ve been avoided. Come and explore our inventory today and rest assured knowing we’ve got you covered moving forward.

 

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