What's the difference between preventive maintenance vs predictive maintenance? Both are important in getting your equipment to run as smoothly as possible, but they take different approaches.

Preventive maintenance is checkups done according to a fixed schedule to prevent issues before they happen. Think of it as general health care for your machines: change or inspect parts based on some predetermined schedule, even though nothing will happen. It's proactive yet can sometimes produce optional maintenance.

Predictive maintenance is more innovative and efficient. This approach utilizes real-time data, sensors, and analytics to monitor the health of your equipment. It detects problems early enough to prevent failures so that you only fix them as necessary. It avoids unnecessary downtime and costs.

Which strategy is right for you? This blog post provides a detailed comparison of preventive and predictive maintenance to help you make a well-informed decision. 

Let’s get started!

Predictive and preventive are the two types of approaches through which the equipment and machinery of the industry are maintained. Both the strategies focus on proper working and reliability of the equipment and increase its lifespan, but the methodology and focus are different from each other.

Preventive Maintenance: Definition

Preventive maintenance encompasses scheduled inspections, cleaning, and repairs before equipment can fail. It is based on the concept that scheduled maintenance would identify and correct any abnormalities before these become worse.

Preventive maintenance is typically established in relation to the piece of equipment and its working conditions. It can be carried out at scheduled intervals of daily, weekly, monthly, or annually and usually becomes an integral part of a proper schedule.

Predictive Maintenance: Definition

Predictive maintenance, on the other hand, is a method where all the conditions are continuously monitored in real time by sensors, smart devices, and analytics that eventually identify potential issues before they occur.

As such, it enables proactive rather than reactive maintenance and may help to reduce the costs associated with maintenance and equipment downtime. Additionally, predictive maintenance might be beneficial in situations where failure is complex or critical and may result in severe implications.

There are many advantages that can be seen in preventive maintenance in the industrial sector:

1. Less down time: Identifying and correcting all potential issues before their occurrence, preventive maintenance can be helpful for reducing the time that equipment takes in staying down thereby causing production to halt and affecting profitability adversely.

2. Longer life of Equipment: Regular maintenance helps extend the equipment's life to determine, spot, and fix problems that would start to significantly damage it in advance.

3. Improved Safety: Preventive maintenance ensures that equipment and machinery are safe by highlighting where dangers may occur.

4. Economic efficiency: Preventive maintenance may seem to be more cost-effective than reactive maintenance as problems will be identified and addressed before they become major issues, which could be costly to fix.

5. Improved Efficiency: Well-maintained apparatus mostly functions much better and will lead to increased productivity and profit.

6. Improved reliability: Preventive maintenance can ensure that equipment is reliable. Reliability is an important factor especially in the industrial world because failure of equipment may lead to a serious consequence.

Although preventive maintenance has numerous advantages, it also has some disadvantages:

1. Possibility of over-maintenance: Preventive maintenance is schedule-based. Sometimes it is not easy to predict with accuracy the time when maintenance is necessitated. At times, it leads to unnecessary maintenance which can be time and resource-wasting.

2. Determination of the optimal maintenance interval: This varies from one type of equipment and condition of operation, and finding it would be tiresome and labor-friendly. A longer interval might lead to unnecessary maintenance, and a too-long interval might not effectively prevent the failure of equipment.

3. Poor problem-solving: Preventive maintenance is more about avoiding the breakdown of the equipment instead of focusing on the solutions of problems that have already occurred. This therefore, means it needs to be more effective at the detection of faults that are not scheduled under regular maintenance.

4. Higher man-hour cost: Preventive maintenance is also relatively more costly compared to reactive maintenance that provides more visits for checking and rectification. It raises the maintenance costs.

5. Limited flexibility: Preventive maintenance is performed according to a scheduled timetable, which might not be flexible and may only be appropriate at times for changing operating conditions or equipment needs.

6. Potentiality of equipment being taken off line: Preventive maintenance often requires taking the equipment off line to check and repair it, thus involving loss to production and subsequently income.

Internet of Things or IoT-based predictive maintenance allows maintenance to be performed proactively rather than reactively, which can help to reduce equipment downtime and maintenance costs.

• Sensors and intelligent appliances are mounted on equipment and machinery to gather information related to their usage and condition. The sensors can monitor many parameters such as temperatures, vibration, pressure, etc.

• The data is passed through a central database or cloud server, where some analytics software analyzes the data.

• The analytics software analyzes the data by fitting machine learning algorithms that can detect patterns and trends which ultimately lead to chances of having a problem with the equipment.

• The alert is generated by the analytics software and sent to the maintenance personnel or a maintenance management system if the analytics software finds a potential problem.

• Then it's subjected to a review by the maintenance personnel who can take appropriate action in respect to the alert like performing inspections, repairs, or doing the maintenance on the equipment.

It is also through IoT predictive maintenance that maintenance is made more efficient. Here, maintenance personnel are allowed to concentrate on specific equipment and issues rather than having a fixed schedule on performing the maintenance of all equipment. This also helps decrease maintenance costs since it would not be performed reactively after failure but before the occurrence of equipment failure.

It, indeed, brings tremendous benefits to the industrial sector, but this system of predictive maintenance through IoT is not without some drawbacks.

1. High initial implementation cost: It is expensive as it involves setting up the sensor along with intelligent devices and analytics software. It indeed involves a lot of money.

2. Professional assistance required: The setting and running of the IoT predictive maintenance system require specialized people well-expert in IoT technologies and analytics. It is a tough task for some organizations.

3. Dependence of technology: In IoT predictive maintenance, sensors, smart devices, and analytics software are used to collect data and provide analytics data. Hence, if these technologies fail or don't work properly, then predictive maintenance may not be effective.

4. Data security and privacy: The Data collected and analyzed from equipment and machinery is a matter of concern for data security and privacy, which needs to be taken care of with great caution.

5. It limits the potential to address complex issues: While IoT predictive maintenance can be efficient while identifying and addressing simple issues, it may not be that effective in identifying or addressing complex problems since such problems require more detailed analysis and much expertise.

6. Limited flexibility: IoT predictive maintenance follows a fixed data collection and analysis schedule, which may need more flexibility toward changing operating conditions or equipment needs.

IoT preventive maintenance improves the conventional maintenance approaches by incorporating sensors, smart gadgets, and data analytics to track the status of the devices and their productivity in real time. This approach takes preventive maintenance to data-driven choices.  

Therefore, it helps companies forecast potential challenges more focused while operating on time. 

Advantages of IoT preventive maintenance:

• Real-time monitoring: IoT devices gather data continuously from machines, guaranteeing that maintenance is only done based on machine failures or disruptions.

• Enhanced machine lifespan: Frequent, timely maintenance, based on IoT data, can lower machinery breakdowns and foster the overall lifespan of the equipment. 

• Decreased unplanned delay: Tracking resources in real-time helps understand issues or breakdowns in operations before they occur, allowing for timely services without an actual failure.   

• Cost-effectiveness: Even though IoT networks require an initial investment, they also help minimize future expenses by lowering emergency services and labor costs and preventing major machinery breakdowns.

• Greater safety: IoT devices can potentially detect unsafe working and operating situations. This helps avoid accidents or hazards by ensuring the equipment is properly managed and operated. 

• Data-driven decisions: Servicing teams make informed decisions depending on detailed data analytics, enhancing resource allocation and overall productivity and effectiveness. 

Even though preventive maintenance has some advantages, it also has some challenges or disadvantages, especially when compared with an advanced approach like predictive maintenance. 

• Over maintenance: Preventive maintenance follows a timely and fixed schedule. This results in unnecessary maintenance routines, leading to huge expenses and wasted resources. 

• High maintenance cost: Frequent machinery servicing, even though not required, increases operational expenses without necessarily increasing productivity. 

• Resource intensity: Preventive maintenance is time-consuming and labor-intensive. It requires regular tracking and planning for each machine, regardless of its condition. 

    

• Lack of flexibility: Fixed and timely schedules do not require real-time data or fluctuating operational requirements. This makes the operational process very tough and sometimes ineffective.

The industrial sector now has access to more advanced and effective maintenance methods because of the Internet of Things (IoT) deployment. IoT-based predictive maintenance aims to automate and optimize maintenance tasks by collecting and analyzing data from equipment and systems using sensors, smart devices, and analytics.

As a result, it could save equipment maintenance costs, boost equipment performance, and improve operational effectiveness.

Preventive maintenance vs  predictive maintenance primarily differ in their methods and aims. While predictive maintenance focuses on spotting possible problems before they arise, preventive maintenance is concerned with preventing equipment failure.

While both strategies have benefits and drawbacks, IoT-based predictive maintenance can lower equipment downtime and maintenance costs more efficiently. Still, it may cost more to execute since it needs more sophisticated technologies and skilled labour.

Get in touch with an IoT development company to discuss your requirements in detail.

1. What is predictive maintenance?

Predictive maintenance will predict at what point in time a piece of equipment is likely to fail utilizing data, usually collected by sensors or other devices from the Internet of Things. Predictive maintenance prevents the proverbial worst-case scenario of an unexpected failure: it does this by ensuring that resources are maximally utilized by scheduling only when necessary based on accurate real-time data analysis.

2. What is preventive maintenance?

Regardless of the tools condition, preventive maintenance calls for planning regular, frequent servicing on it with a view to avoid breakdowns. It ensures that equipment functions well and is time-or usage-based measurement but sometimes leads to over-maintenance or unnecessary spending.

3. What is predictive maintenance compared to preventive maintenance?

Preventive maintenance is performed on a predetermined schedule and has nothing to do with the condition of the equipment. Predictive maintenance, on the other hand, is an indicator using real-time data to predict potential breakdowns. This type of maintenance is based on much more data than preventive maintenance. Preventive maintenance can be proactive but less effective sometimes.