Breakdown Maintenance

What is Breakdown Maintenance?

Breakdown maintenance, also known as reactive maintenance, is a type of corrective maintenance carried out upon unexpected machine failure that needs to be repaired or replaced to resume business operation. It is commonly performed when materials or machine parts are disposable, cannot be restored, or are easily available.

The Advantages

Breakdown maintenance can provide convenience when safety is not at risk due to equipment failure. It is effective for facility management into which non-critical equipment and short-life assets including batteries, fuse, light bulb, and other disposable items are to be replaced. Also, the company would benefit from the following:

• minimally demanded workforce;

• greatly reduced maintenance costs; and

• easily detected replacement needs.

Having efficient stock and inventory management procedures is necessary to determine which materials or components should be kept on-premises in case of machine failure.

2 Main Types

Applying the appropriate corrective maintenance plan to your business can greatly affect the organization in maintaining a sustainable operation. It is best to apply breakdown maintenance if an asset shows signs of wear and tear without negatively impacting the system performance. Breakdown maintenance can be classified into two main types.

1. Run-to-Failure Maintenance Run-to-failure maintenance is an example of planned maintenance into which an asset is expected to deteriorate at any time. It is an approach that can lower maintenance costs by delaying maintenance until an asset breaks down.

2. Emergency MaintenanceEmergency maintenance is performed when equipment fails or stops working unexpectedly and needs to be repaired or replaced immediately. This can typically occur with construction equipment or in more critical areas, such as aviation maintenance. This is crucial when equipment failure threatens the safety of the business and disrupts business operations.

Breakdown Maintenance | SafetyCulture

How to Perform Breakdown Maintenance

The breakdown maintenance plan may depend on the equipment or system failure. When disruption occurs you have to check which type of breakdown maintenance should be performed, whether an emergency or run-to-failure maintenance.

To give you a clearer picture, here is an example of how to perform breakdown maintenance in the hotel industry.

1. Identify the issue Get the details and other needed information about the situation from the requesting personnel. Identify the issue and check the level of call out to fix the problem.

2. Inspect the area Go to the area of the incident and investigate the issue. Look for sources of the problem or check the relevant equipment as found on site.

3. Take action Once the problem has been identified, in this case, there is a busted fuse that needs replacement. Execute the process of maintenance works and replace the busted fuse. Once completed, check if further action is still required.

4. Do an operational functional test Check the safety of the site and ensure the problem has been fixed and everything is back to its normal operation. Otherwise, if the maintenance procedure from the previous step didn’t fix the problem, inform the reporting personnel on how long it would affect the operation.

5. Create maintenance report Document the site status and completed tasks. This would help to keep a record of maintenance works under breakdown conditions and monitor the inventory of materials. This can easily be generated through SafetyCulture (formerly iAuditor).

What is SafetyCulture and How It Can Help You?

SafetyCulture is a mobile and web platform app that can guide you and your teams to their maintenance inspections and generate breakdown reports on the spot anytime, anywhere. Take advantage of the following features:

• real-time monitoring updates;

• paperless inspection processes and reporting;

• capture photo evidence in-app;

• store unlimited maintenance data in a cloud; and

• create your own or customize our ready-to-use maintenance templates according to your business needs.