Here are the five most common maintenance myths, in no specific order of importance, along with the excuses building owners and managers too often use to justify their beliefs:
Maintenance is a necessary evil. All technicians do is spend money, according to myth. They are overpaid for their skills. They’re underworked. They never fix anything. It takes two or three tries if they do fix it.
We don’t have time to do preventive maintenance. We have tried this, but we have too many emergencies and no time to do preventive maintenance (PM) tasks. It is a waste of time. We need to be working on failures not inspections. Our customers won’t let us have the asset or equipment. When the shop does PM, the machine never runs properly afterward.
Deferring maintenance saves money. We can always work on it later. It costs the same to fix it later as it does now, and it won’t affect its value or life cycle.
A reactive strategy is the best method to complete maintenance work. Reactive maintenance is faster. We can’t afford to wait on planning and scheduling. We just need faster and better firefighters. Planners and schedulers are non-value added employees,. We need tools in hands, not pencils and paper.
We don’t need a maintenance training program. They were trained when we hired them, so why provide more? What if we train them and they leave the company? Maintenance has not changed since they were hired. We don’t have time for training because too many things are broken.
—Michael Cowley
Finding the Time for Preventive Maintenance
5 Tips for Successful Preventive Maintenance
Maintenance Myths and Misconceptions
