What Is Preventive Maintenance?

Tasks may include inspection, cleaning, lubrication, adjustment, testing, calibration, exercising, and replacing known wear parts. The schedule comes from manuals, operating experience, condition data, and regulatory or safety requirements.

Doing maintenance too late allows damage. Doing it too often can waste parts and introduce errors. Every time equipment is opened, there is a chance of contamination, wrong assembly, or a new leak. Use a reasonable, documented schedule.

Operators support the program by reporting condition changes and accurate run hours. Maintenance staff record parts, measurements, clearances, and findings. Together, these records show whether the interval is working or needs review.

Calendar time and run time are not always the same. A standby pump may need exercise even with few operating hours. A heavily used pump may reach a service interval much sooner than the calendar suggests. The program should match how the asset is actually used.