Stop Fighting Fires: A Manufacturer’s Guide to Preventive Maintenance

Published on January 28, 2026 | By Nick | Categories: Digital Transformation & IIoT

It’s 6:47 AM. The day shift hasn’t even started and your phone’s already ringing. The main production line is down. A bearing failed on the conveyor — the same one that “sounded a bit rough” two weeks ago but nobody got around to checking. Now it’s seized, the motor’s overheated, and your production schedule for the day just became fiction.

Sound familiar? If you’re running a manufacturing operation, you’ve lived some version of this story. Maybe not today. Maybe not this week. But it’s coming, because reactive maintenance isn’t a strategy — it’s a gamble. And the house always wins.

I’ve spent 25+ years in and around Australian factories, building systems that help manufacturers get control of their operations. And I can tell you this: the single biggest difference between factories that run smoothly and factories that lurch from crisis to crisis isn’t equipment quality, workforce skill, or even budget. It’s whether they maintain proactively or reactively.

The Real Cost of Reactive Maintenance

Everyone knows breakdowns are expensive. But most manufacturers dramatically underestimate how expensive. The repair cost — the part, the technician’s time — is just the tip.

The full cost of an unplanned breakdown:

  • Production downtime. Your line isn’t running. Every minute is lost output. Depending on your operation, that’s hundreds to thousands of dollars per hour in lost production.
  • Overtime and expediting. You’ll make up the lost production somehow — usually with overtime labour and expedited material shipments. Both cost a premium.
  • Cascading delays. The job that was on that machine is now late. The next job can’t start. The downstream process is starved. One breakdown ripples through the entire schedule.
  • Emergency repair premiums. Emergency callouts cost more than planned service. Emergency parts cost more than stocked spares. Everything costs more when you need it right now.
  • Collateral damage. A failed bearing doesn’t just wreck itself — it can damage the shaft, the housing, the motor. What would have been a $200 bearing replacement becomes a $5,000 rebuild.
  • Quality impact. Equipment that’s degrading before it fails is producing parts that are degrading too. How many borderline products shipped before the machine actually stopped?
  • Customer impact. Late deliveries. Missed commitments. The cost of losing a customer’s confidence doesn’t show up on a maintenance invoice, but it’s the most expensive line item of all.

Industry data consistently shows that reactive maintenance costs 3-5 times more than planned maintenance for the same equipment. Not because the parts are different — because everything around the repair is more expensive when it’s unplanned.

Why Factories Stay Reactive

If preventive maintenance is so obviously better, why isn’t everyone doing it? Because the barriers are real:

  • “We don’t have time.” The classic catch-22. You’re too busy fighting today’s fire to prevent tomorrow’s. Every hour spent on maintenance is an hour not producing. The pressure to keep lines running overrides the logic of stopping them to maintain.
  • “We don’t know what to maintain.” Without equipment history and failure data, preventive maintenance is guesswork. What needs attention? How often? Based on what evidence? When you don’t have the data, you default to fixing things when they break.
  • “We tried it and it didn’t stick.” Someone started a PM program on a spreadsheet. It worked for three weeks. Then a big order came in, maintenance got deferred, the spreadsheet got out of date, and within two months everyone was back to reactive mode.
  • “Our maintenance guy keeps it all in his head.” Your most experienced technician knows every machine intimately. When things need attention, he just knows. It works — until he’s on leave, or sick, or retires. Then you discover that decades of equipment knowledge walked out the door.

Every one of these barriers is a data problem disguised as an operations problem. And data problems have solutions.

The Three Levels of Maintenance Maturity

Not every factory needs predictive analytics and IoT sensors. But every factory can move up from purely reactive. Here’s the progression:

Level 1: Reactive (Run to Failure)

Fix it when it breaks. No schedule, no plan, no data. This is where most small manufacturers start, and where too many stay.

Signs you’re here: No maintenance schedule exists. Equipment history is in someone’s head or scattered across logbooks. “Maintenance” means “emergency repair.” Spare parts are ordered after the breakdown, not before.

Level 2: Preventive (Time-Based)

Maintain on a schedule — weekly, monthly, quarterly, annually. Based on manufacturer recommendations, experience, or industry standards. Not perfect, but dramatically better than reactive.

Signs you’re here: A maintenance schedule exists (even if it’s a spreadsheet or whiteboard). Regular tasks get done — lubrication, filter changes, belt inspections. You stock common spare parts. Breakdowns still happen but less frequently.

The limitation: Time-based maintenance doesn’t account for actual equipment condition. You might replace a belt at 6 months that had another year of life. Or miss one that’s about to fail at 5 months. It’s better than nothing, but it’s still somewhat arbitrary.

Level 3: Condition-Based / Predictive

Maintain based on actual equipment condition — vibration analysis, thermal imaging, oil analysis, sensor data. Fix things when they need fixing, not when the calendar says so.

Signs you’re here: You’re monitoring equipment condition with sensors or regular inspections. Maintenance decisions are data-driven. You can predict failures before they happen. Unplanned downtime is rare.

Most manufacturers should aim for solid Level 2 with elements of Level 3 on critical equipment. That’s the sweet spot of cost versus benefit for Australian SME manufacturers.

Building a PM Program That Actually Sticks

The difference between a PM program that works and one that dies after three weeks comes down to four things:

1. Start With Your Critical Equipment

You don’t need to maintain everything preventively. Start with the equipment that hurts most when it goes down.

Rank your equipment by:

  • Production impact — is it a bottleneck? Does it stop the line?
  • Failure frequency — how often does it break?
  • Repair cost and time — how expensive and how long when it does break?
  • Safety implications — could a failure create a safety hazard?

Your top 5-10 machines by this ranking are where your PM program starts. Get those right before expanding to everything else.

2. Define What “Maintain” Actually Means

A PM schedule that says “check machine monthly” is useless. What are you checking? What are you looking for? What do you do if you find something?

Good PM tasks are specific:

  • “Inspect drive belt for cracks, glazing, or misalignment. Replace if wear exceeds 2mm. Log belt condition as Good/Fair/Replace.”
  • “Measure motor bearing temperature with IR thermometer. Log reading. Flag if >70°C.”
  • “Clean intake filter. Replace if differential pressure exceeds 25 mbar.”

Each task should have: what to do, what to look for, what action to take, and what to record. If a new technician can’t follow the task without asking questions, it’s not detailed enough.

3. Make It Easy to Execute and Record

This is where most PM programs die. The maintenance schedule exists, but executing and recording tasks is so cumbersome that it gets skipped when things get busy.

Paper-based PM systems fail because:

  • Schedules get lost or forgotten
  • Completed tasks aren’t recorded consistently
  • Overdue tasks aren’t visible until someone manually checks
  • Historical data is trapped in filing cabinets
  • There’s no automatic escalation when things slip

This is exactly the problem a Computerised Maintenance Management System (CMMS) solves. And it doesn’t have to be complicated or expensive.

4. Track, Trend, and Improve

A PM program without data is just a to-do list. With data, it becomes a continuous improvement engine.

What you should be tracking:

  • PM completion rate — are scheduled tasks actually getting done?
  • Breakdown frequency — is it going down over time? (It should be.)
  • Mean time between failures (MTBF) — equipment reliability trend
  • Maintenance cost per machine — where’s the money going?
  • Planned vs unplanned ratio — target 80% planned, 20% unplanned

These metrics tell you whether your PM program is working and where to adjust. Without them, you’re maintaining on faith.

Why You Need a CMMS (And What It Actually Does)

A CMMS isn’t just software — it’s the backbone of a functioning maintenance program. Here’s what a good one does:

  • Schedules PM tasks automatically. Based on time, usage hours, or condition triggers. No more forgetting. No more “we meant to do that last month.”
  • Assigns work to technicians. Clear task lists, priorities, and due dates. Everyone knows what they’re supposed to do today.
  • Stores equipment history. Every repair, every inspection, every part replacement — all in one place. When a machine acts up, you can see its entire history instantly.
  • Manages spare parts. What’s in stock, what’s needed, what’s on order. No more emergency orders because you didn’t know you were out of bearings.
  • Generates reports. Downtime analysis, cost tracking, PM compliance, equipment reliability. The data you need to justify investment and drive improvement.
  • Sends alerts. Overdue tasks, upcoming major services, parts below minimum stock. The system chases people so you don’t have to.

The difference between a CMMS and a spreadsheet isn’t features — it’s sustainability. Spreadsheets require someone to actively maintain them. A CMMS maintains itself. It generates tasks, tracks completion, escalates overdue items, and builds history automatically. That’s why PM programs on spreadsheets die and PM programs on CMMS systems survive.

Choosing the Right CMMS

The CMMS market ranges from free open-source tools to enterprise systems costing six figures annually. For most Australian SME manufacturers, neither extreme is right.

What to look for:

  • Web-based. Accessible from any device — desktop in the office, tablet on the floor, phone in the field. No software to install, no IT infrastructure required.
  • Simple to use. If your maintenance team needs a training course to log a work order, it’s too complicated. The best CMMS feels obvious.
  • Configurable to your processes. Every factory’s maintenance workflow is slightly different. Your CMMS should adapt to how you work, not force you into someone else’s process.
  • Good mobile experience. Technicians work on the floor, not at desks. Mobile-first design isn’t a nice-to-have — it’s essential.
  • Reasonable cost. Enterprise CMMS platforms charge per user per month, and it adds up fast. For a 5-person maintenance team, you shouldn’t be paying enterprise prices.
  • Local support. When something goes wrong or you need customisation, talking to someone in your timezone who understands Australian manufacturing beats an overseas support queue every time.

Off-the-shelf CMMS products work for many factories. But if your processes don’t fit the standard mould — and in my experience, most don’t entirely — a purpose-built solution that fits your exact workflow often costs less than years of subscription fees for software you’re fighting against.

Quick Wins: What to Do This Week

You don’t need a CMMS to start improving. Here are things you can do right now:

  1. List your top 5 breakdown machines. Which equipment costs you the most in downtime? You probably already know. Write it down.
  2. Check manufacturer maintenance schedules. Dig out the manuals (or find them online) for those top 5 machines. What does the manufacturer recommend? You’d be surprised how often basic manufacturer recommendations are being ignored.
  3. Start a simple log. Even a shared spreadsheet is better than nothing. Every breakdown: date, machine, what failed, how long, what it cost. After three months, you’ll have data that tells you exactly where to focus.
  4. Walk the floor with fresh eyes. Look for the warning signs: unusual noises, vibrations, leaks, heat, worn components. The things that become invisible when you see them every day.
  5. Talk to your operators. They know which machines are struggling. They hear the noises. They feel the vibrations. They’ve been working around problems for months. Ask them, and actually listen.

These five steps cost nothing and take a few hours. They’ll give you more actionable maintenance intelligence than most factories currently have.

The Payoff

Factories that move from reactive to preventive maintenance typically see:

  • 30-50% reduction in unplanned downtime within the first year
  • 20-30% reduction in maintenance costs (less emergency work, less collateral damage, better parts management)
  • Improved equipment lifespan — well-maintained equipment lasts years longer
  • Better production scheduling confidence — when equipment is reliable, schedules are achievable
  • Reduced safety incidents — maintained equipment is safer equipment
  • Knowledge retention — equipment history lives in the system, not in someone’s head

The ROI is typically measured in months, not years. The bearing that costs $200 to replace preventively costs $5,000 to repair reactively. Multiply that across your entire equipment base and the numbers speak for themselves.

Related Guides

Stop Fighting Fires

Reactive maintenance feels normal when it’s all you’ve known. The adrenaline of the emergency fix. The hero who gets the line running again. The war stories in the break room. There’s a culture around firefighting in manufacturing, and it can be weirdly addictive.

But it’s not sustainable. It burns out your maintenance team, destroys your production schedule, costs a fortune, and puts your best people in a permanent state of crisis management instead of improvement.

Preventive maintenance isn’t glamorous. Nobody gets applauded for the breakdown that didn’t happen. But the factory that runs smoothly, hits its schedules, and rarely surprises you? That’s the one making money.

Ready to make the shift? Whether you need help setting up a maintenance system, building a custom CMMS that fits your operation, or just want to talk through where to start — get in touch. We’ve been building systems for Australian manufacturers for over 25 years, and maintenance is one of those areas where a small investment in the right system pays for itself many times over.

Your maintenance team deserves better than chasing emergencies. Your production schedule deserves better than hope. And your equipment deserves better than run-to-failure.

Stop fighting fires. Start preventing them.