Maintenance is a constant activity in our lives, from simple daily tasks like replacing a watch battery when it’s running slow, to large industrial operations that mobilize thousands of employees and machines for equipment upkeep.
This activity, however, carries significant responsibility and directly impacts productivity, operational costs, and the safety of people working with industrial plants. Far beyond just fixing machines when a failure occurs, maintenance involves a series of strategies that help predict, prevent, and correct failures throughout an asset’s lifespan.
In this article, you’ll explore the different types of maintenance and how the approach has evolved from reactive to increasingly digital and intelligent practices. We’ll delve into the main applications in industry: corrective, preventive, predictive, and prescriptive maintenance, in addition to adopting a broad perspective on optimizing this task in industrial plants.
What is Maintenance and why is it important for industry?
Let’s break down the concept of maintenance into two parts: a comprehensive overview and a focus on the industrial context.
The concept of maintenance is described as the act or effect of preserving the state of something, making it last longer, and keeping it in good condition. When we talk about industrial maintenance, the concept goes deeper—it refers to a set of activities aimed at preserving the capacity and integrity of machines, systems, and the plant as a whole.
Many people misunderstand the concept and consider only the benefits of industrial maintenance for machinery. However, the practice is essential for ensuring operator safety, machine productivity, and operational efficiency.
From this understanding, it becomes clear that industrial maintenance is directly linked to an asset management strategy, where the focus is on reducing unexpected failures and increasing the lifespan of components. Therefore, understanding the types of maintenance plays a unique role within this context, keeping operations safe, efficient, and economically viable. Below, we’ll explore how each type fits into different realities.
Types of Maintenance and when to apply each one
Choosing the best type of industrial maintenance for a company can be challenging. Each plant has its peculiarities, in addition to factors like team size and the level of knowledge among employees on the subject.
Another point that concerns asset managers is the return on investment for each type of industrial maintenance, considering the company’s size, economic viability, business maturity, and skilled labor.
It’s important to understand that equipment maintenance management should be seen as a strategic pillar of the business, not just a simple activity in the production chain.
It’s through maintenance that managers, analysts, and maintenance specialists can make decisions more aligned with company objectives and the optimization of asset productivity. Without a good maintenance plan, your industry faces risks such as raw material loss, employee exposure to hazards, and costs associated with unexpected production shutdowns.
Considering these aspects, below is a summary of the main types of industrial maintenance and when each should be applied in the context of your operation.
Corrective Maintenance | Last Resort with High Cost
This is the most common type of industrial maintenance in industries that do not yet have a structured maintenance and asset management plan.
In this scenario, safety and financial risks are constant, and there is no predictability.
This is reactive and unplanned maintenance; that is, when equipment breaks down and has a critical failure, that’s when the maintenance team begins repair work.
The issue with corrective maintenance is that while the asset is being restored, operations are either partially or completely halted. Typically, the damaged components take days to arrive after being ordered and are expensive due to the robust nature of industrial machinery. This reactive approach compromises operational efficiency and plant performance indicators.
However, corrective maintenance has its role and isn’t a complete villain in industrial plants. When dealing with low-impact assets, easy replacements, or failures that do not compromise production, corrective maintenance is a good alternative for a specific and controlled intervention, without becoming the plant’s operational standard.
Check out the brief summary below on corrective maintenance and how it can help you:
Preventive Maintenance | Planned Routine, But Not Always Efficient
Preventive maintenance in industry is cyclical and planned. Its goal is to gain more control over assets, which means scheduling regular shutdowns and inspections of machines so they can be evaluated and have components replaced according to manufacturer guidelines.
Generally, there are guidelines for each piece of plant equipment, defined by time, operating cycles, or manufacturer recommendations, such as changing a motor’s oil every 5,000 hours of operation.
This type of maintenance is a positive step forward compared to corrective maintenance; however, it still has gaps in terms of efficiency, reliability, and plant monitoring.
Referring back to the motor example, imagine that after an oil change, days later, this equipment shows a minor fault that goes unnoticed—after all, the specialist performed maintenance within the estimated timeframe. One week later, the motor stops! Reason: a critical fault related to the equipment’s temperature.
There’s no way to continuously predict or monitor the asset’s health with this maintenance model, and this is where the flaw in preventive maintenance planning emerges.
Another aspect that deserves attention is the risk of performing unnecessary replacements and repairs, which can lead to excessive costs for labor and parts that are still in good working condition.
Therefore, despite being an evolution from corrective maintenance, preventive maintenance needs to be well-adjusted to the plant’s reality, considering factors like asset criticality, failure history, and available resources. Its true value appears when it’s integrated into a broader maintenance management strategy.
Check out the brief summary below on preventive maintenance and how it can help you:
Predictive Maintenance | Data-Driven Decisions and Predictability
Imagine having continuous access to the health of your industrial assets, at any time of day, in a digital environment. With predictive maintenance, this is a reality.
This type of industrial maintenance is characterized by the use of data collected directly from the asset. Through wired or wireless sensors that capture signals like equipment vibration and temperature, maintenance analysts have the asset’s status at hand, allowing them to predict the exact moment a piece of equipment will fail.
The collected information is sent to an analysis platform, where professionals can evaluate the machinery and understand what can be done before a failure occurs, whether it’s replacing a part, changing oil, or an issue requiring in-depth investigation.
Instead of waiting for breakdowns or performing maintenance at fixed intervals, predictive maintenance continuously monitors the state of assets, identifying signs of deterioration or anomalies that indicate the need for intervention.
In addition to ensuring more productivity for the industry, this technique allows for the optimization of resource use, increases plant reliability, and is a great ally for critical equipment, which incurs high costs when inactive due to failures.
Another crucial point in choosing predictive maintenance is the safety it provides for employees. With the digital monitoring of equipment, the number of people exposed to the risks of a complex industrial plant is minimized.
This strategy is part of a broader predictive analytics approach aimed at continuous monitoring of industrial assets and preventing unexpected failures. Furthermore, it allows the operation to save on labor, parts, and production downtime, offering an excellent return on investment (ROI).
Check out the brief summary below on predictive maintenance and how it can help you:
If you want to know more, read the Complete Guide to Predictive Maintenance here.
Prescriptive Maintenance | Artificial Intelligence Combined with Human Knowledge
Building on the advantages of predictive maintenance, prescriptive maintenance is the union of artificial intelligence with human expertise. This approach uses technologies like AI, machine learning, and data analytics combined with the technical knowledge of engineers and analysts to predict failures and recommend specific actions for industrial assets.
Imagine a vibrating screen showing unusual variations in vibration levels. Besides getting this information and sending a technician to investigate, the prescriptive platform will point out the likely reason for the variation. In this case, it might be equipment misalignment – a probable cause based on previous patterns and cross-referencing data from hundreds of similar assets.
This type of industrial maintenance relies on asset history, cross-references databases, and receives feedback from operators to become increasingly precise and intelligent.
The advantages of prescriptive maintenance in industry are diverse. They include increased operational reliability, reduced downtime, minimized unnecessary interventions, optimized resource use, and enhanced employee safety, as it reduces exposure to physical risks by anticipating potential serious failures.
It’s worth noting that this type of maintenance adds significant value to the reliability of the industrial plant and is recommended for industries with a high level of operational complexity, a large volume of critical assets, and a demand for high availability.
At Dynamox, we already have this technology available, and you can consult our portfolio of industrial assets we currently serve here.
Check out the brief summary below on prescriptive maintenance and how it can help you:
How to Create an Efficient Industrial Maintenance Strategy Step-by-Step
A maintenance strategy is a set of steps that will help your industry minimize asset downtime, optimize maintenance costs (whether for labor, equipment, or parts), and ensure processes are followed, allowing the company to operate at its maximum productivity and safety. Below, find a simplified step-by-step guide on how to efficiently structure your maintenance strategy:
1) Asset Inventory and Criticality
Catalog all plant assets, such as machines, systems, and components. Conduct a criticality analysis to define which ones have the greatest impact on production, safety, or costs in case of failure. Familiarize yourself with the criticality matrix; it can assist you in this process.
2) Definition of Maintenance Strategy
– Corrective Maintenance: Performed after equipment failure.
– Preventive Maintenance: Performed periodically to prevent failures.
– Predictive Maintenance: Uses technologies to forecast future failures.
– Prescriptive Maintenance: Uses technology to predict failures and diagnose their root cause.
3) Performance Indicators
Establish clear metrics that will indicate whether processes are working or not. Below are some indicators that can help you, but it’s important to understand your current context before defining them:
– MTBF (Mean Time Between Failures)
– MTTR (Mean Time To Repair)
– Maintenance Cost per Asset
4) Planning and Scheduling Activities
Based on your inventory and performance indicators, develop a schedule for the team that fits the chosen maintenance strategy.
5) Team Culture and Training
Even if professionals at your industrial plant are knowledgeable and experienced in their roles, it’s crucial to review the steps and level up their understanding.
Seek to address questions, engage the team, and reinforce how to operate, maintain safety, and ensure better productivity and cost optimization.
Remember: if your team doesn’t understand the importance of the chosen maintenance type, it will be increasingly difficult to achieve your projected productivity. Foster a culture where everyone understands why actions were planned in a certain way and invest in continuous training so that technicians, analysts, engineers, and operators know how to use digital tools and interpret data.
6) Monitoring and Feedback
Observe and discuss with the team how routines are flowing. This is the moment to identify areas for improvement in terms of knowledge, strategy, and team needs.
7) Management Tools
Utilize industrial maintenance software, such as a CMMS (Computerized Maintenance Management System), to record, plan, and track work orders. If you already use Dynamox solutions, check the information on the platform’s dashboards.
8) Cost Management
Track all maintenance-related costs—from labor to parts, tools, and production downtime. Monitoring these figures helps identify financial bottlenecks, prioritize investments, and demonstrate the ROI of your strategy.
9) Control and Documentation
Standardize the recording of all maintenance activities: inspections, repairs, part replacements, and updates. This supports audits, training, and data-driven decision-making.
Common Mistakes and Best Practices in Industrial Maintenance
Even with planning, errors can occur when adopting new industrial processes. With this in mind, we’ve outlined the key points you should pay attention to and best practices to ensure your maintenance strategy achieves operational efficiency.
Furthermore, we recommend the solutions Dynamox provides for each operational, tactical, and strategic gap in asset management.
We understand that industrial maintenance impacts everything from revenue to the daily routine of field professionals. That’s why we offer technologies that integrate continuous monitoring, predictive and prescriptive analytics, and intelligent data visualization, helping your operation gain predictability, reduce failures, and make decisions with greater agility and safety.
Applying Smart Maintenance in Industry
When we talk about smart maintenance, we’re referring to the process of predicting failures using technology and continuous data analysis.
If your industry isn’t there yet, don’t worry. We’ll explain how this process works day-to-day and what’s most relevant to keep you informed on the topic.
In asset management, smart maintenance combines the following elements:
- IoT (Internet of Things) sensors for continuous data collection on asset health (vibration, temperature, etc.);
- Analytics platforms that process and interpret the collected data;
- Automatic alerts based on predefined thresholds and anomaly detection algorithms;
- Consolidated data history, supporting strategic decisions and audits;
- Integration with maintenance management systems (CMMS), facilitating condition-based work order generation;
- Performance indicators like MTBF and MTTR, used to continuously evaluate and improve the adopted strategy;
These components, when operating in an integrated manner, generate value for the industry. This is especially true when observing assets that operate under high mechanical stress, such as gearboxes, bearings, electric motors, and fans.
In these cases, a subtle deviation in equipment behavior can quickly escalate into a serious failure, and it is precisely at this moment that smart maintenance makes all the difference.
By adopting these maintenance strategies, you ensure your industry will:
- Reduce unplanned downtime;
- Increase asset availability;
- Avoid financial losses;
- Optimize resources;
- Make faster, data-driven decisions;
- Promote a safer environment for professionals;
- Increase overall plant operational performance.
Case Study: Gearbox Failure Detection Leads to Million-Dollar Savings
In a critical application within the pulp and paper sector, Dynamox sensors and the analytics platform identified abnormal vibrations in a high-power gearbox. The alert indicated an imminent failure that, if left unaddressed, would have resulted in an emergency shutdown with a million-dollar financial impact.
The planned intervention, guided by continuous monitoring data, allowed for the component’s replacement before the breakdown, preventing losses on the production line and ensuring operational safety.
Approximately USD 144,000 were saved, and 225 tons of paper were preserved in production. Had the shutdown occurred and the Dynamox monitoring system not been active in the plant, the impact would have extended beyond financial losses, affecting the industry’s reliability indices, delivery deadlines, and raw material waste.
Check the graph below for the before and after of the intervention:
Curious to learn more? Check out the full case study here and see how Dynamox solutions can transform your plant’s performance.
Evolving Maintenance is a Strategic Decision
Throughout this article, we’ve seen that transitioning from reactive maintenance to preventive, predictive, and prescriptive approaches goes beyond operational improvement—it’s a true competitive advantage with high return on investment (ROI). You’ve learned the importance of:
- Defining criticality and inventorying your assets;
- Establishing clear KPIs (MTBF, MTTR, cost per asset);
- Implementing IoT sensors and analytics platforms for continuous monitoring;
- Adopting standardized processes, integrated communication, and digital record-keeping for all activities;
- Gradually evolving from corrective maintenance to data-driven and AI-powered models.
Now, it’s time to get hands-on and take your operations to the next level!
Talk to a Dynamox specialist and discover how our industrial maintenance solutions can reduce costs, increase asset availability and productivity, and ensure maximum operational safety.