Slack, Chambers and Johnston (2010, p. 588) highlight maintenance as one of the approaches to failure prevention. Notably, preventive maintenance (PM) is mentioned as one of the approaches to maintenance. Whilst working as a management trainee at the Ministry of Health, I was privy to attend a facilities management training on PM as well as witness PM conducted for hospital generators. As Slack, Chambers and Johnston (p.589) point out, PM seeks to reduce the possibility of failure by conducting servicing of facilities at regular planned intervals. If for example, the hospital generator is not serviced regularly, it could result in failure at a time when surgical operations are being performed which could result in the death of a patient. In this sense, PM is a matter of life and death.

Barker et al. (2005) illustrate the example of PM in the telecommunications industry. Previously, PM was not given the high priority it deserved but with the increasing demand for the Internet and the introduction of new wireless technologies, PM in this industry is now at the forefront of agendas. Lucent Technologies has therefore positioned itself as a world leader in communication services, and has consistently promoted PM techniques. Further, Barker et al. (2005) highlight the PM portfolio of Lucent Worldwide Services where analysis is performed for both wired and wireless networks. Additionally, PM helps service providers retain higher revenues by enabling the efficient deployment of resources, allows managers to review the operations to make more informed decisions and enables engineers to solves problems more quickly.

Question

In light of the preceding, do you believe that there are limitations to the role of PM or do you think that other maintenance approaches can be more effective in the long run?