Most maintenance professionals have a good understanding of Equipment Maintenance. Specifically, the different types of maintenance, ie
Breakdown, Preventive, Predictive and Proactive.
To refresh,
- Breakdown – the lowest level of maintenance where no attention is provided. When it breaks down, you fix it. Most of the time, this is urgent and costly, but sometimes it is OK.
- Preventive – the next and most common level of maintenance where we undertake time or calendar-based activities that will hopefully prevent a breakdown. It is largely effective, but sometimes results in unnecessary work being done.
- Predictive – a more advanced form of maintenance where we are continuously monitoring condition and looking for signs of an upcoming failure. Once the signs of failure appear we can then plan some corrective action to prevent the failure.
- Proactive – the most advanced maintenance strategy where we are analysing the performance and design and looking for opportunities to eliminate failure and associated maintenance altogether.
And of course, we know that often the best maintenance program contains elements of all 4 of these types of maintenance.
Now let’s get personal! For me, I regularly ask myself, ‘How’s the Dave Cullen maintenance plan going?’ How am I going in the various aspects of my personal health, and what changes do I need to make to my maintenance plan? If I use the above maintenance types to draw a parallel, I might come up with something like this:
- Breakdown – Am I suffering failures that may have been preventable? eg strained muscles, sore back, constant colds, always tired, feeling stressed?
- Preventive – Do I do enough regular exercise? Am I getting an annual medical, skin checks, eye checks, blood tests, etc?
- Predictive – Am I looking / listening for the signs that I need an intervention? Am I eating too much crap or putting on weight? Perhaps a weekend away to maintain mental health, a break from the gym to refresh weary muscles, a bit more volunteering, do a dry July event, get involved in something like September or some other event which combines health with community contribution.
- Proactive – Do I know enough about my overall health situation, family history, common problems and prevention? Do I regularly research information that could help me or my family / friends? Am I managing myself and my situation, or are circumstances managing me?
In our day to day activities, are we adequately looking after ourselves?
So as we come up to Christmas and the warmer time of the year, what better way to reflect on life than to take stock, develop and then implement your own personal health and wellness maintenance plan?
David Cullen
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