What is routine maintenance?

Routine maintenance encompasses a range of ongoing maintenance tasks that help keep assets in good operating condition to prevent unexpected failures. Examples of such tasks include equipment inspections, oil changes and trash removal. These maintenance activities help businesses avoid costly emergency repairs, reduce equipment breakdowns and increase the safety, efficiency and reliability of systems and assets.

While routine maintenance is commonly associated with facility maintenance, machinery and other company assets, such as delivery vehicles and equipment, it can also apply to information technology (IT). Routine maintenance in IT involves regular tasks and procedures aimed at managing the smooth operation of an organization’s IT infrastructure, including software updates, hardware checks, backup management and network monitoring. 

Routine maintenance tasks are straightforward, requiring minimal equipment downtime or specialized skills from maintenance team members. These tasks help maintain day-to-day operational efficiency, prevent minor issues from escalating and create safer workplaces.

Routine maintenance tasks necessary to keep equipment and systems in good working order are typically included in a maintenance checklist. Common types of routine maintenance tasks include:

• Heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) filter replacement
• Electrical system inspections
• Light bulb changes
• Trash removal
• Equipment lubrication
• Oil changes
• Tire rotation

Routine maintenance workflows occur at regular intervals (such as daily, weekly or monthly) based on manufacturer recommendations or operational needs. There are three main types of routine maintenance that can help an organization determine its maintenance schedule, including:

• Usage-based maintenance
• Time-based maintenance
• Condition-based maintenance (CBM)

Usage-based maintenance is when the usage metrics of an asset determine the maintenance schedule. This type of maintenance uses an asset’s average use or exposure to environmental conditions to forecast a due date for future inspection or work by the maintenance department. For example, a delivery vehicle is scheduled for an oil change for every thousand miles driven.

Calendar- or time-based preventive maintenance occurs at scheduled time intervals. For organizations that use this type of maintenance, a work order for the routine task is set for a particular due date in advance. For instance, a factory might schedule a maintenance technician to complete belt maintenance weekly to keep the machinery operating at peak production levels.

Condition-based maintenance (CBM) is a preventive maintenance strategy that relies on the monitoring of assets or equipment to determine when maintenance work is necessary. CBM involves the use of sensors and other monitoring equipment to collect data on the performance of equipment. By using algorithms, machine learning and AI, the collected data is analyzed to identify patterns and anomalies that might indicate a maintenance issue or equipment failure.

A routine maintenance plan offers several benefits across industries and applications, including:

• Cost savings
• Reduced downtime
• Improved safety
• Reliability 
• Enhanced efficiency

A routine maintenance program requires regular investment but often turns out to be less costly than a reactive maintenance or emergency maintenance strategy. Emergency repairs can be costly, sometimes involving expedited parts or overtime labor. Regular maintenance and early detection of problems allow for more cost-effective repairs and prevent major damage.

Consistent maintenance also helps ensure assets operate smoothly, leading to fewer operational disruptions. Less downtime helps businesses maintain productivity and reduce costly equipment downtime.

Regular inspection and upkeep help identify potential safety hazards. This structure protects workers, machine operators and users from accidents and injuries that might result from a faulty piece of equipment or system failures. 

Assets that are consistently maintained are more reliable, providing steady performance with less worry of sudden malfunctions. Reliability is critical in industries where unplanned downtime or failure can lead to significant operational disruptions or financial losses. Reliability in business also improves product quality and increases customer satisfaction and retention.

Well-maintained equipment and systems tend to operate at peak efficiency. Clean, properly functioning systems reduce operational costs—using less energy and lower fuel consumption—and have a longer lifespan and higher resale value.

Routine maintenance is a proactive maintenance strategy, which is when an organization does maintenance on assets before they break. Other proactive maintenance strategies include planned maintenance, preventive maintenance, predictive maintenance and reliability-centered maintenance. These strategies are similar to but still distinct from routine maintenance:

Planned maintenance is the identification and delineation of maintenance tasks and resources, such as tools and spare parts, necessary for the upkeep, repair or replacement of an asset. Planned maintenance tasks are potentially more complex than routine maintenance tasks and might require more downtime, specialized skills or detailed inspections. While the tasks are planned based on manufacturer recommendations, equipment age, usage patterns or data analysis, the timing can be infrequent.

Preventive or preventative maintenance is the act of completing regularly scheduled maintenance activities to help prevent unexpected breakdowns in the future. While routine maintenance is about keeping things running smoothly, preventive maintenance is about anticipating and addressing potential issues before they lead to failures.

Predictive maintenance builds on condition-based maintenance to optimize the performance and lifespan of equipment by continually assessing its health in real time. Instead of following a fixed schedule, predictive maintenance relies on data and analytics to anticipate when maintenance should be completed. In contrast, routine maintenance consists of regular, scheduled tasks that don’t necessarily consider current condition.

Reliability centered maintenance (RCM) is a customized maintenance process with the goal of maximizing equipment uptime while reducing the need to replace assets, thus reducing maintenance costs. While routine maintenance is about regular upkeep, RCM is about optimizing maintenance strategies based on reliability analysis and the criticality of equipment failures.

Many businesses use a computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) to manage their maintenance strategies, including routine maintenance.

A CMMS is software that centralizes maintenance data and information and helps streamline the otherwise time-consuming processes of maintenance operations. The main purpose of CMMS software is to schedule maintenance tasks and manage maintenance proactively, including functions such as work order management, resource and labor monitoring, and reporting, analysis and auditing.

A CMMS is a part of an organization’s enterprise asset management (EAM). An EAM is the combination of software, systems and services that maintain and control operational assets and equipment. The aim of EAM is to optimize the quality of assets throughout their lifecycle, increase productive uptime and reduce operational costs.