Breakdown Maintenance
Breakdown maintenance is repair work performed after an asset has failed and can no longer perform its required function.
What this term means in maintenance
Breakdown maintenance is repair work performed after an asset has failed and can no longer perform its required function.
What happens during breakdown maintenance
Breakdown maintenance starts after functional failure. The immediate objective is to make the equipment safe, diagnose the problem, restore operation, and control the risk of recurrence.
Information worth recording
- Failure date and time
- Asset condition and symptoms
- Production impact
- Downtime
- Failure and cause codes
- Action taken
- Parts replaced
- Labor used
- Test results
- Follow-up corrective action
Practical example
A transfer pump stops during production because its motor overload trips. Maintenance isolates the equipment, finds a seized bearing, replaces the bearing, aligns the coupling, tests the pump, and records the downtime and repair details.
When breakdown maintenance may be acceptable
Run-to-failure can be reasonable for low-cost, non-critical items where failure is safe, easily detected, and quickly recoverable. It is not suitable when failure creates major safety, quality, environmental, or production consequences.
Common mistake
Restoring operation without recording the likely cause and follow-up action allows repeat failures to become normal.
How this term differs
Breakdown Maintenance is repair that begins after the asset has lost its required function. It is related to Reactive Maintenance, Corrective Maintenance, and Preventive Maintenance, but these terms describe different records, measures, roles, strategies, or decisions and should not be used interchangeably.
Related concepts
Related maintenance terms
Keep exploring connected CMMS, reliability, and maintenance planning terms.
Corrective Maintenance
Corrective maintenance is work performed to restore an asset after a defect, abnormal condition, or failure has been identified.
Mean Time to Repair
Mean Time to Repair, or MTTR, is the average time required to restore a repairable asset after failure.
Emergency Maintenance
Emergency maintenance is immediate work required to control an unacceptable safety, environmental, quality, compliance, or production consequence.
Glossary FAQs
- Is breakdown maintenance the same as run-to-failure?
Run-to-failure is a deliberate strategy for selected assets. Breakdown maintenance is the repair work performed after failure, whether planned as a strategy or not.
- What should be recorded after a breakdown?
Record symptoms, failure time, downtime, cause, action taken, parts, labor, tests, and follow-up actions.
- When is breakdown maintenance unsuitable?
It is unsuitable when failure creates unacceptable safety, environmental, quality, compliance, or production consequences.