TL;DR

There are a lot of acronyms, like most fields, and ways of considering Maintenance. The most common is 'PM' meaning 'Preventative Maintenance'.

This document looks at all the common ones we know about and how to achieve them in MCe. If you know of others we've excluded, let us know so we can see whether we should put them in here and instructions for how to achieve them.

Details

Our system offers many options for automations. Within the industry there are several terms used for maintenance and/or 'Preventative' maintenance. At one level, the terms don't matter, but at another level, looking through the different terms can help you think through your options and not use a one size fits all solution. Thinking about the different acronyms can help you think about whether you are managing your maintenance properly. Maybe you've never considered RTF (see below) to be a valid strategy, or maybe you use RTF as your default strategy and you've bought our software because you want to do it differently most of the time.

The key abbreviations:

TBM Time based Maintenance

With intervals for type of work(s). e.g. Every 10 days, every 10 business days. Schedules maintenance tasks at fixed (or more or less fixed) time intervals, such as hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, or annually, based on manufacturer recommendations or historical data, regardless of the equipment’s actual condition. Sometimes this is 'required' such as oil changes to maintain warrantee, or legally proscribed. This approach is effective for equipment with predictable wear and tear, such as HVAC systems, elevators, and filters, and is commonly used in industries requiring regulatory compliance, it is also used for purposes such as office/washroom cleaning.

UBM Usage based Maintenance

Such as miles/kilometers, hours, production on/off cycles. MCe uses 'meters' to manage UBM. Performs maintenance based on actual equipment usage, such as operating hours, production cycles, or mileage/kilometrage, triggering tasks when predefined thresholds are reached. It is particularly useful for vehicles, industrial machinery, and construction equipment where usage varies significantly but is tracked.

Some maintenance may have TBM and UBM - consider '6 years or 100,000km whichever comes first'

Condition based:

CBM current condition

Watching a temperature sensor and if it reaches some preset threshold schedule maintenance, with perhaps a second threshold where the Automation will send a command to an IoT or similar device to shut the equipment down. Noting that MCe is not designed to be 'real time' there will be delays and so it should not be used as the 1st line of defense in a safety or life threatening or critical failure. But it can be used to schedule maintenance once the emergency has been dealt with and it can be a backup for other systems 'just in case.'

CBrM rate of deterioration

Watching a temperature sensor over time and if it starts to climb too quickly, triggers even before hitting the threshold

PdM, Predictive Maintenance:

Monitoring vibration or thermal hotspots in bearings or checking for thermal hotspots in electrical systems. PdM is an advanced form of preventive maintenance that uses real-time data from sensors, IoT devices, and machine learning algorithms to forecast equipment failures before they happen. PdM can leverage AI-driven analytics to detect anomalies and predict failure patterns, enabling maintenance to be performed at the optimal time, thus minimizing unnecessary interventions and maximizing asset uptime. PdM is especially valuable for high-value or mission-critical assets in industries like aerospace, oil and gas, and smart manufacturing. But it can also be valuable in any situation where you have access to data that can be programmed once to be watched and then it just runs on its own, this could be a temperature sensor where when the temperature 'continues to rise' reaching or exceeding thresholds and those temperature readings are automatically (such as IoT) or in some other easily received method.

PM: Preventative maintenance

In the EAM/CMMS world, PM gets the major spotlight with most EAM and CMMS only offering this one or two size fits all. But don't restrict your thinking to just 'time' or 'meter' based maintenance, over time - optimize your maintenance strategy.

Depending on the organization, anything other than above, or at least a large overlap with the ones above. It is ia broad category encompassing strategies designed to anticipate and prevent future failures, including TBM and Predictive Maintenance (PdM). PM aims to reduce downtime and improve equipment reliability by performing maintenance before failures occur.

RM: Reactive maintenance.

AKA: Breakdown Maintenance (BM), Emergency Maintenance (EM)

Wait for something to break, then fix it. Many organizations consider a high percentage of RM to be 'bad' to 'extremely bad', but it really depends on where and how this happens, sometimes reactive is 'fine'. The goal is to optimize when you want/need/have Preventative, Legislative and Reactive.

RTF: Run to failure

 Similar to RM, but this means really 'no maintenance', when it breaks, throw it away and replace it.

Reliability-Centered Maintenance (RCM), Risk based Maintenance (RBM)

Integrating PdM within frameworks like Reliability-Centered Maintenance (RCM) or Risk-Based Maintenance (RBM) can further enhance ROI by prioritizing maintenance efforts on the most critical assets.

Further discussion

While TBM and UBM are foundational strategies, PdM offers higher cost efficiency by reducing maintenance costs and cutting facility downtime when well-implemented. However, PdM often requires significant upfront investment in sensors, data infrastructure, and analytics capabilities.

The maintenance strategy where equipment is operated until it fails and then replaced is called Run-to-Failure (RTF) maintenance. It is a deliberate, planned approach—often used for non-critical, low-cost, or easily replaceable assets—essentially where the cost of preventive maintenance exceeds the cost of replacement. RTF is also known as a type of reactive or breakdown maintenance when applied intentionally and with preparation. Sometimes this is facilitated by keeping spares ready to swap in.

General reactive maintenance is commonly referred to as Reactive Maintenance (RM), though it is often used as an umbrella term without a universally standardized acronym. It encompasses other terminology like Breakdown Maintenance (BM), Emergency Maintenance (EM), and Run-to-Failure (RTF). The term "reactive maintenance" itself is widely recognized and used in industry literature, sometimes interchangeably with "corrective maintenance," though corrective maintenance can also refer to planned fixes after a failure is identified. As a strategy this can be effective, as a mistake this can be expensive.

When you carry complex parts that, when they break down in an asset - you replace it with a spare, and then the removed part is repaired to get it ready for the next time it is needed, typically by a different asset, this strategy is commonly known as something similar to rotatable spares management or rotating parts. It involves replacing a failed component with a spare unit to quickly restore equipment functionality, while the removed part is sent for repair or overhaul to be reused later. This approach is widely used in industries like aviation, defense, and heavy manufacturing, especially with Line-Replaceable Units (LRUs). It allows you to get up and running very quickly and then take your time in a more efficient way to perform the repair or the rotating part.

 The choice of maintenance strategy depends on factors such as asset criticality, usage patterns, failure modes, and available technology. In most companies, you will adopt several strategies as appropriate.