Maintenance Avoidance and Maintenance Reduction

ABSTRACT Maintenance is performed to restore a system's inherent reliability. However, reliability is not enough: a maintenance task must “pay for itself‘ in dollars or readiness. This applies to all types of maintenance: corrective, preventive, and alterative. We can reduce corrective maintenance costs through preventive and alterative maintenance. We can reduce preventive maintenance costs by eliminating inapplicable and ineffecitve tasks. We must weigh alterative maintenance costs against the value of improved readiness and cost‐avoidance of future corrective maintenance. The U. S. Navy is improving alterative maintenance by engineering for reduced maintenance (ERM). This process corrects the root cause of some high‐cost items by replacing the system, component, or coating with an improved design or material. It overcomes the limit of preventive maintenance: higher levels of inherent reliability require design improvement. The U. S. Navy is improving preventive maintenance through condition‐based maintenance (CBM). The Navy's CBM initiative encompasses three parallel efforts: rules (improving maintenance requirements and plans), tools (using computer and diagnostic technology to facilitate maintenance decision‐making), and schools (educating all levels of maintenance decision‐makers in reliability and condition‐based maintenance engineering principles). This paper addresses how the U. S. Navy surface ship community plans to avoid inapplicable and ineffective maintenance and reduce maintenance costs without sacrificing reliability.