GlossaryMaintenance

What is corrective maintenance?

Also known as: reactive maintenance, breakdown maintenance, run to failure, repair.

Definition

Corrective maintenance restores an asset to working order after a fault or failure has been found — repair rather than prevention.

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Corrective maintenance is work done to fix a problem: a breakdown, a fault found during an inspection, or a defect reported by a user. When it follows an unexpected failure it is often called reactive or breakdown maintenance. When it is a deliberate choice for cheap, non-critical items it is called run-to-failure.

Why it matters

Some corrective work is unavoidable, and for low-value, easily replaced items it can be the cheapest strategy. But when critical equipment runs to failure, the true cost includes downtime, rush parts, overtime and sometimes damage to other components or safety incidents.

Planned vs unplanned corrective work

A fault found during a preventive inspection and fixed at a convenient time is corrective but planned — much better than the same fault causing a breakdown mid-shift.

Example
A PM inspection finds a worn conveyor belt; a corrective work order replaces it during Saturday downtime instead of waiting for it to snap on Tuesday.

In Asetavo

Corrective jobs are work orders linked to the asset, with status, cost and parts, feeding its service history.

From definition to done

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