Every maintenance team sits somewhere on a spectrum between two extremes: fix things only when they break (reactive), or service everything on a schedule to stop them breaking (planned preventive). Neither extreme is right. The art of good facilities management is finding the balance — and then shifting it deliberately toward planned work over time.
What reactive maintenance really costs
Reactive maintenance looks cheap because you only spend when something fails. But the headline labour cost hides a tail of expensive consequences: emergency call-out premiums, secondary damage when a small fault escalates, downtime and disruption to occupants, and the compliance risk of relying on equipment failing to tell you it needs attention. A purely reactive regime also makes budgeting impossible — costs arrive unpredictably, always at the worst time.
There is a subtler cost too. Reactive teams live in a permanent state of firefighting, which leaves no capacity to improve. The busier they are, the less time they have to prevent the next failure, and the cycle reinforces itself.
What planned preventive maintenance delivers
Planned preventive maintenance (PPM) services and inspects equipment on a schedule, catching wear before it becomes failure. It costs more in scheduled labour, but it buys predictability, longer asset life, fewer emergencies, and — critically — the records that demonstrate statutory compliance. You control the timing, so work happens during planned windows rather than at 4pm on a Friday.
PPM is not about servicing everything as often as possible, though. Over-maintenance wastes money and can even introduce faults (every intervention carries a small risk). The goal is the right task at the right frequency for each asset, which is exactly what standards like SFG20 are designed to define.
Why the answer is a blend
No regime eliminates failure. Even immaculately maintained equipment fails occasionally, and some low-criticality assets genuinely are cheaper to run to failure. So every sensible regime is a blend: a strong PPM core for critical and statutory assets, with reactive cover for genuine breakdowns and for low-risk items where planned servicing would not pay back.
The question is not "reactive or planned?" but "where should each asset sit, and how do we move the balance toward planned over time?" Criticality is the deciding factor: the more a failure would cost in safety, compliance, or disruption, the more it belongs in the planned regime.
How to shift the balance toward planned
- Build an accurate asset register. You cannot plan maintenance for assets you do not know you have. Start by knowing what is installed and where.
- Prioritise by criticality. Put life-safety and statutory assets — fire systems, lifts, pressure systems — firmly in the planned regime first.
- Use a recognised standard. Base task content and frequencies on SFG20 rather than guesswork, and adjust for each asset's condition and duty.
- Capture the knowledge to do the work. A PPM schedule tells you a task is due; the asset's O&M documentation tells you how to do it. Make both accessible.
- Learn from reactive work. Every breakdown is data. Recurring failures are candidates to move into the planned regime.
The role of accessible documentation
Both reactive and planned maintenance depend on information. Reactive work needs it fast, under pressure, in front of a fault. Planned work needs it to define the right tasks and to record that they were done. In both cases, if the documentation is buried, the regime suffers — engineers waste time hunting, tasks get skipped, and the records that prove compliance go missing.
This is the quiet enabler of a good maintenance balance: making your O&M documentation instantly searchable. With it, planned maintenance is easier to specify and evidence, and reactive work is faster and safer when it does occur. PM Assist sits alongside your CAFM system and equipment maintenance checklists to supply exactly that — the technical knowledge behind every task, one question away.
Conclusion
Reactive versus planned is not a binary choice but a balance to manage. Aim for a planned core that covers everything critical and statutory, reactive cover for genuine breakdowns and low-risk assets, and a deliberate drift toward planned work as you learn from failures. Underpin it all with accessible documentation, and you get a maintenance regime that is cheaper, safer, and far less stressful to run.
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