This is a modern concept having excellent future prospects. Maintenance is more relevant with palnt and machinery of mechanical design having more number of moving parts. Development of electronics has enabled modern machines and plants with less number of moving parts of mechanical design. Wherever moving parts are less wear and tear is less. Hence in such machines requirement of maintenance is reduced. Preventive maintenance is expensive in two ways for stocking maintenance inventory and for carrying out inspection and servicing. Breakdown maintenance also costs money in two ways for corrective maintenance and loss due to interruption of production.
The cost of maintenance either corrective or preventive can be reduced, only if we can predict future failure before hand and carry out appropriate preventive measures. It will avoid loss of production and also prevent stocking of unnecessary inventory for longer duration. This is the genesis of the concept of predicative maintenance. Owing to technological advancement, more and more test equipment are now available to measure a plant performance in situ. There is no need of shutting down the plant. The required materials are arranged just in time to carry out servicing. This is similar to the concept of screening the human body to locate the diseased defective cells organs for diagnosis. With the help of proper test equipment the conditions of the vital parts of machinery and plants are assessed. By this process it is now possible even to extend the life of machinery and plant and increase time intervals between successive servicing and overhaul.