Defining Precision Maintenance

Ask 10 people to tell you what Precision Maintenance means. While some will use a few of the same words or give a few similar examples of what they think Precision Maintenance is you are going to get 10 different answers.

While few would argue the importance of Precision Maintenance, I find it interesting that in the world that offers Certifications in Asset Management and Equipment Reliability (CRE, CRL, CMRP) you won’t find an agreed-on definition of what Precision Maintenance means.

Search the web for a Precision Maintenance Definition and you will get few “Maintenance & Reliability” lists of terms and definitions but I couldn’t find a single 1 that attempted to define Precision Maintenance. Should you take the time to actually do this please be patient and understand today’s web if focused more on advertising. You will have surf to through several pages advertising listing tons of companies offering Precision Maintenance Services and Precision Maintenance Training but not one of these apparently thought it was important enough to define what we mean when we use the words Precision Maintenance together.

Coming from the world of RCM (Reliability Centered Maintenance) and having written a book on the subject, (Reliability Centered Maintenance Using RCM Blitz™) I was a bit surprised and disappointed to discover that while I addressed the importance of Precision Maintenance in the book, I never came out and defined what it means.

In looking to define a term, it always helps to pay a visit to Merriam-Webster. I struck out here again. The world standard for English dictionaries didn’t include Precision Maintenance. They do however have very well defined terms for the words Precision and Maintenance.

Precision – the degree of refinement with which an operation is performed or a measurement stated.

Maintenance – the act of maintaining: the state of being maintained.

If it were as easy as combining the two one might say that Precision Maintenance is the act of maintaining to a specific degree or measure. I happen to believe it needs to be refined a bit more to make sense.

Going back to the world of Reliability Centered Maintenance, the objective of the maintenance strategy that comes from performing a RCM analysis is to achieve the inherent designed reliability of the equipment or asset you are analyzing. Below is the definition of what I believe Precision Means

Precision Maintenance – The degree of accuracy required in maintaining an asset/component/part in a way that it continuously achieves its inherent designed reliability.

So now we have it. Of course, I expect the community to read it, digest it and maybe eve help further define it.

As usual sharing this post and more important your comments are always welcome!

Doug Plucknette, Principal & World-Wide RCM Discipline Leader at Allied Reliability Group is a Reliability Engineering Consultant and Published Author of “Reliability Centered Maintenance using RCM Blitz™ and Clean, Green and Reliable. Having created the RCM Blitz™ Methodology he has been an RCM Practitioner and Trainer for over 20 years. Doug resides in Spencerport, NY and can be reached at plucknetted@alliedreliability.com