What is corrective maintenance?
Corrective maintenance in the building industry includes all operations carried out to rectify and repair faults in systems and equipment. It aims to restore normal operation to installations affected by malfunctions. In the building context, this can involve a wide range of equipment, from heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems to electrical and plumbing installations, not to mention the structures themselves.
There are three main levels of maintenance:
- Predictive maintenance, which seeks to avoid breakdowns before they occur,
- Corrective maintenance, which repairs,
- And preventive maintenance, or the programming of maintenance activities to avoid the occurrence of possible failures.
La maintenance corrective des bâtiments englobe une variété de travaux visant à maintenir et améliorer l'état physique et fonctionnel des équipements et systèmes techniques du bâtiment. Cela inclut non seulement la réparation et la rénovation, mais aussi le dépannage d’installations, la réparation de composants structurels ou le remplacement d’équipements défectueux ou la mise en conformité pour atteindre le niveau requis des normes de sécurité.
Bien qu’inévitable dans certains cas, la maintenance corrective peut entraîner des coûts élevés et des interruptions d’activité. Par conséquent, elle doit idéalement être intégrée dans un plan de maintenance plus large, comprenant des stratégies préventives et prédictives.
Corrective Maintenance and Building Management
The issue of maintenance in large buildings is particularly sensitive. Given the volume of space and the amount of equipment installed, the stakes are high. The aim is to avoid the occurrence of faults and malfunctions that can cause major disruption to occupants' activities, and even bring some of them to a standstill.
Maintenance plans for large buildings are designed with this in mind. As part of their inspection and maintenance planning, these plans include the scheduling of corrective maintenance operations: repairing weakened equipment before it breaks down is the best way of avoiding breakdowns.
In this way, a well-structured maintenance plan can contribute to significant savings.
Predictive and corrective maintenance: an effective complement
Predictive and corrective maintenance are two essential pillars of building management, complementing each other to guarantee equipment reliability and availability.
While corrective maintenance intervenes to resolve problems that have already been identified, predictive maintenance anticipates potential failures by analysing data in real-time.
By combining these two approaches, building managers can optimise their maintenance operations, reducing unplanned downtime through planned and targeted interventions.
The seamless integration of predictive and corrective maintenance helps to keep buildings running smoothly while minimising corrective maintenance operations and hence unforeseen expenses.