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Trend Report| 15The history of maintenance is also the history of culture andan allegory to the industry's conception and philosophy.Effective and efficient maintenance is, more than ever, vitalfor development, particularly in times of financial crises andreduced turnover, increasing costs for energy, commoditiesand labour.Today, Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul (MRO) costsmore than € 1,500 bn per year in the EU alone, andmore than € 7,000 bn worldwide. Over 50 million jobsare directly related to MRO, and 150 million jobs areindirectly related. However, requirements for MRO areincreasing and, especially in times of financial crisisand reduced budgets, are difficult to meet. Laws aretightening the scope to respond to these requirements,as well as meeting customers’ demands, incorporatingnew technologies, and considering economic and ecologicnecessities. However, modern industry would not be ableto work efficiently without up-to-the-minute and innovativemethods of maintaining tools and equipment.The early years of industry − maintenance byaccidentIn the early stages of industrial development, breakdownswere commonplace due to the means of production and,consequently, down-times were high.The symbol of early maintenance was “the man with theoil can”. And, beside this basic service, one simply had torepair the damage as it occurred. There were no monitoringsystems available at that time, and the analysis of probabilityof failure was in the early developmental stages.The transformation of failure based on preventivemaintenance began with traffic engineering; initially from therailways, and later with aviation technology. The immediatedanger to human life and the difficulties encountered on theway to carry out maintenance work were the driving forcesin the development of preventive maintenance.Prevention is better than a cure − preventivemaintenanceThe reorientation of preventive maintenance in the industrydid not start in Europe or the US, but in post-war Japan.In an exemplary manner, industrial production wastransformed after World War II. The simple concept wasto follow manufacturers’ recommendations about thecontrolled care and maintenance of machines and devices,which was not so usual in the 1950s. It was part of theJapanese Kaizen philosophy, which means (in this context)“continuous improvement toward the better”.Looking into the crystal ball − predictivemaintenanceBy the 1960s, increasing competitive pressure led to asteady improvement and continuity of production plants.Consequently, the reliability of equipment and the probabilityof error intervals became predictable, depending on loadand production time. This knowledge led to the increasingquality standards of used materials and manufacturingprocesses. Predictive maintenance was not able toforesee occurrences caused by incidence or failure butthis approach led to distinct statistical knowledge, whichwas reused by modern technology and software.at work | no. 2/09