What Does
Predictive Maintenance (PdM) Mean?
Predictive maintenance refers to the routine inspection of equipment, machines or materials to prevent a failure. It is a type of proactive maintenance that focuses on determining the potential root causes of machine or material failure, and dealing with those issues before problems occur.
Corrosionpedia Explains Predictive Maintenance (PdM)
Predictive maintenance activities involve the continuous or periodic monitoring and diagnosis of conditions for a given material or piece of equipment. This facilitates forecasting component degradation.
Predictive maintenance is dependent on the collection of historical data for the component being inspected. Present conditions of the equipment or material are then continuously compared to a historical baseline. This baseline is then used as a point of reference for system upsets.
For example, the amount of corrosion on an installed pipeline may be examined on a weekly basis for five years, after which daily inspections might be performed. Once corrosion rates increase to a level that historically are known to be close to failure, the pipeline might be replaced or reinforced.