Machinery Lubrication magazine published by Noria Corporation
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8 Reliable Plant Anniversary Edition | www . reliableplant.com MAINTENANCE First Seen in Reliable Plant Digital Magazine, March 2023 Karl Burne | GE Vernova Maintenance does not mean the same thing to all people. Operations managers, mainte- nance supervisors and reliability engineers can be heard struggling to come to a common understanding. Historical definitions of maintenance are quite different. According to some sources, "maintenance" was originally defined as the crime of unlawful abuse of legal procedures and attempts to influence courts. The other historical definition was providing money for operating or living expenses. As a term applied to machinery, main- tenance is only around 150 years old. Preventive maintenance as a literal phrase is even more recent. So, who invented this phrase? e earliest example I have located is from a Telephony journal entry from July 1909, which reads: "Two of the chief causes [of energy lost from transmission lines] are trees and broken insulators and ties. In an article published in Telephony April 3, 1909, Mr. H.P. Fairman outlines other causes, but classes them as possible causes for trouble and treated their elimination as preventative maintenance." Confusingly, Mr. Fairman did not have an author credit in the April 3 edition. He did have an article in the March 27 edition, volume 17, titled "Handling a Sleet Storm," and again in the May 8 edition, titled "Little ings and How to Find em." e May 8 article is about defect elimination or preventing big problems by resolving small ones. However, Fairman did not use the exact term "preven- tive maintenance." At this point, the earliest use of the term might have to be credited to the editors of Telephony, H.B. McMeal and Franklin H. Reed. e next example also comes from Tele- phony on June 10, 1911. It reads: "A recently developed specialty manu- factured by the company is the Addie fuse tester, which is a great help in maintenance work. A troubleman can test a whole bank of fuses in a moment, and it is so easy that he will never neglect to go over a can and see that ever y thing is perfect before he leaves it. is is the k ind of pre vent ive maintenance which is a real saver of money." is is a product placement and is not used in the context of a larger discussion about maintenance. In the June of 1914, an American trade publication called e Highway Contractor noted that: "Where unsatisfactory service has been given by bituminous roads in New York, the causes are to be found under one or more of the following heads:… absence of mainte- nance, especially preventive maintenance." PREVENTIVE MAINTENANCE WHO SAID IT FIRST? PREVENTIVE MAINTENANCE: An established routine of periodically inspecting equipment, noticing small issues and fixing them before they turn into major problems. A N N I V E R S A R Y E D I T I O N