Maintenance task to identify, isolate, and rectify a fault
Inflight maintenance checklist procedure before starting waste collection system repair on board the Atlantis shuttle.
Corrective maintenance is a maintenance task performed to identify, isolate, and rectify a fault so that the failed equipment, machine, or system can be restored to an operational condition within the tolerances or limits established for in-service operations.[1]
Definition
A French official standard defines "corrective maintenance" as maintenance which is carried out after failure detection and is aimed at restoring an asset to a condition in which it can perform its intended function (NF EN 13306 X 60-319 standard, June 2010).[2]
Corrective maintenance can be subdivided into "immediate corrective maintenance" (in which work starts immediately after a failure) and "deferred corrective maintenance" (in which work is delayed in conformance to a given set of maintenance rules).
Sometimes, particularly in French-speaking countries, a distinction is made between curative maintenance and regular corrective maintenance. While the former is a larger scale procedure to permanently solve the problem (e.g. by replacing the defective mechanism), the latter only fixes the acute issue (e.g. only repairing or replacing an individual component) and might be a more temporary solution.
Standards
The technical standards concerning corrective maintenance are set by IEC 60050 chapter 191 °Dependability and quality of service"[3]
The decision to choose corrective maintenance as a method of maintenance is a decision depending on several factors as the cost of downtime, reliability characteristics and redundancy of assets.[5]
Methods
The steps of corrective maintenance are, following failure, diagnosis – elimination of the part, causing the failure – ordering the replacement – replacement of the part – test of function and finally the continuation of use.
The basic form of corrective maintenance is a step-by-step procedure. The object's failure triggers the steps. Modern technologies as the use of Industry 4.0 features reduce the inherent drawbacks of corrective maintenance.[6] by e.g. providing device history, fault patterns, repair advice or availability of spare parts.
