MAINTENANCE AVOIDANCE AND MAINTENANCE REDUCTION

Maintenance is performed to restore a system's inherent reliability. H owever, reliability is not enough: a maintenance task must ''pay for i tself'' in dollars or readiness. This applies to all types of maintena nce: corrective, preventive, and alterative. We can reduce corrective maintenance costs through preventive and alterative maintenance. We ca n reduce preventive maintenance costs by eliminating inapplicable and ineffecitve tasks. We must weigh alterative maintenance costs against the value of improved readiness and cost-avoidance of future correctiv e maintenance. The U.S. Navy is improving alterative maintenance by en gineering for reduced maintenance (ERM). This process corrects the roo t cause of some high-cost items by replacing the system, component, or coating with an improved design or material. It overcomes the limit o f preventive maintenance: higher levels of inherent reliability requir e design improvement. The U.S. Navy is improving preventive maintenanc e through condition-based maintenance (CBM). The Navy's CBM initiative encompasses three parallel efforts: rules (improving maintenance requ irements and plans), tools (using computer and diagnostic technology t o facilitate maintenance decision-making), and schools (educating all levels of maintenance decision-makers in reliability and condition-bas ed maintenance engineering principles). This paper addresses how the U .S. Navy surface ship community plans to avoid inapplicable and ineffe ctive maintenance and reduce maintenance costs without sacrificing rel iability.