Air Force asset management: preventive versus reactive work

Abstract

To combat reactive maintenance and the “run-to-failure” asset management model, the U.S. Air Force has taken steps to ensure facility condition assessment tracking and asset service life monitoring. The purpose of this study is to investigate how effectively the Air Force has embraced the sustainment of assets and to determine if such trends can be observed at the base level. To do this, a study of the Air Force’s overall spending is analyzed, comparing the amount of funds requested to support asset preservation versus asset restoration over the last four years. A hierarchical linear analysis is then accomplished for a case study of five bases for fiscal years 2010 to mid-2017. This has determined the possible effects of preventive maintenance on reactive maintenance and repair work orders. Results of the macro-study reveal that the percentage of total funds requested for sustainment projects has increased since 2013. In the fiscal year (FY) 2013, only 10% of the total requested funds were assigned to sustainment projects. By the FY 2017, sustainment funds requested made up 36% of the total. Though the transitioning nature of asset management, project-type descriptions, and the continued optimization of the scoring model are factors to consider, it appears that asset sustainment has become more prevalent. The results of the case study suggest that there is little correlation between preventive maintenance and corrective maintenance trends. More data as preventive asset management integrates into practice may reveal different results, but at this stage, preventive maintenance has neither consistently increased or appear to have effected reactive maintenance frequency, labor hours, or cost.