CEM Maintenance & Repair Strategies 4 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: Which type of maintenance is performed after a failure has already occurred to restore equipment to operational status?
- Preventive maintenance
- Predictive maintenance
- Corrective maintenance (Correct answer)
- Condition-based maintenance
Correct answer: Corrective maintenance
Corrective maintenance, also called breakdown or reactive maintenance, is performed after a failure to return equipment to its functional state.
Question 2: Oil analysis programs in heavy equipment fleets primarily help managers:
- Determine fuel efficiency trends
- Detect internal component wear and contamination before failure (Correct answer)
- Schedule operator shift changes
- Calculate insurance premiums
Correct answer: Detect internal component wear and contamination before failure
Oil sampling and laboratory analysis reveal elevated metal particles and contaminants that indicate wear in engines, transmissions, or hydraulic systems before catastrophic failure.
Question 3: A Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS) is BEST used to:
- Replace the need for trained maintenance technicians
- Track work orders, maintenance history, and parts inventory in a centralized database (Correct answer)
- Automatically repair equipment without human intervention
- Generate financial statements for equipment depreciation
Correct answer: Track work orders, maintenance history, and parts inventory in a centralized database
A CMMS centralizes maintenance records, schedules work orders, and manages parts inventory to improve maintenance planning and accountability.
Question 4: The economic life of a piece of equipment ends when:
- The equipment reaches a specific age, such as 10 years
- Annual ownership and operating costs exceed those of a replacement unit (Correct answer)
- The equipment requires its first major repair
- The manufacturer discontinues parts production
Correct answer: Annual ownership and operating costs exceed those of a replacement unit
Economic life ends at the point where it costs more to keep the existing machine running than to replace it with a newer, more cost-effective alternative.
Question 5: When prioritizing maintenance work orders, which equipment should receive the HIGHEST priority?
- Equipment with the highest original purchase price
- Equipment that is on the critical path of active production operations (Correct answer)
- Equipment that has been in service the longest
- Equipment with the most recent service history
Correct answer: Equipment that is on the critical path of active production operations
Equipment on the critical path directly impacts production output, so its downtime has the greatest operational and financial consequences.
Question 6: In a PM program, 'PM compliance rate' measures:
- The percentage of repairs completed within budget
- The percentage of scheduled preventive maintenance tasks completed on time (Correct answer)
- How often equipment passes safety inspections
- The ratio of preventive to corrective maintenance costs
Correct answer: The percentage of scheduled preventive maintenance tasks completed on time
PM compliance rate tracks how consistently the maintenance team executes scheduled preventive tasks as planned, reflecting discipline and program effectiveness.
Question 7: An equipment manager discovers that a crane has been operating with a known structural crack for two weeks. The FIRST action should be:
- Document the crack and schedule repair for next month
- Immediately remove the crane from service and assess the structural integrity (Correct answer)
- Increase inspection frequency to daily while continuing operations
- Notify the manufacturer and wait for their response before acting
Correct answer: Immediately remove the crane from service and assess the structural integrity
A structural defect on lifting equipment creates an immediate safety hazard; the crane must be taken out of service immediately to prevent catastrophic failure.
CEM Maintenance & Repair Strategies 4
Which type of maintenance is performed after a failure has already occurred to restore equipment to operational status?