How to Reduce Maintenance Costs

Key Takeaways:

• Using the right lubricants can slash maintenance costs by up to 30% a year.
• Most companies see increased business growth as a result of process automation.
• Using durable, manufacturer-approved replacement parts can reduce maintenance costs.

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No matter what industry you’re in, maintenance always comes at a cost—and often a steep one.

While that’s unlikely to change anytime soon, there are still many ways to reduce inefficiencies and uncover significant savings opportunities.

In this article, we’ll walk you through eight practical strategies to do just that.

By the time you’re done reading, you’ll be well-equipped to make smarter maintenance decisions and help your company save more.

Train Your Staff

It all starts with your team.

Your maintenance personnel should receive ongoing training in equipment handling, safety protocols, diagnostics, and emerging technologies.

The reasoning behind this is simple: well-trained staff can identify and resolve issues more quickly and accurately, reducing downtime and minimizing costly errors.

They are also less likely to damage assets due to improper use.

Training is particularly important today, as organizations struggle to find and retain skilled workers.

In fact, a 2024 survey by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers shows that 50% of companies find attracting and retaining talent the biggest challenge in improving upkeep processes.

This means now is the time to invest in your people, and it is especially true when it comes to new technologies.

Without proper training, workers may misuse or underutilize new machinery or software, resulting in inefficiencies or equipment damage and incurring unnecessary costs in the process.

Steven Lumley, Technical Manager at condition monitoring specialist WearCheck, agrees:

“The rate at which technology is advancing […] dictates that regular technical training is necessary, to ensure that staff members stay abreast of the latest techniques, and that they understand and implement the most efficient processes.”

Essentially, ongoing training helps teams adapt and stay current with changes, thereby reducing the costs associated with outsourcing or hiring.

It also ensures that your technicians make full and proper use of the tools available to them, boosting maintenance efficiency and maximizing ROI.

Prioritize Tasks Strategically

In asset-heavy environments, you can’t give equal attention to everything, nor should you.

That’s why it’s vital to have a system that ranks maintenance tasks based on factors like:

• Impact on operations
• Safety risks
• Asset age
• Urgency

This kind of prioritization helps focus your valuable resources on the most critical assets or issues, instead of wasting time and money on low-priority or non-essential work.

Not to mention that without it, you also risk creating a backlog of crucial tasks that should have been addressed earlier.

This is an expensive problem in itself.

Take California’s public universities as an example.

They offer a glimpse into what happens when key assets and facilities aren’t properly maintained.

Across the state, students, faculty, and staff are working and learning in aging buildings where HVAC systems, plumbing, electrical, and roofs are deteriorating or non-functional.

These issues often go unaddressed—not because they’re unimportant, but because they’re simply not prioritized by the state.

As a result, the deferred maintenance backlog has ballooned: $9.1 billion for the University of California and $8.3 billion for the California State University system as of the 2023–24 school year.

The longer those critical repairs are delayed, the more expensive and complex they become.

Inflation exacerbates the situation, driving up the prices of parts and the cost of skilled labor.

As Matt Gudorf, Assistant Vice Chancellor of Facilities Management at UC Irvine, explains:

This is what happens when priorities aren’t clear.

Without a focused strategy, you risk misallocating resources, allowing critical assets to degrade, and spending more in the long run.

However, keep in mind that prioritization is just one aspect of efficient, cost-effective maintenance planning.

It’s about what gets attention first, ranking tasks based on various factors to allocate resources more strategically.

But when maintenance happens is just as important.

Optimize the Maintenance Schedule

If you want to save money on maintenance, timing is crucial.

If you schedule maintenance too frequently, you waste resources.

However, if inspections and maintenance are not performed frequently enough, you’re at risk of costly breakdowns.

Therefore, the best approach is to create and regularly update a preventive maintenance schedule that factors in equipment usage, age, and failure history.

Some maintenance can also be done on a simple time-based schedule (i.e., daily, weekly, monthly, etc.).

You can see an example of both usage-based and time-based tasks below:

Usage-based maintenance is generally more efficient than time-based, as the latter often leads to unnecessary servicing.

That said, each maintenance strategy has its use.

Here’s a quick breakdown:

Reactive	for non-critical assets or equipment that’s cheap and easy to fix
Time-based	for seasonal equipment or those with fixed service intervals (as outlined in manufacturer guidelines)
Usage-based	for critical assets or machinery that wears according to use

Be sure to consider each of these approaches and leverage them strategically.

Ultimately, by rethinking and optimizing your maintenance schedule, you ensure you do just the right amount of upkeep for each asset.

This is the most effective way to prevent failures without overspending on unnecessary maintenance.

Monitor Your Assets

To effectively schedule maintenance, you need to understand and monitor the condition of your assets.

This can be achieved through:

• IoT sensors
• Manual inspections
• Performance monitoring software

Such tracking helps detect early signs of wear or failure, enabling timely interventions that minimize unplanned downtime, reduce repair costs, and extend the lifespan of assets.

This approach is known as condition-based maintenance.

In 2019, Sapura Brazil, a company specializing in subsea services, adopted condition-based maintenance for its Pipe Laying Support Vessels (PLSVs)—and it proved to be a smart move.

They used sensors to closely monitor the vessels’ propulsion equipment, much of which is located underwater and difficult to inspect manually.

The real-time sensor data was sent to the cloud, where specialists analyzed it to assess equipment health and plan maintenance only when necessary.

Sapura Head of Marine Asset Management, Fábio Gervasio, elaborates on the benefits of this method:

The key takeaway is this: If you want to cut maintenance costs, don’t rely on guesswork.

You need accurate, real-time insights into your assets to intervene at just the right time, every single time.

Analyze Data to Identify Opportunities

In addition to real-time asset condition data, it’s important to analyze historical information from upkeep activities, asset performance, and failures.

This helps uncover trends, identify root causes, and reveal cost-saving opportunities.

In other words, data-driven insights:

• Focus efforts on improvements that deliver the greatest return on investment
• Enable more effective long-term maintenance strategies
• Eliminate recurring issues

For example, analyzing planned versus unplanned maintenance costs over time highlights how much is being spent on scheduled upkeep versus emergency repairs:

This can expose areas of excessive reactive spending and help justify investments in preventive maintenance programs.

It can also reveal that despite scheduling efforts, unexpected breakdowns still occur, signaling inefficiencies in current processes.

Robert Peffen, Director of Asset Performance Excellence at Implementation Engineers, points out that such inefficiencies are among the most common sources of maintenance overspending.

To do that, you need data.

Track what’s being done, when, why, and what went wrong.

Then, you’ll be able to identify your “bad actors”—the areas causing the most disruption.

That’s where your biggest cost savings are hiding.

Use High-Quality Replacement Parts

The parts and materials used for maintenance can significantly impact your budget.

Rather than opting for cheaper, lower-quality alternatives, try to source durable, manufacturer-approved, or OEM parts.

While these may have a higher upfront cost, they tend to last longer and are less likely to fail, ultimately reducing the frequency and expense of future repairs.

Farouk Abrahams, Sales Director at Weba Chute Systems, a provider of customized bulk material chute transfer solutions, agrees:

After all, OEMs possess specialized knowledge.

Their deep understanding of how the equipment is designed to work means their components are built to meet high-performance and reliability standards.

Go with a cheaper alternative, on the other hand, and you’re inviting trouble.

Michael Longbottom, Global LubeExpert Coach at Shell Lubricant Solutions, points to a typical pin or bush on an excavator as an example:

“If you are using a cheaper grease with poor mechanical stability, you need to apply it more often. For the sake of argument, it is $1 cheaper than a higher-quality grease. You might be saving on the initial costs, but that pin or bush will probably cost you $20-30,000 more a year.”

His perspective is supported by research.

A Shell Lubricant Solutions survey of 561 mining decision-makers found that using the right lubricants—and managing them effectively—can reduce maintenance spend by up to 30% annually.

So next time you’re weighing your options, ask yourself: is that small saving today worth the massive cost tomorrow?

Because when it comes to maintenance, cutting corners rarely leads to cutting costs.

Track Your Inventory

Procuring the spare parts, tools, and materials needed for maintenance is only the beginning.

It’s equally important to maintain an accurate, real-time inventory of those items, like the one you see below.

That way, you get a clear overview of your stock levels, item locations, reorder points, supplier information, prices, and more.

Essentially, everything you need to know about your supplies is in one place.

Cianna Kennedy, Director of Sales at the heavy truck repair software provider, Pluss Software, explains that kind of visibility can be a game-changer:

With this level of insight, you know exactly what you need, when you need it, and can take timely action.

This helps prevent both overstocking, which ties up capital, and understocking, which causes delays.

As a result, the right parts are always available when needed, minimizing costly downtime.

No waste, no shortages. Just substantial cost savings.

Still not convinced?

Consider this: one industry report found that 59% of facilities that improved their parts inventory management reduced unplanned downtime costs in 2024.

Simply put, inventory tracking works.

It empowers you to stop stockpiling excess inventory that drains your resources or deteriorates into useless stock, and start stocking more strategically and cost-effectively.

Automate the Maintenance Processes

By now, you might be thinking: “These strategies sound great, but they also seem like a lot of work.”

And you’re right—they can be, if you don’t have the right tools in place.

That’s where automation comes in. It’s the key to making these strategies not just manageable, but truly effective.

Automation reduces human error, enhances data consistency, and boosts efficiency across nearly every upkeep task.

In fact, a 2022 Camunda survey found that 89% of companies report increased business growth due to automation, while 92% say it frees up teams to focus on more complex, strategic work.

In other words, automation does the heavy lifting, taking care of time-consuming and repetitive tasks.

Meanwhile, you can focus on the bigger picture and saving money.

Take WorkTrek, for example.

It’s a powerful yet user-friendly CMMS that automates various aspects of maintenance, turning complex tasks into seamless workflows.

Here’s what it offers:

Asset Management	Gain access to detailed asset metadata, monitor asset conditions with meter readings, and track downtime in depth.
Inventory Management	Standardize parts tracking across unlimited warehouses, receive low-stock alerts to prevent stockouts, and sync inventory seamlessly with ERP systems and other applications.
Work Order Management	Create, assess, prioritize, track, and record all work from a centralized platform.
Reporting	Choose from over 50 customizable, pre-built reports tailored to your needs. You can also schedule reports to be automatically delivered via email.

WorkTrek also offers automated preventive maintenance scheduling.

This enables you to schedule recurring tasks based on either time intervals or various usage criteria, such as mileage, temperature, pressure, and more.

Additionally, automated responses to failed inspections and checks ensure issues are addressed proactively, before they escalate:

In short, with WorkTrek, all the cost-saving strategies we’ve discussed become easy to implement.

No need for manual data entry and no more preventable errors—just smooth, efficient, and cost-effective maintenance operations running on autopilot.

Conclusion

Maintenance may always come at a price, but paying more than necessary is optional.

Remember: what separates the top-performing organizations from the rest isn’t just bigger budgets or advanced tools.

It’s how strategically they use what they have.

So the next time someone tells you maintenance is just a cost center, feel free to disagree—because when done right, it’s one of your biggest opportunities for value creation.