Here's a question for you.  What is the product of maintenance?

Often that one really stumps people who are outside of our field.  We know that the product is safe productive uptime - availability.  Maintenance isn't just about doing repairs and it isn't just a cost.  Maintenance sustains productive capacity.  It doesn't create capacity, but it can be used to ensure that capacity is available when needed.  Plant and equipment are not considered "liquid assets" because they can't be converted to cash in the short term.  They are non-liquid or insolvent assets.  Their value is unlocked over time.  Investment in those assets is done carefully because it ties money up.  In the case of plant and equipment it is up to maintenance and operations to unlock that value through use of the asset to produce goods and / or services as the business demands. 

Like non-liquid financial assets they show up on the balance sheet.  Like financial assets, their custodianship is considered a business expense.  We pay our finance departments to take care of our financial investments and we pay our maintenance departments to take care of our physical asset investments.  Our work preserves and enhances the value of those assets.   But it's not just our job alone.

The way the equipment is operated makes a difference.  Run it hard and it takes a beating.  Like the tortoise and the hare - we can move slow and steady to accomplish our goals or we can move in fast bursts with time to recover in between.  Manufacturing companies that truly understand the concepts of "lean" appreciate that running at takt time (essentially the rate at which your customers are buying your product) is the key to reducing waste of all sorts.  Inventories can be minimized.  By running "steady" variation in output quality can be avoided more easily.  The equipment is often less stressed - you are not running fast and furious and then pausing while repairs are done and creating the opportunity for error.  This is all in the hands of operations - maintenance helps by doing quality repairs so the equipment is available to run.

Engineering and project management also have roles.  The equipment must be fit for purpose.  Look at the troubles that plagued the construction of the ill-fated de la Concorde Boulevard overpass in Laval.  Contracting problems, contractor problems, cost cutting and no doubt corner-cutting took place.  You can bet that if there were problems with contractors and their costs then there were also problems with those who managed it all.  The result is an asset (a bridge) that collapsed and took with it several lives.  Design, selection, acquisition, construction and commissioning activities all have roles in the life cycle of the asset.  No amount of maintenance could have helped.

Look too at the problems we are beginning to face up to in our electric utility industries.  The infrastructure is ageing and starting to fail.  Utility companies are doing their best to repair and restore and replace what they can with limited budgets.  Funding models have not provided adequate cash to maintain or replace the assets as needed - the result is an asset that is straining to keep up with the demands placed on it.  Utilities around the world, particularly in the more developed nations where the assets have been in place longer, are struggling with upkeep and replacement issues due to a lack of funding.  Here's an area where finance and maintenance working together could have alleviated the problem by coming up with better funding models.  Such models exist now but it's only in the area of building portfolio management that we see any serious attempt to use them proactively.  Even there, they are dealing with a problem that was built many years ago.

There are direct correlations between reliability (or more specifically) Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) and safety incident rates.  As OEE increases incidents fall.  If safety isn't an option (and I suspect you believe like me that it isn't), then do whatever you can to improve it.  Increase OEE by focusing your attention on reliability of the asset and how it is operated.  Safety is one of the by-products.  But there's also a bonus.  Achieving high reliability (and OEE) requires a proactive approach to maintaining the asset.  Studies have also shown conclusively that proactive approaches are far less expensive than reactive approaches by multiples of several times.  Who doesn't want safer and less expensive?

Maintenance is more than a cost and expense, etc.  It is an important aspect of your business.  It warrants, in fact it demands, enlightened management approaches.  You can't cost cut your way to prosperity - the hole only gets deeper.  You can take proactive steps to improve performance (OEE), increase revenues as a result, decrease safety incidents and reduce costs.  Right now, what are you choosing?