From chaos to control: Six steps to get out of firefighting mode

Before you can move forward, you need to know exactly where you stand. Map the current maintenance workload, backlog, and types of breakdowns. Identify which ones are truly urgent versus those that can be addressed in planned work.

This is where gatekeeping is essential. Gatekeeping means filtering and prioritizing incoming work orders so that the maintenance team can focus first on real breakdowns that are critical to safety, compliance, or production. Lower-priority issues can then be scheduled in a planned maintenance window. Many organizations set up a gatekeeping process at some point, but over time it can weaken as people bypass procedures to "just get it fixed." Re-establishing a strong gatekeeping discipline can free up resources, reduce stress, and allow your team to work more strategically.

Effective gatekeeping involves:

• Clear criteria for what qualifies as an emergency
• High quality work orders that later on can be used for P(d)M optimization
• A review process to approve and prioritize work orders
• Cross-functional communication between production, maintenance, and planning teams
• Differentiation in the maintenance teams of planned vs. breakdown maintenance for a better focus

Once you have visibility on your situation and have stopped the constant inflow of low-priority urgent work, establish what success looks like. Select KPIs based on the outcomes your organization needs most: higher uptime, reduced costs, improved safety, compliance assurance. This focus ensures your efforts stay tied to business priorities, helping maintenance shed the "cost center" label.

A strong illustration comes from Danone's Zoetermeer factory, where MaxGrip applied its Asset Improvement Program (AIM). Through structured stakeholder workshops and the establishment of KPI dashboards aligned with strategic goals, the facility reduced backlogs by 25 % and decreased Priority 0 work orders by 15 % in one department. This realignment grounded maintenance in measurable business priorities and helped elevate maintenance's role within the organization.

You can't move away from firefighting without an accurate view of your assets. Data cleansing, functional system definitions, and criticality assessment form the bedrock. Use techniques like FMECA to identify high-risk failure modes and prioritize accordingly.

A global packaging company's Dutch paper mill, for example, used recurring FMECA sessions with MaxGrip to determine critical failures and potential performance risks in its paper machines. in its paper machines. The outcome: technical availability rose from 93% in 2021 to 96% in 2024, with downtime on a troublesome winder cut from 120 to 40 hours annually.

Not every asset requires the same approach. Some can run to failure, while others need time-based, condition-based, or predictive maintenance (PdM). Applying a risk-based maintenance (RBM) framework ensures focus on what matters most: preventing high-consequence failures while avoiding unnecessary work.

This principle was applied at SFPUC's VPSA oxygen plant, where MaxGrip supported the transition to more efficient and reliable operations. By tailoring maintenance strategies to the criticality of assets and streamlining processes, the plant significantly improved operational efficiency and asset reliability. This ensured greater production stability in a volatile market environment and allowed the organization to better manage resources.

Predictive maintenance as part of the strategy

Digital tools play a key role in modern strategies. Predictive analytics and condition monitoring can spot issues before they escalate, but only when aligned with business priorities. The aim is not more data, but actionable insights that prevent failures, reduce downtime, and strengthen decision-making.

RET, Rotterdam's public transport company, works with MaxGrip to embed PdM across the organization. Faced with retiring experts, talent shortages, and the need to digitalize, RET sees PdM as essential for preserving knowledge, boosting reliability, reducing costs, and supporting sustainable public transport. RET's challenge is to scale up their pilots into a companywide approach, with a solid business case, dashboards, change management, and training.

The goal: higher asset reliability, fewer disruptions, more efficient spare parts management, and better decision-making through data and KPIs. Change management is critical, with stakeholders engaged from the start to drive adoption. For RET, PdM is not a hype but a long-term investment in the future of maintenance and public transport in Rotterdam. 

Strategy only works if it is executed efficiently. That means clear technical job descriptions, clustering preventive maintenance tasks to balance workloads, and robust planning and scheduling. Without this, organizations risk falling back into firefighting mode.

A strong example is a global consumer goods company that partnered with MaxGrip to centralize its asset care program. By bringing maintenance activities, planning, and performance monitoring into a centralized approach, the company improved collaboration across sites and created consistency in execution. This shift delivered clear business results: a 15 percent increase in production efficiency and improved asset reliability across the network. Centralizing asset care processes helped align stakeholders, reduced duplication of effort, and ensured maintenance tasks were executed at the right time and in the right way. This not only boosted performance but also built a foundation for continuous improvement across multiple locations.

Escaping firefighting mode requires more than new plans and tools; it requires people to work differently. Define roles and responsibilities clearly, set up dashboards, and train and coach teams. Recognize preventive behaviors, capture knowledge from experienced staff, and embed a continuous improvement cycle: evaluate, verify, update.

The Dutch paper mill example shows this clearly: success came not only from technical improvements, but also from cross-department collaboration, with operators taking on maintenance tasks and everyone aligned around shared goals.

Getting out of firefighting mode is possible, but it demands structure, focus, and commitment. By starting with a clear understanding of your situation, reintroducing strong gatekeeping, setting the right goals, building a reliable foundation, tailoring strategies to risk, streamlining execution, leveraging digital tools, and investing in people, maintenance teams can turn chaos into control.

The payoff is tangible: higher reliability, lower costs, safer operations, and more motivated teams.

Note: These steps are presented sequentially for clarity, but in practice, many of them—such as process improvements, technology adoption, and organizational changes—happen in parallel and require collaboration across different disciplines and departments. Reliability engineers, planners, production teams, and maintenance crews often work on multiple elements at the same time, adapting the approach to the realities of day-to-day operations.