Sometimes with non-critical equipment, there’s a mindset that the repairs can be done to a lower standard. For example, the drive motor for a low-revenue line’s conveyor system fails. You replace it without determining the failure mode and correcting for root cause. This gives you more resources for working on critical equipment. Or does it?
If you’re back on that same motor replacement job three months from now instead of 20 years from now, you have a net loss of resources (including parts, labor, and lost production). The “time savings” of doing an incomplete repair on any equipment is an illusion, at best.
Maintenance managers often perpetuate the problem by pulling people off low priority repairs when more important equipment needs repair or someone in production makes a lot of noise. This is sometimes unavoidable, but when you don’t avoid it you need to schedule the repair for completion rather than consider it done “well enough for non-critical equipment.”