Maintenance Backlog

What this topic covers

Age, risk, labor demand and readiness of deferred work.

Core ideas

Backlog size alone is a weak measure because work orders differ greatly in risk and labor.

Age can reveal stalled work, but some low-risk tasks can legitimately remain open longer than urgent integrity work.

Planned work should identify access, materials, permits and dependencies before execution.

Program tradeoffs

Condition-based maintenance only works when degradation can be detected with enough lead time to act.

What good evidence looks like

Backlog and work priority should reflect risk, readiness and consequence—not age alone.

Lifecycle perspective

Repeat failures are opportunities to remove causes through design, installation, operating or maintenance improvements.