In the parks and recreation field, a certain amount of reactive maintenance is absolutely required. For example, we must act quickly to repair damages after storms. However, preventive maintenance is also essential. Preventive maintenance is simply the performance of tasks designed to reduce later maintenance requirements and safety issues. But how exactly is preventive maintenance beneficial?
Reactive maintenance is the process of cleaning up damage or repairing equipment or structures after failure has already occurred. For example, as parks and recreation workers, we may have to perform reactive clean up of fallen trees, repair electrical systems or even rebuild entire structures after damage is already done. If staff calls upon the maintenance department for a special event setup, that would also fall under the category of reactive maintenance.