Preventive Maintenance & Daily Operator Inspections

A practical course on using routine operator rounds, inspection checklists, operating history, and simple preventive-maintenance practices to detect developing equipment and process problems before they become failures. The course focuses on what operators can observe safely, what information should be documented, how maintenance priorities are established, and when an abnormal condition should be escalated.

What you’ll learn

• Explain the difference between reactive, preventive, and condition-based maintenance at a practical level.
• Identify observations that belong on routine operator inspection rounds.
• Recognize changes in sound, vibration, temperature, leakage, corrosion, pressure, flow, housekeeping, and control status that can indicate a developing problem.
• Record useful inspection findings that support maintenance planning and shift handoff.
• Prioritize and escalate abnormal conditions based on safety, treatment reliability, environmental risk, equipment criticality, and the facility's procedures.

Course outline

1. Course Orientation
2. Section 1 — Reactive, Preventive, and Condition-Based Work
3. Knowledge Check 1
4. Section 2 — Building a Useful Operator Inspection
5. Knowledge Check 2
6. Section 3 — Recognizing Change Before Failure
7. Knowledge Check 3
8. Section 4 — Documentation, Priority, and Escalation
9. Practical Inspection-Priority Scenario
10. Final assessment

Who this course is for

North Carolina drinking-water and wastewater operators.

Prerequisites: None