Glossary

Criticality analysis

In short

Criticality analysis is a way of ranking assets by the consequence and likelihood of their failure, so maintenance effort, spares and attention go where they matter most. By scoring each asset against criteria like safety, downtime cost and the chance of failure, you produce a priority order that stops you treating a critical chiller and a spare hand tool the same way. It is the input that tells a maintenance plan where to focus.

Criticality analysis

Criticality analysis is a way of ranking assets by the consequence and likelihood of their failure, so that maintenance effort, spare parts and attention go where they matter most. The premise is simple and a little uncomfortable: you cannot maintain everything equally, so you should decide deliberately what matters. A criticality analysis turns a vague sense that some equipment is more important than the rest into a defensible priority order.

How criticality analysis works

The method starts with the criteria that matter to your operation. Most analyses weigh the consequences of an asset failing, for safety, for the environment, for production or service delivery, and for cost, alongside how likely that failure is. Each asset is scored against those criteria, and the scores combine into a ranking, often grouped into bands such as high, medium and low criticality.

The output is not a single number for its own sake. It is a list that says, in effect, here are the assets whose failure would hurt us most, and here are the ones we can afford to be relaxed about. A critical chiller serving a whole building and a spare hand tool sit at opposite ends of that list, and they should not be maintained the same way.

What it tells you

A good criticality ranking changes how you spend your maintenance budget and attention. The high-criticality assets justify more frequent preventive maintenance, condition monitoring and a stock of critical spares, because a failure there is costly or dangerous. The low-criticality ones can often be run to failure and fixed when they break, which frees resources for where they count. Criticality also helps when you triage a backlog: a high-criticality job should not sit behind a cosmetic one.

Criticality analysis is closely tied to reliability-centred maintenance. Criticality tells you where to focus; RCM then decides the right maintenance tactic for the assets you have prioritised. Many teams use a criticality ranking as the first step that decides which assets warrant a full RCM review and which do not.

How it relates to Cohiva Control

Cohiva Control gives you the structure to record and act on criticality. The asset register holds each asset with its hierarchy, condition and lifecycle state, so you can see how assets relate and which ones sit beneath a critical parent. You can configure preventive maintenance and inspection frequencies per asset, which is exactly what a criticality ranking calls for: more intensive routines on the high-criticality assets, lighter ones elsewhere. The contractor-compliance gate and the append-only audit trail mean the work on your most critical assets is both controlled and recorded. Criticality decides the plan; Cohiva Control runs it. See reliability-centred maintenance, FMEA and preventive maintenance for the connected ideas.

Part of the Cohiva platform

Cohiva Control is part of the Cohiva platform. Leisure operators often run it with Cohiva Complex, and finance teams connect it to Cohiva Crunch for the general ledger. Explore the platform at www.cohiva.app.

Frequently asked questions

How do you do a criticality analysis?
You agree the criteria that matter, typically the consequences of failure for safety, the environment, production or service, and cost, along with the likelihood of failure, then score each asset against them. Combining the scores gives a ranking, often grouped into bands such as high, medium and low criticality.
Why rank assets by criticality?
Because maintenance resources are finite. Ranking lets you concentrate preventive maintenance, condition monitoring and critical spares on the assets whose failure hurts most, and avoid over-maintaining low-consequence equipment that could simply be fixed when it fails.
How does criticality relate to RCM?
Criticality analysis tells you where to focus; reliability-centred maintenance then works out the right maintenance tactic for the high-priority assets. Criticality is often the first step that decides which assets warrant a full RCM review.
Does criticality change over time?
Yes. As operations, layouts and the importance of an asset change, so can its criticality. It is worth revisiting the ranking periodically rather than treating it as fixed once and forgotten.