Summary The changes in the competitive context in which company now work, asks for the upkeep a role always more complex and sophisticated. The upkeep has been transformed, in terms of mission, from a prevalently operating activity of repairing to a complex managerial system, steered to the prevention of breakdown and to continue improvement. It is a passage that involves a huge cultural change of management in general and of maintenance men in particular. The aim of upkeep is to prevent the breakdown and improve the maintenance of the means of production, reducing the global costs which are the sum of direct and indirect upkeep costs. The choice of upkeep policy suitable to the company’s aim has to follow a precise logic deriving from the in–depth knowledge of the system, breakdown analysis (breakdown typology and distribution of breakdown rate) and from economic evaluation relative to the life cycle of devices and equipment representing the company’s property.