Terotechnology or Maintenance Engineering,[1]​ is a new concept that relates technology and economics to increase the reliability and optimization of resources in industrial maintenance.[2]​ Its objective is to increase the productivity of the company at the lowest possible cost.

The term Terotechnology comes from the combination of the Greek words: tero, tecno and logos; This concept implies the use of an exhaustive study and management of the useful life of an asset to improve its technical-economic management and make it more viable in the productive field and much more economically profitable for the company in the cost chapter.[3]​.

This new philosophy should be associated mainly with the concept of life cycle cost (LCC),[4]​ which is a formulation system that is responsible for providing a basis for the study of costs during the useful life cycle of a complex equipment or system, or total cost during the entire period of its life. In this sense we can say that it covers from its conception until it becomes obsolete, including acquisition, installation, operation (including the costs of energy consumption), environmental costs, maintenance costs, costs of putting it out of service and costs of disposal.

From the point of view of a company at a managerial level, it could be said that Terotechnology offers a perspective of Maintenance Engineering that involves a combination of managerial, financial or engineering practices, applied to physical assets to achieve the best economic result of their Life Cycle Costs (LCC). This philosophy of action and analysis is applicable to all types of industry and processes and the main objective of its application is to improve and maintain the technical and economic effectiveness of a process or equipment throughout its entire life cycle.