The main result reported in this paper is that the bearing’s mean effective life could be extended appreciably if an existing vibration-based maintenance policy is used effectively. A new maintenance approach was developed to overcome some of the limitations of TPM and RCM and is based on the Deming managerial feedback cycle. It is a methodology to sustain and improve technical and economic effectiveness of the essential manufacturing process elements. It is shown that by using vibration-based monitoring, (VBM), program in the frame of a common database for a plant IT-system, the causes behind quality deviations and failures can be identified and eliminated effectively and the company’s economics would be improved. Criteria to select the most cost-effective VBM program and the most cost-effective vibration-based maintenance policy are developed. It is shown, by two case studies, that improvements in VBM systems can be achieved by effective feedback of the results of failures, renewal condition and VBM history analysis. The contribution of this study is: The development of a sequential method for the selection and improvement of a cost-effective vibration-based maintenance policy. This methodology can be used to justify, on economic criteria, the use of VBM systems to indicate when rolling element bearings should be renewed.