Abstract
Abstract This paper presents a model, based on Analytic Hierarchy Process, to support a maintenance manager with a suitable tool for focusing on the most relevant choices which need to be prioritized. The paper provides an insight on how structural and infra-structural decision elements, traditionally conceived for assessing the manufacturing strategy of a company, could be adopted as criteria for configuring a maintenance system. A model based on Analytic Hierarchy Process has been developed and tested in two industrial case studies in order to demonstrate how it can guide a maintenance manager in keeping the strategic decisions coherently with the overall company’s manufacturing strategy. Main beneficiaries are mainly maintenance managers who have to tackle relevant strategic decisions in managing their maintenance systems. Given the increasing role of maintenance within the operations strategy of a company, the heterogeneity of actors involved, with the relevant risk of assuming conflicting decisions, it is of utmost importance to lever on adequate and shared decision support systems rather than relying on a mere empirical knowledge. The model proposed in this paper, based on the Analytic Hierarchy Process, fills this gap since it provides a structured support in the decision making process by comparing and prioritising the relevant strategic decisions pertaining to the configuration of a maintenance system.
Highlights
Today, world-class competitiveness is a must for companies
This paper presents a model, based on Analytic Hierarchy Process, to support a maintenance manager with a suitable tool for focusing on the most relevant choices which need to be prioritized
The model proposed in this paper, based on the Analytic Hierarchy Process, fills this gap since it provides a structured support in the decision making process by comparing and prioritising the relevant strategic decisions pertaining to the configuration of a maintenance system
Summary
World-class competitiveness is a must for companies. Globalisation of markets and more stringent requirements from customers put forward numerous challenges to managers. As stated by [3], there is a growing need to explicitly capture the relationship, and to preserve a consistency, between the business strategy pursued by an industrial company and its maintenance system. Overlooking this relationship and focusing only on maintenance as a mere cost-cutting operative function can jeopardise the ability of a firm to compete in the market. There is a multitude of heterogeneous decision variables to take into account They, alike those traditionally conceived for establishing the operations strategy of a company, provide a response to the structural and infra-structural configuration of a maintenance system.
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