Maintenance audit by means of value analysis technique and decision rules

Abstract

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to show that the increase in competitiveness in relation to requirements regarding quality, availability, safety and service has contributed to demonstrating the need to change the concept of maintenance from a tactical issue to a strategic subject in companies. In order to evaluate the efficiency and effectiveness of the maintenance area, it is essential to carry out an audit that detects and diagnoses the problems that could develop, provides solutions to these dysfunctions and adapts the function of maintenance to the specifications of the standard ISO 9001.Design/methodology/approachA maintenance audit is applied to a service company. The methodology applied to design the audit is based on the integration of the weighting technique Simple Multiple Attribute Rating Technique (SMART), the value analysis technique (applied generally to new product design) and an expert system based on rules. The SMART technique provides the weighting between the functions related to sections of the bank entity and through value analysis the limit values for states of functions for each section and the current value for functions of the bank entity can be obtained. By means of decision rules the previous values are interconnected using different first and second level variables to establish the state of the maintenance activities by sections.FindingsThe expert system simulates the behaviour of a human expert specializing in the area, by means of numerous rules and relations between different variables associated with the specific maintenance functions, in order to obtain the maintenance state by sections and the general maintenance state of the bank.Originality/valueThe development of a maintenance audit in a service company, where the number of contributions is very limited, in comparison with manufacturing companies, is presented. Also presented is the integration of decision‐making tools such as the weighting technique SMART with the value analysis technique and rule‐based expert system to create a maintenance audit. The maintenance audit developed can be applied in the context of a continuous improvement environment.