Field Of Maintenance Management Research Articles

Maintenance strategy selection: a comprehensive review of current paradigms and solution approaches

Maintenance strategy selection: a comprehensive review of current paradigms and solution approaches

Maintenance Management Systems in the Czech Enterprises of Chemical and Food Industries

Purpose of the article: The aim of this article is to use the results of the qualitative research to describe the current form of maintenance systems used in enterprises of chemical and food industries, and then to discuss and generalize the results. Methodology/methods: The primary qualitative research was conducted in five companies, which can be regarded as typical representatives of the industries. The main objective of the primary research in individual companies was to determine how they perform the strategic and tactical operational planning of maintenance, implementation of these plans and their control. Individual interviews with respondents were used as the research method. The results of the research were processed using the content analysis method. Subsequently, comparison of the findings from individual businesses and subsequent synthesis thereof was performed, which allowed making generalizations. Scientific aim: The scientific aim of the article is to develop knowledge in the field of maintenance management by specifying the form of the maintenance systems utilized in Czech enterprises of the chemical and food industries and identifying the main opportunities for their improvement. Findings: Czech enterprises of the chemical and food industries utilize maintenance management systems. These systems are aimed at prevention, emphasizing the planning of maintenance activities in fixed periodic intervals. Also, they often utilize diagnostic maintenance. However, the maintenance systems currently used cannot be considered fully operational, with regard to the relatively large volume of after-failure repairs. Conclusions: Production equipment maintenance systems are irreplaceable in chemical and food industry enterprises, but there is great potential for improvement. Improvement should be focused on the area of strategic as well as tactical and operational planning of production equipment maintenance. In terms of strategy, the biggest opportunity for a dramatic improvement is the implementation of modern maintenance methods. In the context of the existing systems, improvement can be achieved especially in setting strategic objectives, the system of indicators to measure the performance of maintenance and in implementing an information system. In the tactical and operational level, it would be useful to develop a maintenance planning system linked with suppliers and customers and utilize mathematical methods and models to optimize plans for this business activity

Research study from industry-university collaboration on “No Fault Found” events

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present the successes and barriers from an industry-university partnership on studying the impact of No Fault Found (NFF) events. As a consequence, various opportunities are explored to engage with industry to investigate the problem. A comprehensive training is also outlined to ensure that experience and troubleshooting techniques can be disseminated as guidelines across businesses. Design/methodology/approach – The study was performed by Cranfield University in collaboration with industrial partners on identifying the impact of the NFF problem within engineering services. This includes discussions with maintenance engineers, outcomes from a symposium organised specifically on NFF and the authors’ own experiences with the issue. Findings – The paper discusses the continuing serious problem with NFF events found at various maintenance echelons, and suggests a need for formal postgraduate training to be taught within the field of maintenance management. This includes not just technical issues, but also encompassing organisational structures, cultures and behaviours. Since focusing only on one issue at a time does not suffice in dealing with the NFF problem, an integrated approach is required for modern maintenance services and operations. Research limitations/implications – Higher education learning outcomes have been outlined for competent engineering personnel, to broaden their understanding on the subject area. This is based on discussions with industrial collaborators and recently published material. Practical implications – This paper emphasises the importance of the breath of interaction channels and demonstrates the opportunities for effective knowledge exchange by using the activities at Cranfield University to demonstrate their usefulness. The arguments clearly lead to the necessity of academia in this type of industrial problem. However, the presence of a university in this case is not as the sole problem solver, but the rather to act as a collaborative medium between various other outlets. Further ideas proposed, such as constructing guidelines for industries in handling NFF problems and benchmarking tools, can serve as real products that can be benefit industries. The study also aims to promote best practice in the field of maintenance management and outlines the foundations for NFF training material. Originality/value – The originality of the paper is that it presents a structured methodology for engaging with industry. It also outlines a curriculum for NFF training. It essentially serves as a road-map for research and offers a detailed account of areas that need to be taken into account in order to reduce the likely event of NFF.

Evaluating Indicators for Renewal of Properties via Gentrification in Budapest

The aim of this paper is to evaluate the factors of gentrification based on the economical social and architectural framework in the field of maintenance management of real estates. Andrássy Avenue, announced to be a part of the UNESCO World Heritage site in 2002, is an inner-city neighbourhood in Budapest, which underwent a significant renewal process during the last two decade. This area was chosen because it represents very different types of gentrification processes. There are three research indicators defined and modelled over the statistical data. The applied modelling for evaluation of the gathered data are descriptive statistics and main factor analysis for the Shevky-Bell indices. The statistical model predicts that property market prices will rise after the architectural transformation however it will not have significant impact on the prices of the flats with bad conditions in the neighbourhood. This paper examines the renewals of the residential apartments as rent-gap or social displacement occurs. Factor points out that what motivate the young highly educated residents to move in the neighboured apartments of the Liszt Ferenc square area and what is the architectural benefit of these displacements. The facility manager of these buildings must be aware of the social profile of the owners of the individual properties inside the building to create their annual maintenance budget. The effects of rent-gap and the change in property functions are demonstrated as case study of the renewed residential palace in the under Teréz Town area of the Andrássy Avenue.

Justification of world‐class maintenance systems using analytic hierarchy constant sum method

PurposeIn recent times, many organizations implementing total productive maintenance (TPM) have been failing in their attempts. Researchers attribute these failures to the shortcomings of TPM and of the implementing organizations. This paper aims to conduct a detailed study in order to understand these shortcomings and seeks to propose various solutions in the form of “best practices”, which leads to the development of world‐class maintenance systems (WMS). However, development of such alterative maintenance systems raises the following question: if an organization is planning to implement and improve their existing maintenance system then how can the manager make a decision between choosing alternative systems such as traditional maintenance systems, TPM and WMS? In the case of TPM or WMS, top management should be involved from the beginning to implement and follow up, as these decisions are complex and involve huge investment in the long term. Before starting implementation, top management should be convinced of the necessary justification, which requires analysis of various qualitative and quantitative factors apart from analyzing various tangible and intangible benefits. In such a situation, the conventional, financial justification techniques alone cannot be used.Design/methodology/approachThe paper attempts to demonstrate the use of a multi‐attribute decision‐making (MADM) model, namely, the analytic hierarchy constant sum method (AHCSM) for justification of WMS by analyzing the performance measures of an organization.FindingsThe model showed that WMS is the best among the alternatives considered for the given circumstances. From the extensive analysis of the results from the model, implementing WMS would result in overall improvement in the performance of an organization.Practical implicationsThe paper attempts to provide an understanding about the TPM shortcomings, WMS and its characteristics, apart from describing the proposed framework in detail. In addition to this, the AHCSM model has been developed for the justification of WMS and the algorithm for the same has been described in a step‐by‐step manner. It is believed that this MADM model will be useful for managers to supplement their strategic decisions.Originality/valueAccording to the authors' knowledge, there has been so far no paper in the literature which has demonstrated the application of AHCSM in the field of maintenance management.

Maintenance management: literature review and directions

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to review the literature on maintenance management and suggest possible gaps from the point of view of researchers and practitioners.Design/methodology/approachThe paper systematically categorizes the published literature and then analyzes and reviews it methodically.FindingsThe paper finds that important issues in maintenance management range from various optimization models, maintenance techniques, scheduling, and information systems etc. Within each category, gaps have been identified. A new shift in maintenance paradigm is also highlighted.Practical implicationsLiterature on classification of maintenance management has so far been very limited. This paper reviews a large number of papers in this field and suggests a classification in to various areas and sub areas. Subsequently, various emerging trends in the field of maintenance management are identified to help researchers specifying gaps in the literature and direct research efforts suitably.Originality/valueThe paper contains a comprehensive listing of publications on the field in question and their classification according to various attributes. The paper will be useful to researchers, maintenance professionals and others concerned with maintenance to understand the importance of maintenance management

Forecasting of Circuit-Breaker Behaviour in High-Voltage Electrical Power Systems: Necessity for Future Maintenance Management

Two research projects were started in order to investigate new methods of maintenance management. The first project was finished in April 1999, dealing with the problem of relating the information of individual devices with their importance in the complete system. The combination of both sets of information is the aim of reliability centred maintenance (RCM). More important devices can be maintained more frequently than those of less importance, leading to reduced maintenance costs but retaining a high level of reliability of the system. The question of how new methods of maintenance influence behaviour in future, cannot be answered right now. The forecasting of the behaviour of circuit-breakers will now be investigated in a further project in the field of maintenance management. A software model will be developed in strong co-ordination with partners of some electrical power system utilities. The model shall include the simulation of the behaviour of circuit-breakers in the future regarding maintenance activities as well as the operational stresses of the present. This paper will give an overview of the actual activities and aims of the project. Main activities have been the definition of investigated circuit-breaker types and the methodology for the starting steps of the project.

EXPERT-MM: A knowledge-based system for maintenance management

This paper presents an approach to the design and development of knowledge-based systems in general and their application in the field of maintenance management in particular. Our approach is based on the idea that different kinds of knowledge in a given domain, namely declarative, procedural and heuristic are supported by corresponding methods and software tools. A prototype knowledge-based system, called EXPERT-MM, for the maintenance activities in the Siam Gipsum Industry (Bangkok, Thailand) has been worked out as a case study and is described in the paper. EXPERT-MM supports three main functions: maintenance policy suggestions, machine diagnosis and maintenance scheduling. The maintenance policy deals with the three types of preventive maintenance. For each component of the equipment it analyses the historical failure data and recommends an appropriate policy with optimal preventive maintenance intervals. This is based on the experts' knowledge stored in a knowledge base. A rotary screw type air compressor is selected for a diagnosis. The knowledge representation scheme is rule-based and the inference strategy mechanism is backward chaining. The knowledge-acquisition process has been organized and realised using a decision tree diagram. The knowledge base contains 154 rules for the diagnosis and 54 rules for the maintenance model selection. the maintenance scheduling module is procedure based. EXPERT-MM development is based on the software tools dBase III Plus, TURBO PASCAL version 6.0 and expert system shell EXSYS, all integrated into a single software system with a user-friendly interface.