Competencia y colaboración entre ambos sectores

This Chapter briefly introduces the research work, contextualizing it and highlighting its purposes.

Section 1 is dedicated to a description and a formalization of the objectives of this thesis; in Section 2, the context of the present work is cleared out; finally, in Section 3, an overview of the key steps of the research is provided.

1.1 Research objectives

This Master of Science thesis work aims at developing and testing a model for the maturity assessment of Physical Asset Management (PAM) practices, adequate to be applied in the field of capital intensive manufacturing plants, services networks and infrastructures (water, energy, gas, railway infrastructure,...).

More deeply, the aims of this research are:

• to study and understand the best practices emerged after PAM introduction;

• to define a maturity assessment methodology for companies who introduces PAM;

• to test the new methodology in real cases, in order to verify its capability to be applied in different fields.

From a methodological perspective, the work aims at studying and enhancing the potentialities of pre-existent maturity assessment approaches. The former has been developed by a research group at Politecnico di Milano, Dept. of Management, Economics and Industrial Engineering; more precisely, the methodology is the result of the research activities carried out in the frame of TeSeM Observatory (on Technologies and Services for Maintenance) of School of Management of Politecnico di Milano. The latter has been developed by a research group at Delft University of Technology (TUDelft), Faculty Technology, Policy and Management (TPM). This thesis work wants to pursue an integration to allow a further development and test of

Maturity assessment for Physical Asset Management: Evidence from Manufacturing Plants and Infrastructures

the cited methodologies of maturity assessment. The development reflects also other references from literature background in maturity assessment.

1.2 Research context

Physical Asset Management (PAM) is spreading in a context in which many needs are issued.

• Society has become increasingly intolerant of industrial incidents, particularly in the areas of safety and environmental integrity: it is no longer considered acceptable to cause harm to either the environment or to people and the communities that they live in (Mather, 2003). In the last years this has been reflected in various changes in legislation and regulation in countries around the world and is leading companies to pay more attention to their impact on environment and society (Mather, 2003).

• Maintenance costs are often very high and they are following an increasing trend. One of the major factors behind this trend is that we are more dependent on machinery than in the past. Where previously people work, today machineries work. In fact, thanks to the development of automation and technology people are substituted by machineries in a lot of industrial sector (Dunn, 1987).

• Economic fluctuation and market uncertainty demand for higher profits and a better Return on Assets (ROA) and this can lead to very difficult and risky investment decisions. Characteristic for the capital-intensive industry is the need for large capital investments for both starting the business and running it, such as for machinery investments to increase capacity and the efficiency of production processes or to replace existing production equipment. In addition, resources are allocated to R&D to develop and produce new products and services (Räikkönen et al., 2010).

The next picture highlights main factors correspondingly involved in PAM.

Maturity assessment for Physical Asset Management: Evidence from Manufacturing Plants and Infrastructures Fig.1. 1 Factors around PAM, from Mather, 2003

1.3 Research overview

The research follows four steps that are briefly described hereafter.

Step 1 – To review the state of the art of PAM

(see Chapter 2 for results)

Through a literature review we will try to understand what PAM means in different context and why companies are adopting this approach in managing their assets. In this review we will focus on the impact of PAM on the organization structure and on the main aspects of its business processes, such as life cycle cost management, risk management, information management and performance management.

Step 2 – To analyze the maturity models from literature

(see Chapter 3 for results)

At this step we go in depth on the study of pre-existent methodologies of maturity assessment. In particular, two models will be used as a guide for the development of the new one:

• TeSeM model

• TUDelft model

We analyze the strengths and the weaknesses of the two models trying to understand which are the methodological aspects that can be transferred to the new work.

Maturity assessment for Physical Asset Management: Evidence from Manufacturing Plants and Infrastructures

A third model, developed by Port et al.(2010), has been selected from literature background, and it is used as an additional support.

Step 3 – To design a model for maturity assessment of PAM practices

(see Chapter 4 for results)

On the basis of CMMI (Capability Maturity Model Integrated) approach, the same of the models studied in the previous step, a new system for the assessment of PAM practices’ maturity is designed. A questionnaire is also designed to this end, in order to make a characterization and a maturity assessment for a set of different case studies. The questionnaire is the “tool” for collecting data and information needed for maturity assessment.

Step 4 – To validate the model and analyze its use in different cases

(Chapter 5 and 6 for results)

A series of real cases are presented, in order to verify the capability of the new methodology to be applied in different fields.

Chapter 6 presents the concluding remarks of this work, both focusing on the outcome of the thesis as a whole, and fostering further research development for its improvement.

Maturity assessment for Physical Asset Management: Evidence from Manufacturing Plants and Infrastructures