Retos para el futuro

A strategic approach to maintenance management is critical for companies, in particular those whose assets are technologically sophisticated and involve a significant amount of capital investment (Bendall & Stent 2005; Coetzee 1999; Sheng et al. 2009; Tsang 2002). This approach should prevent companies from having a short-term myopic perspective about maintenance and can underpin the achievement of long-term benefits (Tsang 2002). It is one of the key factors influencing the success of maintenance and thus the companies (Aleksic & Stanojevic 2007). Relentless efforts have been made to attain benefits from maintenance, which has resulted in several maintenance concepts as mentioned in previous sections. However, numerous failures hamper the attempts to capitalise on the maintenance function, and these are related to the lack of strategy driven management (Backlund & Akersten 2003; Coetzee 1999; Hansson, Backlund & Lycke 2003; Simões, Gomes & Yasin 2011).

In a study on the strategic dimensions of maintenance management in companies with significant investments in physical assets, Tsang (2002) provides a detailed discussion on Visser’s input-output maintenance model (as shown in Figure 1.2). This model depicts maintenance as a process to transform inputs for maintenance through a company’s maintenance system and into expected output. The input comprises labour, materials, spare parts, tools, information, budget and external services; and the output comprises availability and maintainability of the company’s assets, safety operations of production system and profits for the company. Based on this study, Tsang (2002) identifies four strategic dimensions

of maintenance management: service delivery, organisational design, maintenance methodology and support system.

The service delivery dimension covers the management of inputs. Managing these inputs may involve cross-organisational boundaries relationships. The organisational design and maintenance methodology dimensions cover the maintenance system of the company. These dimensions relate to the orchestration of various maintenance concepts and decision making which have been summarised in Table 3.2 (section 3.2.2, p. 49). The support system dimension covers the infrastructure to support decision making about maintenance such as having commitment from top management and all employees, organisational hierarchy, information and communication technology, and reward and recognition for all employees. Tsang (2002) suggests the importance of internal commitment for achieving successful maintenance and the use of information technology to accommodate the flow of information across maintenance processes. However, further detail is not provided to accomplish this need, which provides some motivation for this research to propose an approach to overcome this gap.

Coetzee (1999) emphasises the need for a holistic approach to strategically manage complexity in maintenance. With regard to this holistic approach requirement, the four strategic dimensions of maintenance management (Tsang 2002) should be considered as a whole. Otherwise, it might introduce a fragmented solution in managing the complexity in maintenance. Discussions on maintenance concepts such as reliability centred maintenance and total productive

maintenance cover only the organisational and methodological dimensions of maintenance management. In this respect, the discussions are limited to a focus on a maintenance system within the organisation system of Visser’s model. Furthermore, applying these two strategic dimensions of maintenance management to the decision levels of management as shown in Figure 3.2 could provide insights that various maintenance concepts contribute fragmented solutions to the complexity of maintenance in the operational and tactical loop of management levels. These circumstances may corroborate the arguments that various maintenance concepts only provide fragmented solutions to the efforts to capitalise on maintenance (Coetzee 1999; Tsang 2002). Without disregarding the strategic value of planning the maintenance system of the companies, a strategic approach to maintenance management should not only focus on the maintenance concepts.

Measurement of the outputs of the model appears to be overlooked. Several authors (for example: Åhrén & Parida 2009; Al-Najjar & Hansson 2004; Mitchell, Robson & Prabhu 2002; Richard et al. 2000) focus on benchmarking as a key for enhancing maintenance management in industries. Richard et al. (2000) use benchmarking as a strategic approach to management of maintenance for power plants that focuses on customer requirements to improve the performance of the plants. Mitchell, Robson and Prabhu (2002) benchmarked the deployment of maintenance practices in manufacturing organisations in the United Kingdom and found that manufacturing organisations, which were grouped as leaders in good maintenance practices, perform better than those that are grouped as lagers.

Åhrén and Parida (2009) suggest that benchmarking is an effective tool for continuously improving maintenance management performance in the railway industry. Al-Najjar and Hansson (2004) explain that benchmarking may provide an effective tool for the never-ending management of maintenance performance improvement. By incorporating measurements of the outputs of the model with the four strategic dimensions of maintenance management, a strategic approach to maintenance management may be obtained.

Managing the inputs and support system dimensions of Tsang’s four strategic dimensions may involve cross-organisational relationships. The inputs in Visser’s model might belong to other companies (Visser & Jordaan 2009). Consequently, the development of strategic relationships between the external suppliers is necessary in order to obtain inputs in a profitable manner. With regard to efforts to attain successful maintenance, implementing a strategic management approach to these inputs may result in reduced maintenance costs and increased revenue for the companies. In terms of support system dimension, a strategic management of maintenance should involve all employees, including the top management level of the companies (Coetzee 1999; Trent 2004). The involvement of top management is essential since managing maintenance suggests a long-term process that requires their commitment and support (Tsang 2002). In addition, holistic involvement from all employees determines companies’ capabilities to manage their maintenance and the relationships with suppliers of the inputs (Kotzab et al. 2011; Trent 2004).

By understanding the processes and the requirements of maintenance using the Visser’s input-output model, it appears that managing the supply chains of maintenance introduces a strategic approach. The process to determine the required inputs and the suppliers of a company’s maintenance system to provide the expected output in a profitable manner indicates some elements in the supply chain management. However, research on maintenance using a supply chain management approach has not been found in the literature. This gap in the literature provides motivation for this research to propose a supply chain management approach as strategy driven maintenance management to manage complexity in maintenance. In addition, this research may provide further insights for the implementation of management of service-oriented supply chains as indicated in Chapter Two. Research interest in management of service-oriented supply chains appears to be an emerging research interest (see: Ellram, Tate & Billington 2004; Giannakis 2011; Marosszeky 2005). The next section will discuss the supply chain management approach in the context of maintenance management.