Anders Ingwald

Analysing IT functionality gaps for maintenance management

Several studies have been carried out for describing the functionality and use of computerised maintenance management systems. A major drawback of these studies is that they do not reveal the actual support for maintenance management. To describe the full situation, the gaps between required support and actual support have to be determined. The gaps are of two kinds: 1) Between the functionality included in the IT system and the functionality required, and 2) Between the functionality included in the IT system and the functionality actually used. To reach a better understanding of the utilisation of IT in maintenance management, the existence of these gaps must be further explored. In this paper, we will study the existence of functionality gaps in maintenance management IT applications using data from a web-based questionnaire survey conducted in Swedish industry. Results show that the IT systems in general provide good support for maintenance management, thus low degree of functionality gaps. However, most commonly unused function was failure cause and consequence analysis and the most commonly unused information was maintenance improvement suggestions. When comparing the results with respect to type of IT system used, some significant differences was revealed, indicating that ERPsystems and production systems do not include all required information for maintenance management. Next step will be to further study the reasons behind the differences in gaps by conducting additional interviews.

Service Management Models for Railway Infrastructure, an Ecosystem Perspective

Up until 2001 the operation and maintenance of Swedish railway, both the railway infrastructure and the rolling stock, was basically the responsibility of Statens Jarnvagar. At this year the operation and maintenance of the Swedish railway was deregulated and as a result the number of actors increased dramatically. Also, during the period from 1990 to 2012 there was an increase in the railway transports of 42 % in train-kilometres. This put great demands on the railway infrastructure operations and service, and indications were seen that the infrastructure was deteriorating leading to delivery quality problems. In order to solve the situation several governmental investigations were initiated. In a governmental report the situation of the railway maintenance is described as problematic due to several technical as well as organisational factors, of which the lack of competition is seen as the most important. Despite several investigations, the desired delivery quality is still not reached. This paper focuses on the Swedish railway infrastructure and describes the background and current state of the Swedish railway service management by utilising a business ecosystem perspective, which lets you capture the complexity and dynamics of the surroundings. By applying this perspective, looking outside the traditional framework of suppliers and customers, important areas in need of investigation or development can be singled out. As a part of the result, the Swedish railway infrastructure industry is modelled as an ecosystem, and directions for future development is pointed out.

Selecting and improving a maintenance policy for mechanical components using cost-effectiveness

Maintenance has in recent years more and more become recognised as contributing to company profitability and competitiveness. Consequently, the need of selecting the most cost-effective maintenance for a certain component/equipment under certain circumstances has become more emphasised. For a certain component/equipment there might be more than one technically suitable maintenance policy to choose from. The most cost-effective maintenance policy should be selected. In this paper, the most popular selection methods have been introduced, discussed and compared using 11 criteria for identifying their weaknesses and strengths. Also, a study exploring maintenance selection methods in Swedish industry is conducted. Furthermore, a model for selecting and improving a maintenance policy based on cost-effectiveness is developed, tested and discussed in an application example. The model is designed to be user-friendly and usable for all types of maintenance policies. It can utilise historical data regarding failures if available and allow feedback and continuous improvements.

Business Models for After Sales Services—Current State and Future Directions

The core strategic decisions describing what, where, how and whom to make business with are defined in the business model. The business models adapted by industry have evolved as a consequence of changes in the business environment, the production processes as well as in technology, and the modern, innovative business models focus on long term relationships, performance-based and value-driven customer offers, and knowledge intensive processes. Other aspects are the increased complexity of the offer itself and a holistic perspective on the full value chain. This paper reviews the literature with respect to business models, business strategy and business innovation for postproduction activities, i.e. operations and maintenance (O&M) services. The purpose is to describe the current state within the area and based on this give directions for future research and development. Four main aspects are found as being important for the successful development of O&M service models: the mix of products and services in customer offers (bundling), relevant setup and metrics for performance-based business models and contracts, Information and Communications Technology (ICT) as an enabler and a prerequisite for business model development, and the need for a holistic view on the value chain by utilising the asset management concept.

EcoCon: A System for Monitoring Economic and Technical Performance of Maintenance

Maintenance has been treated as a cost-center although it has obvious direct impact on company production, delivery on time, product quality and consequently company business. In this paper we develop and test a new system (EcoCon) for monitoring and assessing the economic impact of maintenance on a production process. EcoCon is tested using real industrial data collected over 3 years. The main findings are that by using EcoCon it is possible to assess maintenance economic impact on a production process. Also, EcoCon provides data for analyzing causes behind deviations in maintenance and production performance. It can be applied on companies of similar production process/machine. But, in some cases, the system demands marginal accommodation to suit the differences in the maintenance economic related factors among companies. EcoCon provides production and maintenance mangers reliable overview of maintenance importance through monitoring maintenance economic impact by linking technical production performance, e.g. downtime, to economic savings/losses generated due to maintenance performance and other activities.

Maintenance in Real Estate and Manufacturing Industries: Differences, Problems, Needs and Potentials - Four Case Studies

It is about 50 % of the activities in the housing sector in the EU region are related to maintenance. According to several publications, building management systems are still quite rare and efficient methodologies for service life prediction of building parts still need to be developed. Also, recent studies show difficulties in finding comprehensive answers concerning, e.g. identifying risks and preventive maintenance actions. Incomplete information can easily lead to incorrect maintenance actions. The problem addressed is: How to improve performance and cost-effectiveness of the maintenance applied on real estate facilities especially buildings to reduce maintenance and management costs and increase company profit? The study’s objectives are to analyse maintenance; techniques, costs, weaknesses and potentials, and compare it with manufacturing industry experience. Also, to investigate whether there is a need for a DSS for planning and follow up cost-effective CBM. The major results of four case studies are; (1) Preventive and breakdown maintenance are mainly used and actions are funded from different accounts. (2) The concept of cost-effectiveness is applied occasionally. (3) Lack of CBM-DSS for planning, follow up and evaluate maintenance profitability, and cost-effective improvements of company business and tenant living quality. (4) The profit generated by continuous heating of building thanks efficient maintenance is about 2.332 million SEK. The major conclusion; there is a reasonable opportunity to reduce buildings’ management and maintenance costs.