Christer Stenström

Maintenance performance metrics: a state‐of‐the‐art review

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of research and development in the measurement of maintenance performance. It considers the problems of various measuring parameters and comments on the lack of structure in and references for the measurement of maintenance performance. The main focus is to determine how value can be created for organizations by measuring maintenance performance, examining such maintenance strategies as condition‐based maintenance, reliability‐centred maintenance, e‐maintenance, etc. In other words, the objectives are to find frameworks or models that can be used to evaluate different maintenance strategies and determine the value of these frameworks for an organization.Design/methodology/approach – A state‐of‐the‐art literature review has been carried out to answer the following two research questions. First, what approaches and techniques are used for maintenance performance measurement (MPM) and which MPM techniques are optimal for evaluating maintenance str...

Performance measurement and management for maintenance: a literature review

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide a literature review of the performance measurement (PM) in maintenance. The authors aim to discuss the background and development of the PM for maintenance, besides defining the concept of performance measures for maintenance and the frameworks developed. Design/methodology/approach – A detailed and extensive literature search and study was undertaken by the authors on the concept and definition of PM, performance indicators (PIs), maintenance performance indicators and various performance frameworks. The history and theory of PM over different phases of business and technological developments have been critically examined and analysed in this review paper. Findings – This paper reviews and presents the different PIs and PM frameworks like; balanced scorecard (BSC), performance prism, performance pyramid and performance matrix, etc., and identifies their characteristics and shortcomings. After considering related issues and challenges, frameworks and appro...

Link and effect model for performance improvement of railway infrastructure

Railway traffic has increased over the last decade due to its fuel efficiency and the need to reduce emissions. The railway infrastructure performance needs to be measured to allow assets to be managed effectively against set objectives. Various systems are used to collect and store data on traffic, failures, inspections, track quality, etc. However, these systems are often used in an ad hoc manner, partly because of the weaknesses of traditional performance measurement systems. This paper proposes a link and effect model which is focused on the areas of continuous improvement, the key elements of strategic planning and on the underlying factors responsible for the railway performance. The model provides information on the performance of railway systems and components, and how they are linked to each other and to the overall objectives, thereby facilitating proactive decision-making. The model is applied in a case study on the Iron Ore Line in Sweden. The performance of a section of the line is studied in terms of failures, train delays and repair times, and ranked through a risk matrix and composite indicator.

Maintenance metrics: A hierarchical model of balanced scorecard

The system of performance measurement of maintenance function should cover all processes related to it within the organization. There must be an interconnection between the different indicators, so the numbers can be interpreted in order to reach a good conclusion for decision making. This premise implies a hierarchy of indicators needed in a dual way. First, it will require maintenance indicators to be segmented according to the areas of influence for the rest of the organization, posed by interactions with finance department, human resources, purchasing, and, of course, with production in the seeking of compliance with corporate objectives. Simultaneously, these indicators correspond to different levels in the organization and therefore they will be segmented according to the hierarchical position of end users.

Human factor in maintenance performance measurement

The maintenance performance measurement is often faced with a lack in knowledge about the real function of the maintenance department within organizations, and consequently the absence of appropriate targets emanating from the global mission and vision. These facts bring about metrics not adapted to the real needs, which has a strong load of human factor and without a roadmap of the amount of data to be collected, their processing and use in decision making. This article proposes a model where qualitative and quantitative methods are combined in order to complement advantages and disadvantages of them both.

Preventive and corrective maintenance – cost comparison and cost–benefit analysis

Maintenance can represent a significant portion of the cost in asset intensive organisations, as breakdowns have an impact on the capacity, quality and cost of operation. However, the formulation of a maintenance strategy depends on a number of factors, including the cost of down time, reliability characteristics and redundancy of assets. Consequently, the balance between preventive maintenance (PM) and corrective maintenance (CM) for minimising costs varies between organisations and assets. Nevertheless, there are some rules of thumb on the balance between PM and CM, such as the 80/20 rule. Studies on the relationship between PM and CM in practice are rare. Therefore, PM and CM costs are studied in this article by analysing historical maintenance data. A case study of rail infrastructure historical data is carried out to determine the shares of PM and CM, together with a cost–benefit analysis (CBA) to assess the value of PM. The results show that the PM represents 10% to 30% of the total maintenance cost when user costs, i.e. train delays, are included as a CM cost. The CBA shows the benefit of PM is positive with a benefit–cost ratio at 3.3. However, the results depend on the inclusion/exclusion of user costs, besides individual organisational parameters.

Performance indicators and terminology for value driven maintenance

Purpose – Value driven maintenance (VDM) is a fairly new maintenance management methodology based on four maintenance value drivers and the formula of net present value (NPV) to calculate the value of different maintenance strategies. However, the dependability of the engineering assets needs to be assessed in order to make an estimation of the NPV. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to critically analyse standardised indicators to find the most essential indicators for the four value drivers and for estimation of the NPV. Terminology containing performance drivers and killers are common in the field of asset management, but not many publications can be found for their detailed descriptions. One section in this paper is therefore dedicated to review these terms. A comprehensive description and classification of performance killers and drivers, and of indicators for VDM are presented in this paper.Design/methodology/approach – Review of literature for technical terminology and review of standards for ...

Development of an integrity index for benchmarking and monitoring rail infrastructure: application of composite indicators

Railways are large, geographically dispersed assets, consisting of numerous systems, subsystems and components, for which considerable amounts of data and numerous indicators are generated for monitoring their operation and maintenance. Proper assessment of operation and maintenance performance is essential for sustainable and competitive rail transportation. Composite indicators (CIs), or indices, can simplify the performance measurement by summarising the overall performance of a complex asset into a single figure, making it easier to interpret than multiple indicators and plots. In this article, a CI termed ‘rail infrastructure integrity index’ is developed and verified in a case study. The results show that CIs can be used for benchmarking and assessing the overall performance of railway sections in a single figure, indicating which sections need further study. Their implementation should allow data users to do sensitivity analysis and decomposition for traceability.

Qualitative and quantitative aspects of maintenance performance measurement: a data fusion approach

The measurement of maintenance performance is often faced with a lack in knowledge about the real function of the maintenance department within organisations, and consequently appropriate targets from the global mission and vision are absence. Measurement metrics are not adapted to real needs, which have a strong human factor; nor is there a roadmap of the amount of data to be collected, their processing or how they are used in decision making. This article proposes a model where qualitative and quantitative methods are combined to complement the advantages of both.

Measuring performance of linear assets considering their spatial extension

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate how performance of linear assets can be analysed and displayed, considering both the technical asset and the user context, to simplify cognitive tasks of planning and decision making. Design/methodology/approach – Linear, or continuous assets, such as roads, railways, electrical grids and pipelines, are large, geographically spread out technical systems. Linear assets are comprised of system, subsystem and component levels. Thus, asset managers are involved with each level of the linear asset; asset management has strategic, tactical and operational levels. A methodology is developed to link together the technical and organisational levels and to measure asset performance considering their spatial extension. Geographical location and time are used as independent variables. Findings – For performance measurement of linear assets, it is found that the spatial extension is an equally generic dimension as time is for technical assets in general. Furthermor...