Lean Principles and Engineering Tools in Maintenance Organizations - A Survey Study

Paper in proceeding, 2014

This paper presents a questionnaire survey mapping how Lean principles and engineering tools are applied in a maintenance context in Swedish industry, based on a high-level strategic view from 76 respondents representing 71 companies. Results from the study cover different work practices according to Lean principles, to what extent risk assessment tools and software are used, to what degree companies are employing reliability engineers to conduct risk and reliability analysis, and how this relates to the safety of maintenance operations. The results indicate a gap between applying Lean in production and maintenance, and low use of valuable engineering tools.