Reducing professional maintenance losses in production by efficient knowledge management in machine acquisitions

Journal article, 2022

Research in product development has shown the importance of reusing knowledge to eliminate future design weaknesses. Previous research has shown that maintenance- and equipment breakdown-related losses are the second and third largest losses in a specific studied automotive flow and that the losses are originating from the design phase. This paper presents a case study performed on four industrial acquisition projects where the case company already had one machine and was buying more machines of the same type. The study focuses on how knowledge about the existing machine is re-used in the new acquisition process. Potential barriers that hinder reusing the engineering knowledge are identified. The main conclusions are that there is a need for increased focus on the importance of knowledge transfer, more emphasis on maturing knowledge, increase the diversity in the engineering teams, ensure the design model is applying lean concepts, and to improve the documentation interface with suppliers.