Factors influencing maintenance-related investments in industry: a multiple-case study
Journal article, 2021

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to ensure productive, robust and sustainable production systems by enabling future investments in maintenance. This study aims to provide a deeper understanding of the investment process and thereby facilitate future maintenance-related investments. The objectives are to describe the investment process, map the decision support and roles involved and identify factors influencing the process.

Design/methodology/approach: The study was designed as a multiple-case study, with three industrial cases of maintenance-related investments. A structured coding procedure was used to analyse the empirical data from the cases.

Findings: This paper provides a deeper understanding of the process of maintenance-related investments. Eleven factors influencing the investment process could be identified, three of which were seen in all three cases. These three factors are: fact-based decision-support, internal integration and foresight.

Practical implications: Investments in modern maintenance are needed to ensure productive, robust and sustainable production in the future. However, it is a challenge in manufacturing industry to justify maintenance-related investments. This challenge may be solved by developing a decision-support system, or a structured work procedure, that considers the findings of this study.

Originality/value: From this study, an extended view of the relation between quantifying effects of maintenance and maintenance-related investment is proposed, including surrounding factors influencing the investment process. The factors were identified using a structured and transparent coding procedure which is rarely used in maintenance research.

Case study

Manufacturing

Investment

industrial maintenance

Author

Camilla Lundgren

Chalmers, Industrial and Materials Science, Production Systems

Jon Bokrantz

Chalmers, Industrial and Materials Science, Production Systems

Anders Skoogh

Chalmers, Industrial and Materials Science, Production Systems

Journal of Quality in Maintenance Engineering

1355-2511 (ISSN)

Vol. 27 1 203-224

SMASh – Smart Maintenance Assessment

VINNOVA, 2017-05-01 -- 2019-10-31.

Subject Categories

Production Engineering, Human Work Science and Ergonomics

Areas of Advance

Production

DOI

10.1108/JQME-08-2018-0066

More information

Latest update

7/21/2021