Competencies Needed for Organizational Efficiency

Finally, Campbell proposes the implementation of two of the most successful methods for the continuous improvement implementation, RCM and TPM. For quantum leap improvements in maintenance, he suggests the use of process reengineering techniques.

Pintelon and Van Vassenhove (1990) present a maintenance management tool to evaluate maintenance performance. They suggest the use of a control board and a set of reports to analyze the following ratios: a ratio report, a follow-up report, and a standard report. This tool is examined in five different domains falling under the control of the maintenance manager: cost/budget, equipment performance, personnel performance, materials management and work order control. For each of these aspects, the control board has a ratio with actual, expected, target, notes and attention data.

A generic framework for integrating the maintenance management is presented by Hassanain et al. (2001) for built-assets. Their framework consists of the following five sequential management processes:

1. Identify asset

2. Identify performance requirements

3. Assess assets current performance

4. Plan maintenance

5. Management of the maintenance operations.

Hassanain et al (2001) use an object model where the objects requirements and relationships for the exchange and sharing of maintenance information between applications are defined. Another interesting and integrative approach is described by Yoshikawa (1995). The idea is to pursue a more holistic approach in order to systemize the maintenance knowledge as a whole, making available the right information at the right place and at the right time in order to meet organizational agility for maintenance purposes (Morel el al., 2001).

In contrast to the existing literature, we think that maintenance management consists of specific maintenance related actions at the three levels of business activity: strategic, tactical, and operational. Actions at the strategic level deal with transforming business priorities into maintenance priorities and designing mid-long term strategies to address current and/or potential gaps in equipment performance. As a result, a generic maintenance plan will be obtained at this level. Actions at the tactical level deal with the correct assignment of maintenance resources to fulfil the maintenance plan. As a result, a detailed program will be obtained with all task and resources assigned. Actions at the operational level ensure that the maintenance tasks are carried out by skilled technicians in the time scheduled, following the correct procedures, and using the proper tools. As a result, work will be done and data will be registered in an information system.

To enable and to ease the maintenance management process in an organization (at the three mentioned levels), we need to build a basic supporting structure. This structure will contain a set of main pillars characterized below:

• The IT Pillar . We believe that CMMS is fundamental for effective maintenance management. This will allow us to have access to the equipment's data. It will also transform this data into information that will be used to prioritize actions and to make better decisions at the three levels of business structure. The CMMS will allow the proper control of the system and will be more important when the number of items to maintain and the complexity of the plant are higher. CMMS will be a critical tool to the three levels of maintenance activity in the organization. The IT Pillar also includes some monitoring technologies that will improve maintenance management efficiency, focusing continuously on the tactical and operational decisions and actions.

• The Maintenance Engineering Techniques Pillar. Besides the IT tools, a set of key techniques are another pillar of the maintenance management framework. RCM plays an important role in the strategic and tactical levels, defining maintenance plans to ensure desired equipment reliability. TPM focuses organizational efforts at the operational level to improve overall equipment effectiveness. Stochastic tools can be used to model the failures, allowing further use of quantitative techniques to optimize the maintenance management policies. Other OR/MM techniques focus on optimizing maintenance resources management. Interesting case studies about RCM and TPM can be found in Deshpande and Modak (2002) and Chand and Shirvani (2002), respectively. Further, some real life applications of optimization tools can be found in Crespo Marquez and Sanchez Herguedas (2002). These techniques are relatively more useful at the tactical level.

• The Organizational Techniques Pillar. This pillar is as important as the previous ones and deals with the three levels of maintenance activity. Here, we include all techniques to foster relationships competency at the three levels of business activity. The purpose of these techniques is to ensure the best interface between different activity levels, different functions within the organization, and inter-organizational relationships. A good foundation for this pillar is a suitable level of motivation and involvement of the staff.

Summarizing the above discussion, our proposed process and framework for maintenance management is depicted in Table 2. The processes in Table 2 are continuous closed loop processes where feedback will be used for permanent improvement.