How Can SMES Adopt a New Method to Advanced Maintenance Strategies? A Case Study

Maintenance is crucial to manufacturing operations. In many organisations, the production equipment represents the majority of invested capital, and deterioration of these facilities and equipment increases production costs, reduces product quality. Over recent years the importance of maintenance, and therefore maintenance management, within manufacturing organisations has grown. The maintenance function has become an increasingly important and complex activity, particularly as automation increases. The opportunity exists for many organisations to benefit substantially through improvements to their competitiveness and profitability by adopting a new approach to maintenance management. Several tools and technologies including Condition Based Maintenance (CBM), Reliability Centred Maintenance (RCM) and more recently e-maintenance have developed under the heading of Advanced Maintenance Strategies. However, the adoption of advanced maintenance strategies and their potential benefits are usually demonstrated in large organisations. Unfortunately, the majority of organisations are constrained by the lack of knowledge and understanding on the requirements, which need to be in place before adopting an advanced maintenance strategy. These are usually classified as Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs). The research strategy is based on 'empirical iterations' using survey secondary data, experts' interviews information and multiple case studies. The results show that there is a set of recommendations, which strongly influence the implementation of an Advanced Maintenance Strategy (AMS) with a Small to Medium Enterprise (SME). Organisations require a structured and integrative approach in order to take advantage of a new approach to maintenance management. This paper will propose recommendations for integrating an AMS into the organisation and provide evidence of a successful implementation.