Maintenance communities: A new model for the networked delivery of maintenance services

Emerging industrial service process development combined with managing complexity in service supply networks is an area where literature is still scarce. This paper seeks to critically analyse traditional maintenance business practices and to present a model to support the new production paradigm based on collaborative, value-adding networks. This paper is based on interviews and structured discussions with experts in different fields, and analysis of the results of industrial case studies. Our constructive research approach includes formulation of an advanced model to support a collaborative and networked maintenance business based on the identification of the current key challenges. Value networks are still lacking methods, models and practical business scenarios that support the collaborative provision of maintenance services. Adoption of the model presented in this paper is assumed to support service suppliers in coping with the challenges in dynamic maintenance service supply networks. The originality of our work lies in providing an integrated depiction of our model from several perspectives.