The status of maintenance management in Swedish manufacturing firms

Abstract

Presents a model of five linked maintenance management components (strategy, human aspects, support mechanisms, tools/techniques and organization). Analyses the present status of these components in Swedish manufacturing firms through a survey of 284 respondents. Shows that fewer than half have written maintenance strategies or computerized maintenance information systems and several give maintenance low status. The figures are lowest in small firms and in the timber industry. Preventive maintenance at fixed intervals and corrective maintenance are the most common maintenance techniques. However, condition monitoring is common in large paper and chemical firms. Also indicates that Swedish firms have not fully made maintenance a company‐wide issue, and that centralized maintenance departments dominate resources in large firms, but outsourcing has become important in small firms. Many of these figures are considered not to be optimal, but the average firm should be able to improve.

Maintenance practices in Swedish industries: Survey results

“…The status and role of maintenance are not highly recognised in companies. For example, more than onehalf of the respondents of the survey indicated that they do not have any written maintenance strategy (this is similar to a result published by a previous study, see Jonsson, 1997). Moreover, the maintenance department still belongs from an organisational point of view to the production department.…”

“…Thus, the contribution of maintenance departments in designing and improving production processes, and helping the purchasing department in selecting the right manufacturing equipment is considered an essential element of maintenance practice. Jonsson (1997) emphasised that feedback control loop of maintenance data is necessary to reduce the life cycle costs at an early stage, and implementation of a Deming plan-do-check-act-cycle (PDCA) is important to allow continuous improvement.…”

“…The results of the search show that no previous works have dealt with maintenance practices in Swedish industries. However, two papers were based on conducting a survey within Swedish industries with a focus on maintenance management and advanced manufacturing systems, see Jonsson (1997Jonsson ( , 2000. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to investigate empirically within Swedish industries which maintenance practices are deployed, and identify the factors that are the key ingredients of proper maintenance practices.…”

Creating and Sustaining a Maintenance Strategy: A Practical Guide

“…Research by Robson (2010) found that maintenance organizations in the North East of England were not creating maintenance strategies and linking them to manufacturing and business goals. However, this may not be an issue unique to the UK because similar concerns were raised in Sweden by the research of Jonsson (1997).…”

“…This should be defined with specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timely objectives (SMART) (Cross and Lynch, 1989). These objectives should be coherently aligned to the manufacturing and business goals (Jonsson, 1997). Once the "future state" objectives are established, the "current state" is measured in relation to these objectives.…”