O.~,tEGA Int. J. of Mgmt $ci.. Vol. 18, No. I. pp. 59-70.

1990

0305-0483 90 S3,00 + 0.00

Pergamon Press plc

Printed in Great Britain

A Maintenance Management Tool

LM PINTELON
Afdeling Industrieel Beleid, Belgium
LN VAN WASSENHOVE
Erasmus University, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
(Received June 1988: in ret,ised form September 1989)
This paper presents a structured Maintenance Management Tool (MMT). There is a great need for
such tools although very few integrated efforts were made in the past. The M M T described here serves
two purposes: to he a decision support tool for maintenance managers in industry and to he a vehicle
for further research on maintenance decision-making. The concept has already received active interest
from several Belgian companies. The M M T consists of two parts: A Control Board (CB) with different
sets of performance indicators, each set corresponding to a different area of maintenance management
and, functionally linked with the CB, a structured network of Detailed Reports (DR), which provide
more disaggregated information. The M M T is not only useful to evaluate past actions but can also
be used in continual improvement programs. As such the concept fits into the renewed interest for
performance reporting observed in other areas, such as production control and logistics.

1. INTRODUCTION

places. There is a growing number of publications on maintenance management in specific

maintenance journals and in more generally
oriented OR journals. Many conferences for
maintenance managers are being organized.
Consultants discover the maintenance market
and a lot of maintenance oriented software is
now being written. MMISs (Maintenance
Management Information Systems) have
become very popular: many packages for micro
or mainframe computers appear on the market,
several papers describe the requirements for and
the features of MMISs and many companies
consider implementation or development of
MMIS. These MMISs consist of different
modules such as equipment, bill of materials,
spare parts inventory control, personnel
management and work order management.
Most of these packages are geared to administrative and accounting control and are not really
management tools. Reporting facilities are also
typically weak in this type of software.
An efficient maintenance performance system
is not only expected to report on the performance of the maintenance department, but also

MAINTENANCE MANAGEMENT is one of those

business functions that has always been largely
neglected. Everyone has long been convinced
that application of Operational Research (OR)
techniques to such areas as inventory control
and production planning is very valuable.
Maintenance, unfortunately, is still often considered as an unavoidable and uncontrollable
cost factor. During the past two decades, however, there appears to have been a steadily
increasing interest in maintenance management
as one of the key support functions of production. Some of the most important reasons for
this evolution are: a growing competitive pressure that necessitates stringent cost control, a
trend towards further automation that calls for
highly reliable production equipment and, of
course, the recent interest in Japanese management philosophies with their process-oriented
view of production.
This increased interest in maintenance management, from the academic as well as from the
industrial world, can be observed in different
59

60

Pintelon, Van Wassenhove--A Maintenance Management Tool

has to offer an opportunity for in-depth analysis Newbrough [I1], who proposes a multi-index
without investing too much time. All this re- profile on which some relevant PIs are plotted.
quires consistent, updated and well managed
Since maintenance management is an impordatabases. In practice very few of the existing tant topic in production and operations maninformation systems satisfy these needs.
agement and since performance reporting is a
In maintenance literature little is found on key factor in every control system, it is essential
performance reporting. There is, to the best of for every organization to have an efficient
our knowledge, almost no recent work on this maintenance performance evaluation protopic. Some authors [7, 9, 11, 12] provide lists of cedure. It is our experience that many mainperformance indicators (PIs). These PIs give tenance managers feel the need for a good
information on maintenance costs, work order performance evaluation tool. To date these
management, personnel and equipment perfor- tools are neither readily available in literature
mance. Often maintenance costs are related to nor in the field. The Maintenance Management
external data, such as the replacement value of Tool concept (MMT) described in this paper
the equipment. The PIs mentioned by the differ- attempts to show how such a tool can be
ent authors are very similar and often little developed.
information is given on how to use them (except
The paper is organized as follows: Section 2
for some suggestions at the managerial level and describes the Maintenance Management Tool;
on the frequency of reporting). The same type of Section 3 illustrates the use of the MMT; Secindicators are found on checklists used by tion 4 reports on some implementation aspects;
maintenance consultants for a quick analysis of Section 5 describes the usefulness of the MMT
the performance of their clients and in macro- as a research tool and Section 6 summarizes the
economic surveys carried out for specific indus- conclusions.
trial sectors [I, 3, 4]. It would be unjust to state
that these lists of performance indicators consti2. THE MAINTENANCE MANAGEMENT
tute the whole literature on maintenance perforTOOL (MMT)
mance. Corder [2] for instance, proposes to
The MMT is designed as a tool to evaluate
evaluate global maintenance performance with
one fairly rough indicator. The Nippon Denso maintenance performance. Performance is thormethod [7] uses 14 indicators to evaluate both oughly examined on five different domains
maintenance and production engineering. From (costs, equipment performance, personnel perthese indicators, five are selected and integrated formance, materials management and work
into one short-term PI for the maintenance order control) and on different levels of aggredepartment. Priel [15] and Noiret [13] fill out a gation. Only those aspects of maintenance that
kind of elementary control board with several are really under control of the maintenance
manager are reported.
groups of indicators.
The M M T consists of two parts: a Control
Hibi [7] tries to combine all possible efficiency
measures into one short-term PI and one long- Board (CB), and a network of Detailed Reports
term PI. The evolution of the latter is pictured (DR). The CB has a signal function, it highlights
graphically. Hibi is one of the few authors who those areas of maintenance management where
thoroughly studied maintenance performance something went wrong (symptoms), or where
reporting. In our experience the Hibi system is something is likely to go wrong in the near
too rigid to be used in practice. A lot of detailed future. The DR help to make a proper diagnosis
information is needed to compute the two PIs of those symptoms and, if possible, induce
and whenever some data are missing (which is suggestions for an appropriate remedy. The
often the case) it becomes really difficult to MMT also allows the maintenance manager to
obtain a reliable result. Besides the obvious put some performance indicators in a time
time-based follow-up of some indicators the perspective, either for trend analysis or forecastmultifactor graphs of Luck [8] must be men- ing purposes.
tioned. Luck draws four multifactor graphs
(planning, work load, cost, productivity) which The control board (Figs 1 and 2)
he combines into one overall multifactor perThe control board (CB) is a one page sumformance graph. The same idea is found in mary of maintenance performance indicators. It

Omega, Vol. 18, No. I

61

Control Board--Period T
Ratio
BUDGET

(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
(5)
(6)

Costs (period T)
Costs (year-to-date)
Wages
Material
Subcontracting
Miscellaneous

(7)
(8)
(9)
(10)
(11 )
(12)

Number of failures
Reliability
Maintainability
Availability
Unit operating cost
Losses per unit

PERSONNEL

(1 3)
(14)

Percentage overtime
Percentage absence

MATERIAL

(1 5)
(16)

inventory turnover
Service rate

JOBS

(17)
(18)
(19)
(20)
(21)

Breakdown ratio
Planning rate
Planning execution
Service rate
Backlog

EQUIPMENT

Actual

Expected

Target

Notes

Attention

92%

98%

97%

new m/c

ALERT

Equipment was available 92% (actual) of planned production time. The availability of 98% is the availability expected
with the newly installed machine. With this action it was expected to do even better than the long range
management target of 97%. The actual value though is lower than the tolerance level for the availability ratio:
92% < 98-5% This requires immediate action: the attention column shows the "ALERT" level.

Fig. 1. Control board.

is composed of five groups of performance

characteristics. Each group corresponds to a
different aspect of maintenance management
and contains two to six ratios.
The CB provides a compact but complete
overview of the global performance of the maintenance department. Most of the performance
indicators are ratios measuring effectiveness (in
how far was the goal reached?) or efficiency
(how economically were the resources used to
Area
BUDGET

Ratio
(1)

reach that goal?). The choice of the number of

indicators for each topic and their definition is
based on a trade-off between manageability of
the CB and completeness of the information.
Figure l shows an example of a CB with an
explanation of the different columns. Figure 2
gives a more precise definition of the performance indicators used. Of course for each reallife implementation the CB can be adapted to fit
specific needs.

Definition (all computations concern period T)

(3)
(4)
(5)
(6)

Costs (period T)
Costs (year-to-date)
Wages
Material
Subcontracting
Miscellaneous

Total costs in period T = ( 3 ) + ( 4 ) + ( 5 ) + ( 6 )

Total costs (year-to-date)
Wages (normal and overtime)
Costs of spares and operating supplies
Subcontracting costs
Other costs: e.g. overhead, computer costs, production losses, etc.

EQUIPMENT

(7)
(8)
(9)
(10)
(11 )
(1 2)

Number of failures
Reliability
Maintainability
Availability
Unit operating cost
Losses per unit

Number of failures (breakdowns)

Mean time between failures
Mean time to repair
Actual production time/Planned production time
Operating costs/Number of units produced
Costs of losses/Number of units

PERSONNEL

(13)
(14)

Percentage overtime
Percentage absence

lO0.Overtime hours/Total hours

Number of hours spent on not-maintenance jobs/Total hours

MATERIAL

(1 5)
(1 6)

Inventory turnover
Service rate

Value of spares and operating supplies consumed/Inventory value

Number of items immediately supplied out of stock/Number of items
requested

JOBS

(1 7)
(18)
(1 9)
(20)
(21)

Breakdown ratio
Planning rate
Planning execution
Service rate
Backlog

Number of hours'CM/Number of hours (CM + PM)

Number of hours planned PM/Number of hours available for maintenance
Number of hours worked according to plan/Number of hours planned
Number of jobs executed/Number of job requests
Total hours of backlog (end of T)/Availeble capacity (in T 1 )

(2)

Fig. 2. Control board--suggested ratio definitions.

62

Pintelon. Van Wassenhove--A Maintenance Management Tool

The idea of a single overall performance support characteristics of the system we tried to
measure, as is very often suggested both in m a k e all DR self supporting by including all
literature and in practice, is rejected, since it is relevant information needed for a sound intersimplistic and not very useful to operational pretation (in order to avoid the user having to
management. While its use appears to be attrac- look up old reports before being able to interpret
tive, it is too risky, because of the aggregation the current one). We obviously had to make a
of information which can obscure facts (e.g. selection from all conceivable detailed reports.
some data cancel out). For each performance Factors under consideration were: completeness
indicator the CB highlights the value for the and relevance of the reports, degree of control
period considered and compares this value with of the maintenance manager over the problem
an expected value and a target value. This area in question, etc. Figure 4 shows how
comparison allows one to draw the attention of different reports on various aggregation levels
the maintenance manager to those parameters are linked to the control board to allow adequate
that exceed tolerance levels; it helps the manager decision support in analyzing maintenance
to recognize the symptoms. For a thorough performance.
diagnosis of these symptoms, the manager can
(I) In-depth reports. The in-depth reports
consult a set of linked detailed reports (DR) provide information on short term maintenance
(graphs and tables) on different levels of aggre- performance. They help to answer questions
gation. This analysis should lead to the selection such as "why did ratio X exceed tolerance limits
of an appropriate remedy (e.g. an organizational in period T?" As defined here the in-depth report
change or a new preventive maintenance pro- structure consists of three different levels of
gram). It must be emphasized that the functional aggregation. It is of course, not always necessary
link between the CB and the DR allows for an to go through all three levels, as that depends on
efficient search through a structured network the needs of the user. The first level of aggregaand avoids an undirected, perhaps tedious tion consists of ratio reports and budget reports,
search in a pile of unrelated detailed reports. to help find the causes of the symptoms. The
follow-up reports on the second level make it
The detailed reports (Figs 3 and 4)
possible to locate the problem in time. On the
In the DR the information of the CB is third and lowest level of aggregation the standisaggregated to enable the maintenance dard reports enable to user to dig into the fine
manager to analyze the symptoms he/she spotted details.
on the CB by means of an efficient and guided
(a) Ratio reports
search process. Therefore different types of
reports are provided (Fig. 3). To improve
The ratio reports and the CB look very
much alike, but the information on the
user friendliness, an attempt was made to adhere
ratio report is on a lower level of aggreto a uniform layout for all reports as much
gation
(for example the CB shows the
as possible. To further improve the decision
CB: Control Board
Budget ratios
EQuipment ratios
Personnel ratios
Material ratios
Job ratios
DR: Detailed Reports
Short term evaluation

Long term evaluation

Long term evaluation

In-depth reports

Trend reports

(disaggregation)

(evolution)

Analysis reports
(global insight)

Ratio reports
Budget reports

Follow-up reports
Standard reports

Fig. 3. Detailed reports (structure).

Trend report
Trend report
Trend report

Analysis report
Analysis report

Personnel
Material
Jobs

Jobs
Material

In depth: follow up report

Equipment

Trend report

In depth: follow up report

Personnel

Equipment

In depth: follow up report

Equipment

Budget

In depth: ratio report

In depth: standard report

Trend report

In depth: ratio report

Equipment

In depth: ratio report

In depth; budget report

Report type

Personnel

Equipment

Budget

Area

(t)
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0

T
T
T
T
T
T
T
T
T
T
T
T
T
T
T
t
t
t
t
t

m/c
m/c
m/c
m/c
m/c
m/c
talc
m/c
global
global
m/c
m/c
m/c
m/c
m/c
m/c
m/c
global
global
m/c
talc
(m/c)
global
global
talc
m/c
m/c
m/c
global
global
global
global
global
global
m/c
global

crew
skill
crew
crew
crew
crew
crew
crew
skill
skill
skill
skill
skill
skill
skill
crew
crew
skill
skill
skill
skill
(skill)
crew
crew
crew
crew
crew
crew
skill
skill
crew
crew
crew
crew
crew
crew

... Time ... Installation ... Personnel

, , . Disaggregation ... Disaggregation

table
table
table
table
table
table
table
table
table
table
table
table
table
table
table
graph
graph
graph
graph
graph
graph
form
graph
graph
graph
graph
graph
graph
graph
graph
graph
graph
graph
graph
graph
graph

I:i~. 4 l)cl;=ilcd rcp4~,'ls pr~p~.~cdsch,'clion.

Note: RATIO = ratio group; ratio* = part of a ratio; ratio = ratio itself. T = ~eriod T; t = subperiods of T: 0 = sequence of periods.

Costs (ytd)
Costs (T)
Number of failures
Reliability
Maintainability
Availability
Percentage overtime
Absence percentage
Service rate (Material)
Planning rate
Planning execution
Service rate (Jobs)
JOBS.
MATERIAL

BUDGET
Wages.
Material
Subcontracting
Number of failures
Reliability
Maintainability
Availability
Percentage overtime
Percentage absence
Breakdown ratio
Planning rate
Planning execution
Service rate
Backlog
Number of failures
Availability
Percentage overtime
Percentage absence
Breakdown ratio
Backlog

Ratio

bar
bar
bar
bar
bar
bar

chart
chart
chart
chart
chart
chart
line graph
(stacked) bar chart
line graph
line graph
line graph
line graph
XY plot
XY plot
XY, line, bar
XY, line, bar
XY, line, bar
XY, line, bar
stacked bar, pie chart
cumulative XY plot

(stacked)
(stacked)
(stacked)
(stacked)
(stacked)
(stacked)

Representation

64

Pintelon, Van Wassenhot'e--A Maintenance Management Tool

personnel ratios for the entire maintenance crew, whereas the corresponding ratio reports present the same ratios
per skill group).

(b) Budget reports

These are the only reports that contain
absolute numbers rather than ratios.
The budget reports allow the maintenance manager to evaluate the degree
to which actual costs of a certain period
correspond to budgeted costs. The first
budget report provides the global cost
matrix, chosen here because of its cOnvenience and suitability for further disaggregation. This global cost matrix is
just another way of presenting one of
the ratio reports. On the next level of
aggregation these matrix reports may
contain: personnel costs per skill group,
materials costs per production line,
costs of subcontracting per production
line, etc. The global sumtotals of the
columns of these matrices also appear
on the CB. Clearly these matrices can,
if so desired, also be presented for each
machine group or even for each individual machine.
(c) Follow-up or control reports
In these reports the period under consideration (e.g. month T) is divided into
subperiods (e.g. weeks t l, t2, t3, t4).
Since the purpose here is to follow the
change of a specific performance indicator, a graphical format seems to be
the most suitable representation form.
(d) Standard reports
Standard reports are used daily on the
production floor, such as work orders,
shift reports and production reports.
Those documents are in fact basic inputs for the MMT. They can be of help
if it is necessary to analyze certain
aspects of maintenance management to
the finest level of detail.

(2) Trend reports. Trend reports attempt

to place the performance indicators for the
current period (T) into a historical perspective
( . . . . T - 3, T - 2, T - 1) and allow for projections (forecast for T + 1). They are meant
to monitor the performance on a somewhat
longer term. Important trend reports include
personnel workload, failure characteristics of

the installations and maintenance costs. The

trend report concerning personnel workload can
be used as a first guideline in answering questions concerning appropriate crew sizes. The
report shows whether the current under- or
overload of the crew is temporary or permanent
in nature.
(3) Analysis reports. Like the trend reports
they also provide information on the performance over several periods. The analyses suggested here relate to demand for spare parts and
the occurrence of failures. The former presents
a classical ABC analysis of the demand for spare
parts. The latter provides the results of a simple
downtime analysis, which can be used in the
evaluation of the PM program. According to
the needs of the company, other analyses can be
designed, such as: possible correlations between
equipment failures and product quality, effect of
different product types on equipment failure
characteristics, etc. The information system generating the MMT must be flexible enough to
allow the user to continue with his inquiries.
The list of reports presented here, is, of
course, not exhaustive. Neither should it be used
in every implementation. The purpose here is
only to give an overview of possible reports that
can be generated and to explain their use. Each
company will have to adapt this array of reports
to its own specific needs. A computer system can
obviously be of help and specialized software is
now available for more advanced statistical
analyses.
3. USE OF THE MAINTENANCE
MANAGEMENT TOOL
The MMT described here goes beyond most
maintenance performance reporting methods
mentioned in literature. The decision support
features of the MMT consist of the concept of
the CB, the functional link between CB and DR
and the structure of the DR network.
It would be misleading to use the popular
term 'expert system' for the M M T concept
proposed in this paper, since MMT is a tool for
the maintenance manager, which means it may
assist him but it certainly cannot replace him.
The knowledge and experience of the manager
is still needed to interpret the results. The attention and alert levels on the CB are not generated
automatically by the system but are set by the
manager based on his experience.

65

Omega, Vol. l& No. 1

Apart from being a tool for internal use the

MMT can be used to facilitate communication
between different business functions such as
production and maintenance, as well as the
communication between hierarchical levels, towards top management (upward communication) and towards the workers on the floor
(downward communication). This requires
MMT to be flexible to allow the user to make
extracts of reports according to his needs.
Performance measurement has long been
considered as the evaluation of past actions in
order to correct things that went wrong and to
anticipate to further problems [6, 17]. Recently
more people become convinced of the use of
performance indicators (PIs) as excellent
tools in continuous improvement programs
[5, 10, 14, 16, 18]. The MMT concept discussed
here is also very well positioned for use in the
Deming circle. This concept, invented in the

USA and rediscovered in Japan, consists of four

steps, which are repeated over and over again
in a continuous performance improvement
program:
(1) Plan: make plans to improve a given
activity;
(2) Do: carry out these plans;
(3) Check: look at the results, compare
actual with desired performance;
(4) Act: consolidate the measures that
proved successful, correct plans or performance targets if necessary.
This concept is applied to maintenance and
illustrated in Fig. 5. Assume there is a new
preventive maintenance program being introduced in a company in order to increase
availability of a given production line from 92
to at least 98%. Since such an increase is
difficult to obtain, a well-balanced PM program

Company policy goals

Production
Operations Manageaent

Support function:
Maintenance

Maintenance Perforeence
Maintenance ManagementTool
Control Board: perforeance indicators
. . . . ) syoptois
Oeteiled ~oports: tebles~ graphs
. . . . ) diagnosis

Operations

Recoioendations

Maintenance of

Setleodify perforeanoe

production equipment

targets and tolerances

Plen/replan ,aintonance
activities
Change eaintontnce

policy (prolval)
Planning process

Planning of maintenance
activities
in coordination .ith
production plsnning
Fig. 5. Improving maintenance performance---(thcDemingwheel).

Pintelon, Van Wassenhot,e--A Maintenance Management Tool

66

(Plan) with different stages of implementation

will be needed. Every period (e.g. month) the
execution (Do) of that PM program will be
evaluated (Check) and actual equipment performance compared with the desired performance.
If the actual availability is lower than the desired 98% or lower than x%, with x % being a
subtarget for one of the stages, the DR of the
MMT can help to find the causes (diagnosis),
leading to recommendations about the PM

program for the next period (Act) and for the

planning process for the next period (Plan), and
the Deming cycle starts again.
As a further illustration of the operational use
of the MMT, consider the small example pictured in Fig. 6, where the functional links
between the control board (CB) and detailed
reports (DR) become apparent. Assume that on
the CB the equipment ratio 'availability' has
reached the red alert level in period T [Fig. 6(a)].

(o)
CONTROL

BOARD - P e r i o d

-- E q u i p m e n t

(10]

AvaiLabiLity

(b)
Ratio report -Period T
AvailabiLity
m/c
- m / c

actual,

expected

attention

I
2

m/c

(c)
=

FoLLow up r e p o r t - P e r i o d

T
planned

Capacity
(h)

,,

tl

(d)

t3

t2

actual

production
production

t4

is.i,t~.port

Fig. 6. Illustration o f the use of the M M T concept.

Omega. Vol. 18, No. 1

Question 1. Is this low availability due to one

or to more installations?--Answer 1. The ratio
report (an .in-depth report) in Fig. 6(b) shows
that machine 2 causes the low availability.
Question 2. Was the availability of machine 2
low during all subperiods of T?--Answer 2. No.
The follow-up report (another in-depth report)
shows that availability was much lower than
expected in subperiod t2 only [Fig. 6(c)].
Question 3. What is the reason for the low
availability of machine 2 in t2?--Answer 3. To
answer this question the standard shift reports
of machine 2 in period t2 must be consulted
[Fig. 6(d)].
As a final example, assume that the CB shows
that personnel ratio (13), percentage overtime, is
very high. Ratio reports (in-depth reports) on
personnel ratios per skill group reveal the skill
group, say the electricians, which was responsible for the excessive overtime. Drawing a trend
report next will show whether the overload
continues in the upcoming periods. If so, hiring
more electricians can be considered. If, on
the contrary, the current overload is only
temporary, subcontracting may be a good
solution.
4. IMPLEMENTATION ASPECTS
Experiences from applications of our MMT
in industry are very valuable since nearly every
implementation generates interesting comments
and questions. When the company already has
an operational maintenance management information system, one can try to integrate the
MMT concept and check whether it is able to
remedy some of the deficiencies of the existing
system. One can even consider the integration of
the maintenance management information system with more business-wide concepts such as
CIM. In situations where no maintenance information system is operational as yet, studying the
impact and results of a rudimentary MMT
system can be very instructive.
Implementation of the MMT concept can be
viewed from two different angles. First one can
start from the MMT concept and analyze the
data required to generate the MMT and how to
collect the data. Second, one can start from the
existing data collection system and analyze in
how far the MMT can be realized using readily
available information. Both approaches can
improve one's general insight in maintenance

67

management and be helpful in validating the

M M T concept.
The MMT concept is a periodically generated
frame of reference to evaluate maintenance performance. It is neither a turnkey concept nor a
tailormade concept. It is more a 80-10-10 concept: 80% of the concept can probably be used
in every implementation, 10% will have to be
adapted to the sector or even to the company
under consideration and the remaining 10% will
be completely useless or irrelevant for the application at hand and will therefore have to be
omitted or replaced.
The CB of the M M T contains 21 ratios, it
therefore fits on one page. Although the number
of ratios on the CB is unimportant, it is vital
that the CB can be quickly scanned and interpreted, hence the one-page format. A CB consisting of different pages would be time
consuming to leaf through to obtain a general
appreciation of all aspects of maintenance performance. Therefore, an efficient choice of
ratios must be made. A realistic trade-off
between completeness and manageability is one
of the basic requirements for a useful CB.
In Fig. 2 some ratio definitions were proposed. In practice it is sometimes hard to find an
appropriate definition for certain ratios which is
acceptable to all people involved. However,
only by carefully defining the ratios can one
measure what one really intends to measure.
Every definition has to fit the business context
of the company. It is sometimes better to use a
definition that may not be 100% correct theoretically, but has been used for years and is
understood and accepted by everyone involved,
than to use a new 100% correct definition with
which everybody feels uncomfortable and uncertain. The most important points are to reach
an agreement over the purpose of the ratio and
its (one and only) definition and to make sure
the data to correctly compute it are available.
A question that often arises in discussions
with maintenance managers on the MMT concept is 'how are we doing compared to our
competitors?' Managers are (often desperately)
looking for some general industry figures to
check their own performance. The idea of the
availability of general worldwide figures of truth
seems very attractive but is a mirage. Even if
companies adopt the same definition for a given
ratio there are a lot of other factors that make
inter-company comparisons of the values for

68

Pintelon, Van Wassenhore--A Maintenance Management Tool

that ratio tricky: e.g. age and type of equipment,

capacity use (workload) and accounting procedures. Perhaps different plants of a multinational company form the only reasonable
area for comparison. For some ratios though,
based on long experience and averaged over
many companies, there exist 'optimal ranges'
accepted by the whole sector. In the chemical
process industries e.g. it is generally accepted
that the ratio of yearly maintenance cost to
replacement value of the installations should be
between 2 and 3%. Of course the practical
usefulness of such ranges as a management tool
is fairly limited.
In designing a M M T for a specific situation it
is often best to start from scratch. Afterwards
the feasibility and practical realization of the
design have to be considered. The decision is
whether to adapt the design to the system or to
extend the system such that it can accommodate
the design. For instance it is ridiculous to say
from the beginning 'we don't use graphs because
our software doesn't support them'. It makes
more sense to design a system with graphs when
appropriate and to decide afterwards whether
the graphs can be omitted or whether they are
valuable enough to buy some additional software that supports them.
The discussion above reflects only some of the
remarks often heard in discussions with maintenance managers on this subject. Each remark
in its own way illustrates an objective or a
functionality of the M M T concept.
The MMT concept is currently being implemented in two Belgian firms. In a pharmaceutical company the implementation is nearly
completed and in a chemical firm the implementation is now well under way. Several other
companies in various sectors showed their interest by trying out the concept or part of it (the
control board). Some consultants/software
houses expressed interest in commercialization.
5. USEFULNESS OF THE MMT CONCEPT
AS A RESEARCH TOOL
This M M T was developed as part of a PhD
research project. From the above the potential
practical usefulness of the tool should have
become clear. From a research point of view
there were two goals: (1) to gain insight in
maintenance management through the design of
the tool and through the feedback that came on

this concept from maintenance managers; and

(2) to use this tool as a navigation board that
translates the effects of certain actions on performance measures. The tool is a kind of screen
on which the effects of different maintenance
policies and new maintenance job scheduling
rules can be monitored.
Concerning the general validation of the
MMT there are some points that need further
investigation. A dBaselII+ prototype, developed after a structured data flow analysis is
currently being used for these purposes. Sector
dependency of the MMT seems worth investigating. Clearly the concept was developed for
manufacturing industries rather than for service
industries. Perhaps the M M T will be more
useful in continuous production than in typical
job shop situations. The latter usually allow for
less stringent maintenance control due to more
flexibility in capacity. Moreover the equipment
used is often too specialized (e.g. CNC) to be
maintained in-house, which requires specific
maintenance and maintenance control. In the
continuous production sector one can still distinguish between many types of companies.
Consider lbr instance an oil refining plant and
a tin can manufacturer. Both have continuous
production, but the conditions for planning and
maintenance are very different. Some further
research on the dependency of the MMT on
sector characteristics is therefore required.
Another area of interest concerns the interrelationship between the ratios on the CB.
When certain actions are undertaken to improve
a given performance ratio, how does that affect
other ratios in either a desirable or an undesirable way? Perhaps it is possible to determine
clusters of interconnected ratios as well as
'desirable' ranges for the values of the ratios in
those clusters. Looking for optimal values of
performance ratios here can be compared to
setting values for ratio analysis in a financial
audit of a company. The isolated value of a
single ratio may not mean much, but the values
of certain clusters of ratios, when considered
together, definitely reveal a lot about the financial health of the company.
Using the ratios in the maintenance CB for
auditing purposes similar to what is routinely
done in the area of finance requires some
conceptual thinking, but it can also be instructive to perform some simulation runs with
the abovementioned dBaselII + program. These

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Omega, 1Iol. 18, No. 1

simulation runs are currently under study, using

both real-life and special scenario data. These
runs should provide us with the link between the
performance indicators and the real means of
control. We should gain insight in what happens
if certain actions are undertaken (e.g. what
happens if the PM program is cut down by
50%) and derive from there the means of
control to improve performance.
Software implementation of the M M T is
another interesting topic for further study.
Some parts completed recently are the construction of a data structure diagram to arrive at a
conceptual (normalized) database design and
the analysis of information storages and flows,
to set up an information flow chart (e.g. a data
flow diagram). From this the structure chart
needed for computer implementation can be
derived. The investigation of these aspects
should shed some light on information bottlenecks and on information network flows. This
in turn should highlight pieces of data that are
extremely important because they are very often
used in reports, the intensity with which information channels are used or misused, etc. All
this should also provide some insight into the
requirements for the organizational environment of the maintenance information system.
Data accuracy of the M M T is also a very
important aspect. How reliable is the information and how can this be measured and
controlled?
We already mentioned that performance reporting becomes more and more important in
several areas. We therefore feel it would be
interesting to compare the concept developed
here to performance reporting systems in other
areas such as production control, logistics, etc.
6. CONCLUSIONS
This paper has presented a structured maintenance management tool. There is a great need
for such tools, although very few integrated
efforts have been reported as of yet. The M M T
described here serves two purposes, i.e. to be
a decision support tool for the maintenance
manager in industry and to be a vehicle
for further research on maintenance decisionmaking.
The M M T consists of two parts: a Control
Board with different collections of performance
indicators, each corresponding to a different

area of maintenance management and, functionally linked with the CB, a structured network of Detailed Reports. The periodically
generated CB helps the manager to detect those
areas of maintenance management where something went (or tends to go) beyond tolerance
levels (the symptoms). Consultation of a number of different types of D R enables the manager to determine exactly the cause of these
'symptoms', i.e. to arrive at a diagnosis. In
practice, maintenance managers react positively
to this M M T concept. They all recognize the
need for a good performance system as a basic
requirement for maintenance management and
control. They further admit that what is found
in practice seldom meets their needs concerning
maintenance reporting and that valuable literature on the subject can hardly be found. Finally,
most of the commercially available software
packages lack a flexible and userfriendly reporting module. Therefore every attempt to construct tools in the area of structured
maintenance reporting is studied with interest
by managers. The fact that our M M T provides
an integrated decision support approach makes
it different from most other efforts in maintenance control or reporting. We firmly believe
this integrated approach is the main reason for
the active support and interest we found in
industry during the development of the tool.
The M M T can also be used for further research on maintenance decision-making. Interesting questions are: in what way is performance
affected by management decisions such as altering the PM program? Can 'optimal' ranges for
clusters of performance ratios be established?
etc. The effect of different maintenance policies
can be evaluated by generating the corresponding CB for each scenario, i.e. effectively using
the CB as a simulation tool on the strategic or
tactical level of decision-making.
REFERENCES

1. Buttery LM (1978) New survey of US maintenance

costs. Hydrocarbon Processing 58, 85-90.
2. Corder GC (1962) Modern Maintenance, Seminar
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3. de Vries Robbe AAC (1987) Wie is bang van een
checklist? Technische Bedrijfs,'oering 2, 52-56.
4. DGS International MaintenanceConsultants for Industrializing Countries (1987) Checklist, Jubileumlaan 75,
9000 Ghent, Belgium.
5. Fortuin L (1988) Performance indicators: Why, where
and how. EJOR 34, 1-9.

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Pintelon, Van 14,'assenhove--A Maintenance Management Tool

6. Globerson S (1985) Issues in designing a performance

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11. Newbrough ET (1967) Effective Maintenance Management. McGraw-Hill, NY.
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nance. L "Entretien dans les Industries des Proc~d~s, nov.

14. Novitsky MP (1986) Performance measurements: The
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Luk Van Wassenhove,
Erasmus University Rotterdam, Econometric Institute,
PO Box 1738, 3000 Rotterdam, The Netherlands,

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