Jit and Maintenance

Due to the emphasis on cost-reduction and customer service, JIT (Justin-Time) has become a very popular concept in logistic control systems. In the current competitive environment with short lead times and on-time deliveries, maintenance management also plays an important role in the optimization of business processes. Both manufacturing and service companies have realized that production, logistics and maintenance, can not be managed as separated functions. Boundaries are to be crossed in order to gain competitiveness through the complete package of operating functions. As a consequence borders between functional departments have disappeared over the past decade. During the last few years more and more emphasis has been put on company wide integration of maintenance into other business functions and on the contribution of maintenance to overall performance. We do no longer talk about maintenance contributing to life cycle costs, but rather to life cycle profit. The link between maintenance and performance is especially important in a JIT environment. Maintenance is a vital component here for achieving increased internal capability, which in turn leads to improved product quality and stronger market penetration. The TPM concept has integrated maintenance into machine design and into the production and quality improvement processes of the current organizations. In this chapter we describe the consequences of the JIT-philosophy on maintenance.