14. Maintenance System Performance, Productivity, and Continuous Improvement

Productivity and continues improvement of maintenance systems is the subject of this chapter. Continuous improvement of maintenance systems may be achieved using three approaches. The first approach is to use performance measures and the second approach is to conduct periodic auditing of the maintenance system. The third approach is to combine both approaches. In the first approach performance measures for the maintenance system are defined and computed on periodic basis. Targets are set and based on the system performance and the targets improvement programs are developed and implemented. In the second approach the regular audits are used to identify areas to improve the system. In this chapter a set of input, output and within the system measures together with the balanced scorecard are presented. Maintenance indices for administration, effectiveness, and cost followed by metric comparisons are provided. Then the chapter focuses on maintenance auditing and root causes analysis for developing corrective and preventive actions that is expected to result in continuous improvement. The chapter is concluded by a case study on maintenance, followed by benchmarking techniques.