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Maintenance Performance Measurement (MPM) : Issues and Challenges

This document discusses issues and challenges related to maintenance performance measurement (MPM) systems. It identifies that traditional overall equipment effectiveness measures only consider internal effectiveness, but to truly measure maintenance effectiveness, both internal and external factors must be accounted for. Successful MPM implementation requires involvement from all employees and consideration of relevant issues. The challenges of developing maintenance performance indicators and applying them in real-world contexts are also discussed.

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0% found this document useful (0 votes)
118 views14 pages

Maintenance Performance Measurement (MPM) : Issues and Challenges

This document discusses issues and challenges related to maintenance performance measurement (MPM) systems. It identifies that traditional overall equipment effectiveness measures only consider internal effectiveness, but to truly measure maintenance effectiveness, both internal and external factors must be accounted for. Successful MPM implementation requires involvement from all employees and consideration of relevant issues. The challenges of developing maintenance performance indicators and applying them in real-world contexts are also discussed.

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Tsegay Teklay
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Maintenance performance measurement (MPM): Issues and


challenges

Article  in  Journal of Quality in Maintenance Engineering · July 2006


DOI: 10.1108/13552510610685084

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APPLICATIONS AND CASE STUDIES MPM: issues and


challenges
Maintenance performance
measurement (MPM): issues and
239
challenges
Aditya Parida and Uday Kumar
Division of Operation and Maintenance Engineering,
Luleå University of Technology, Luleå, Sweden

Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this study is to identify various issues and challenges associated with
development and implementation of a maintenance performance measurement (MPM) system.
Design/methodology/approach – An analytical approach is adopted to identify the issues and
challenges associated with MPM.
Findings – The study finds that for successful implementation of MPM all employees should be
involved and all relevant issues need to be considered. Furthermore, the traditional overall equipment
effectiveness (OEE) used by the companies is inadequate, as it only measures the internal
effectiveness. For measuring the total maintenance effectiveness both internal and external
effectiveness should be considered.
Practical implications – What cannot be measured cannot be managed effectively. To manage
maintenance process operating managers and asset owners need to measure the contribution of
maintenance towards their business goals. This paper discusses issues and challenges associated with
MPM system, there by helping the managers to take care of the pitfalls of the MPM system and
advocates that managers should focus on measuring the total effectiveness of maintenance process.
Originality/value – The paper presents a concept of total maintenance effectiveness with focus on
both internal and external effectiveness, and integration of the hierarchical levels and multi-criteria
maintenance performance indicators of MPM system.
Keywords Maintenance, Performance measures, Employee involvement
Paper type Research paper

Introduction and background


Maintenance is defined as the combination of all the technical and administrative
actions, including supervision, intended to retain an item, or restore it to a state in
which it can perform a required function (International Electrotechnical Commission,
2006). Maintenance provides critical support for heavy and capital-intensive industry
by keeping machinery and equipment in a safe operating condition. Today it is
accepted that maintenance is a key function in sustaining long-term profitability for an
organization (Al-Sultan and Duffuaa, 1995).
Maintenance performance measurement (MPM) has received a great amount of
attention from researchers and practitioners in recent years due to a paradigm shift in Journal of Quality in Maintenance
maintenance, as explained in Figure 1. Prior to the early 1900s, maintenance was Engineering
Vol. 12 No. 3, 2006
considered as a necessary evil. Technology was not in a state of advanced pp. 239-251
development, there was no alternative for avoiding failure, and the general attitude to q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
1355-2511
maintenance was, “It costs what it costs.” With the advent of technological changes DOI 10.1108/13552510610685084
JQME and after the Second World War, maintenance came to be considered as an important
12,3 support function for production and manufacturing. During 1950-1980, with the advent
of techniques like preventive maintenance and condition monitoring, the maintenance
cost perception changed to: “It can be planned and controlled.” Today maintenance is
considered as an integral part of the business process and it is perceived as: “It creates
additional value” (Liyanage and Kumar, 2003). The measurement of maintenance
240 performance has also become an essential requirement for the industry of today.
The efficiency and effectiveness of the maintenance system play a pivotal role in the
organization’s success and survivability. Therefore, the system’s performance needs to
be measured using a performance measurement (PM) technique. According to Bititci
et al. (1997), performance management is defined as the process by which a company
manages its performance. It should be “in line with its corporate and functional
strategies and objectives”. Neely et al. (1995) defined PM as the process of quantifying
the efficiency and effectiveness of action.
A PM system is defined as the set of metrics used to quantify the efficiency and
effectiveness of actions. For many asset-intensive industries, the maintenance costs are
a significant portion of the operational cost. In addition, breakdowns and downtime
have an impact on the plant capacity, product quality, and cost of production, as well
as health, safety and the environment.
This paper analyses the issues and challenges associated with the different facets of
MPM and outlines the scope of a multi-criteria hierarchical approach to maintenance
performance measurements.
The following is an outline of this paper. The first section provides the background
and a brief introduction to maintenance performance measurements. The next section
provides an overview of MPM techniques and maintenance performance indicators
(MPIs). The following section outlines the issues involved in MPM for any complex
organization. Challenges associated with the development of MPIs and practical
applications in the real world are discussed in the penultimate section. The final section
provides a summary of the paper and discusses the scope of future work.

An overview of maintenance performance system (MPM)


In the past two decades, PM has received a great amount of attention from researchers
and practitioners. Major issues related to this field concern what to measure and how to
measure it (Neely, 1999) in a practically feasible and cost-effective way. Improper
implementation and management of measurement system development aiming to use
new measures to reflect new priorities often lead to ineffective results. This is due to
the failure of the organization to discard measures reflecting old priorities, uncorrelated
and inconsistent indicators and inadequate measurement techniques (Meyer and
Gupta, 1994). Measurement gives the status of the variable, compares the data with

Figure 1.
Paradigm shift in
maintenance
target or standard data and points out what actions should be taken and where they MPM: issues and
should be taken as corrective and preventive measures. This is extremely difficult challenges
without adequate data to develop models for supporting the decision-making process
(Wealleans, 2000). The characteristics of performance measures include relevance,
interpretability, timeliness, reliability and validity (Al-Turki and Duffuaa, 2003). An
operational PM system acts like an early-warning system.
Several frameworks have been developed for measuring performance over the 241
years. Till 1980, the PM was based on mostly on financial measures. The balanced
scorecard, with its four perspectives, focuses on financial aspects, customers, internal
processes, and innovation and learning (Kaplan and Norton, 1992). It looks into both
tangible (financial) and intangible aspects of the business process. Subsequently,
various researchers have developed frameworks considering non-financial
measurements and intangible assets to achieve competitive advantages (Kaplan and
Norton, 2001). It is observed that companies using an integrated balanced PM system
perform better than those that do not measure their performance (Kennerly and Neely,
2003; Lingle and Schiemann, 1996). The issues and challenges associated with MPM
system concern relevance, interpretability, timeliness, reliability, validity, cost and
time effectiveness, and ease of implementation, updating and maintenance for regular
use by stakeholders at various levels.

MPM
Maintenance works as an important support function in business with significant
investment in physical assets and plays an important role in achieving organizational
goals (Tsang, 2002). Cross (1988) reported that, in the UK manufacturing industry,
maintenance spending ranges from 12-23 percent of the total factory operating costs. In
refineries, the maintenance and operations departments are very large and each
department often consists of up to 30 percent of the total staffing (Dekker, 1996). A
study by the Swedish mining industry shows that the cost of maintenance in a highly
mechanized mine can be 40-60 percent of the operating cost (Danielson, 1987). Some of
the important factors behind demands on maintenance performance measures are:
.
Measuring value created by the maintenance. The most important reason for
implementing maintenance performance system is to measure the value created
by maintenance process. As a manager, one must know that what is being done
is what is needed by the business process, and if the maintenance output is not
contributing/creating any value for the business, it needs to be restructured. This
brings the focus on doing right things keeping in view the business goal of the
company.
.
Justifying investment. The second basic reason for measuring maintenance
effectiveness is to justify the organization’s investment made in maintenance
organization; not so much as to whether you are doing the right thing, but
whether the investment they are making is producing a return on the resources
that are being consumed.
.
Revising resource allocations. The third basic purpose for measures of
effectiveness is to determine if additional investment is required and to justify
the investment if, management needs more of what you are doing. Alternatively,
such measurement of activities also permit you to determine whether you need to
JQME change what you are doing or how you are doing it more effectively by using the
12,3 resources allocated.
.
Health safety and environmental (HSE) issues. The fourth reason can be to
understand the contribution of maintenance towards HSE issues. A bad
maintenance performance can lead to accidents (safety issue) and pollutions
(health hazards and environmental issues), besides encouraging an unhealthy
242 work culture and environment.
. Focus on knowledge management. Many companies especially those involved in
delivery of maintenance and product support services are focused on effective
management of knowledge in their companies. Furthermore, technology is ever
changing and is changing faster in the new millennium. This has brought in new
sensors and embedded technology, information and communication technology
(ICT) and condition-based inspection technology such as vibration, spectroscopy,
thermography and others, which is replacing preventive maintenance with
predictive maintenance. This necessitates a systematic approach for the
knowledge growth in the field of specialization.
.
Adapting to new trends in operation and maintenance strategy. New operating
and maintenance strategy is adopted and followed by industries in quick
response to market demand, for the reduction of production loss and process
waste. MPM measures the value created by the maintenance.
.
Organizational structural changes. Today organizations are trying to adopt a flat
and compact organizational structure, a virtual work organization, and
empowered, self-managing, knowledge management work teams and
workstations. All these innovations need to integrate the MPM system to
provide a rewarding return for maintenance services.

MPI
MPIs are utilized to evaluate the effectiveness of maintenance carried out (Wireman,
1998). An indicator is a product of several metrics (measures). A performance indicator
is a measure capable of generating a quantified value to indicate the level of
performance, taking into account single or multiple aspects. The selection of MPIs
depends on the way in which the MPM is developed. MPIs could be used for financial
reports, for monitoring the performance of employees, customer satisfaction, the HSE
rating, and overall equipment effectiveness (OEE), as well as many other applications.
When designing MPIs, it is important to relate them to both the process inputs and the
process outputs. If this is carried out properly, then MPIs can provide or identify
resource allocation and control, problem areas, the maintenance contribution,
benchmarking, personnel performance, and the contribution to maintenance and
overall business objectives (Kumar and Ellingsen, 2000).

Issues and challenges involved in MPM for any organization


Maintenance is an important issue for any organization today. The PM system needs to
be aligned to organizational strategy (Kaplan and Norton, 2001; Eccles, 1991; Murthy
et al., 2002). Each successful company measures its maintenance performance in order
to remain competitive and cost effective in business. Understanding the need for MPM
in the business and its work process is critical for the development and successful
implementation of the MPM. An important objective of the measurement system MPM: issues and
should be to bridge the gap and establish the relationship between the internal challenges
measures (causes) and the external measures (effects) (Jonsson and Lesshammar, 1999).

Maintenance process mapping


It is essential to understand the maintenance process in detail, before going to study the
issues involved in MPM system for any complex organization, so that implementation of 243
the MPM system is possible without difficulty. The maintenance process starts with the
maintenance objectives and strategy, which are derived from the corporate vision, goal
and objectives based on the stakeholders’ expectations. Based on the maintenance
objectives, maintenance policy, organization, resources and capabilities, a maintenance
program needs to be developed. This program is broken down into different types of
maintenance tasks. The execution of the maintenance tasks is undertaken at specified
times and locations as per the maintenance plan. Examples of maintenance tasks are
repair, replacement, adjustment, lubrication, modification and inspection. The
management needs to understand the importance of maintenance and match the plan
to the vision, goal and objectives of the organization. However, in real life there is a
mismatch between the expectations of external and internal stakeholders and the
capability, between the organizational goals and the objectives of and resources allocated
for maintenance planning, and between the execution and the reporting through data
recording and analysis. There is a need to map the maintenance process and identify the
gap between the maintenance planning and execution.
Appropriate logistic support is vital for both maintenance planning and
maintenance execution. Such support includes the availability of spare parts,
consumable materials, tools, instruction manuals, documents, etc. Logistic support acts
as a performance driver that motivates and enhances the degree of maintenance
performance. The non-availability of personnel, spares and consumable materials
needs to be looked into, because otherwise it can act as a performance killer. Human
factors such as unskilled and unwilling personnel act as a de-motivating factor that
prevents the achievement of the desired results. Therefore, one must ensure the human
resources and training necessary for the maintenance planning and execution team.
Problems in the reporting system are a major issue for any maintenance organization.
It is necessary to understand the organizational need and then to procure or develop a
system. The personnel using the system need to be trained. Analysis of data plays an
important role. It is equally important that the management should be involved in the
whole process and there should be commitment and support from the top management.
The issues related to MPM are determined by answering the questions such as:
“What indicators are relevant to the business and related to maintenance?”; “How the
indicators are related to one another and take care of the stakeholders’ requirements?”;
“Are the MPIs measurable objectively and how do the MPIs evaluate the efficiency and
effectiveness of the organization?“; “ Are the MPIs challenging and yet attainable?”;
“Are the MPIs linked to the benchmarks or milestones quantitatively/qualitatively?”;
“How does one take decisions on the basis of the indicators?”; and “What are the
corrective and preventive measures and when and how does one update the MPIs?”.
Some of the basic questions require deliberation and critical examination while
designing such MPM system. The questions that form the basic challenges associated
with the development and implementation of MPM system are given in Figure 2.
JQME The MPIs need to be developed based on the answers to the above questions. The
12,3 relevant data need to be recorded and analyzed on a regular basis and used for
monitoring, control of maintenance and related activities, and decision making for
preventive and corrective actions. The MPIs could be time- and target-based, giving a
positive or negative indication. An MPI could be trend-based in some cases. If it is
positive or steady, meaning that everything is working well, then the action is “do
244 nothing”. If it shows a negative trend and has crossed the lower limit of the target, then
the decision is to act immediately. The value of the MPI, when falls within the limits (as
set by the decision maker), then the decision is “wait and see”. Different types of graphs
and figures could be used for indicating the health state of the technical system using
different color codes for “excellent”, “satisfactory”, “improvement required” and
“unsatisfactory performance level”. There could be other visualization techniques
using bar charts or other graphical tools for monitoring MPIs. The issues related to the
development and implementations of MPM are:
.
Strategy. How does one assess and respond to stakeholders’ (internal and
external) needs? How does one translate the corporate goal and strategy into
targets and goals at the operational level (converting a subjective vision into
objective goals)? How does one integrate the results and outcomes from the
operational level to develop MPIs at the corporate level (converting objective
outcomes into strategic MPIs and linking them to strategic goals and targets)?
How to support innovation and training for the employees to facilitate an
MPM-oriented culture?
. Organizational issues. How to align the MPM system with the corporate
strategy? Why there is a need to develop a reliable and meaningful MPM system?
What should be measured, why it should be measured, how it should be
measured, when it should be measured and what should be reported; when, how
and to whom? How to establish accountability at various levels? How to improve
communication within and outside the organization on issues related to
information and decision making?
.
How to measure? How to select the right MPIs for measuring MPM? How to
collect relevant data and analyze? How to use MPM reports for preventive and
predictive decisions?
.
Sustainability. How to apply MPM strategy properly for improvement? How to
develop an MPM culture across the organization? How to implement of a right
internal and external communication system supporting MPM? How to review

Figure 2.
Questions involved in the
development and
implementation of MPM
and modify the MPM strategy and system at regular intervals? How to develop MPM: issues and
and build trust in MPIs and MPM system at various levels. challenges
The SMART test is frequently used to provide a quick reference to determine the
quality of the performance metrics (Department of Energy, 2002). SMART stands for:
.
S. Specific – clear and focused to avoid misinterpretation. Should include
measure assumptions and definitions and be easily interpreted, e.g. maintenance 245
cost/ton.
.
M. Measurable – can be quantified and compared to other data. It should allow
meaningful statistical analysis. Avoid “yes/no” measures except in limited cases,
such as start-up or systems-in-place situations.
.
A. Attainable – achievable, reasonable, and credible under the conditions
expected.
.
R. Realistic – fits into the organization’s constraints and is cost-effective.
.
T. Timely – obtainable within the time frame given.
The MPM system for the total maintenance effectiveness
Often an MPM system implemented in companies’ deals with internal effectiveness of
the maintenance system that is all these measures are focused on measuring the
productivity in terms of maintenance cost per unit or maintenance productivity in
terms of work order executed per unit of time. The development and implementation of
an MPM system should normally be focused on measuring total maintenance
effectiveness, reflecting the contribution of maintenance process to the companies’
business goal. It is difficult to develop an MPM that incorporates metrics for measuring
the external effectiveness. Currently, the most challenging issue for the maintenance
managers is to develop and implement a system that measures both the external and
internal effectiveness of maintenance process.
The total maintenance effectiveness based on an organizational effectiveness model
considering both the external effectiveness and the internal effectiveness is given in
Figure 3. The concept of total maintenance effectiveness envelops the entire
organization. The total effectiveness is a product of the internal effectiveness measured
through internal efficiency, which is characterized by issues related to effective and
efficient use of resources. These facilitate the delivery of the maintenance and related

Figure 3.
Total effectiveness based
on an organizational
effectiveness model
JQME services in the most effective way characterized by the engineering and business
12,3 processes related to the planning and resource utilization; and external effectiveness
characterized by customer satisfaction, growth in market share, etc. (Bruzelius and
Skärvad, 2004; Ahlmann, 2002). The performance measures for internal effectiveness is
concerned with doing things in right way and can be measured in terms of cost
effectiveness (maintenance costs per unit produced), productivity (number of work
246 orders completed per unit time) etc. and deals with managing resources to produce
services as per specifications.
The performance measures for external effectiveness deals with measures that have
long term effect on companies profitability and is characterized by delivering right
type of maintenance services the customer wants. From customers’ perspective quality
and timeliness of service delivery is often of utmost importance. Here the concept of
delivering is not only the services required by customers, but also helping them in their
other business process related to their own services. Such an attitude often helps in
market growth, innovative service and service delivery; and capturing or creating new
markets.
For measuring the total maintenance effectiveness, a balanced, multi-criteria and
hierarchical MPM system is considered to be effective, which considers both the
external effectiveness and internal efficiency (Parida et al., 2005). There is a need to
workout an overall total maintenance effectiveness considering all the factors and
criteria. In general measures for total maintenance effectiveness must be combined
with process owners’ capability to change maintenance and service processes and
adapts to new technology and work practices without any major involvement of
resources and at right time.

Empirical example of total maintenance effectiveness


Traditionally, the concept of OEE, used by manufacturing company to measure the
effectiveness of their organization is inadequate as it only measures the internal
effectiveness of maintenance or organization. For example, if the OEE level of an
organization is high, then, the product of availability, performance speed, resource
utilization and quality will be high, reflecting a higher internal efficiency. But, if the
external effectiveness, which is characterized by a customer satisfaction index, such as
service quality (of repair/modification and promptness of response), timeliness of
delivery and safety, is low; then, the total maintenance effectiveness will be low.
Internal effectiveness is expressed in terms of internal efficiency, which is reflected in
terms of manufacturing of products in right way, in right quality and quantity
(Ahlmann, 2002). Internal effectiveness for manufacturing company is generally
expressed in terms of OEE, which is a product of availability, performance speed and
product quality. For service industry, the internal effectiveness is measured differently
as given in the empirical example. External effectiveness is a measure of business
performance reflecting the client’s judgement of satisfaction, service quality, future
purchase intentions and willingness to recommend the service firm to others (Paulin
et al., 1999).
To give an empirical example, for a multi-national utility company in the service
sector, the internal effectiveness of maintenance process measured through internal
efficiency such as average interruption period per year, number of all unsuccessful
starting up of plant, unwanted water spillage, and number of work order scheduled to
number of work order received is calculated to be 90 percent. External effectiveness MPM: issues and
(delivering the right product/service to customers on demand in right time) is 58.7 challenges
percent, which is measured through customer satisfaction index considering all
customer-related factors, such as customer retention, customer satisfaction and growth
(SKI, 2005). The total maintenance effectiveness of the company is given in Table I. We
assume that this index also in someway reflects the external maintenance
effectiveness. 247
For an internationally reputed mineral processing plant producing world-class iron
ore pellets, the internal efficiency, measured through availability, performance speed
and production quality (overall equipment effectiveness) is 72 percent. The external
effectiveness of this plant; measured through customer satisfaction, which considers;
timely product and service delivery, quantity and quality of the product delivered,
besides customer retention and growth. Issues like; how many times ship has to wait at
the harbor due to plant production breakdown and what is the customer retention, and
market growth; are considered for measuring external effectiveness. In the past three
years, there are no customer complaints with regard to timely delivery and product
quality. With an external effectiveness of 99 percent, the total maintenance
effectiveness of the plant is given in Table II.
These two empirical examples indicate that for high total maintenance
effectiveness, both the internal and external effectiveness should be high.

Integration of the maintenance from shop floor to strategic level


The maintenance strategy should be derived from and linked to the corporate strategy.
In order to accomplish the top-level objectives of the espoused maintenance strategy,
these objectives need to be cascaded into team and individual goals. The adoption of
fair processes is the key to successful alignment of these goals. It helps to harness the
energy and creativity of committed managers and employees to drive the desired
organizational transformations (Tsang, 1998). For a process industry or production
system, the hierarchy is composed of the factory, process unit and component levels.
The hierarchy corresponds to the traditional organizational levels of the top, middle
and shop floor levels. Murthy et al. (2002) mention that maintenance management
needs to be carried out in both strategic and operational contexts and the
organizational structure is generally structured into three levels. However, there are
some organizations that may require more than three hierarchical levels to suit their
complex organizational structure. The MPM system needs to be linked to the
functional and hierarchical levels for the meaningful understanding and effective
monitoring and control of managerial decisions (Parida et al., 2005). Defining the

Internal efficiency External effectiveness Total maintenance effectiveness

0.90 0.58 0.52 Table I.

Internal efficiency External effectiveness Total maintenance effectiveness

0.72 0.99 0.71 Table II.


JQME measures and the actual measurements for monitoring and control constitute an
12,3 extremely complex task for large organizations. The complexity of MPM is further
increased for multiple criteria objectives.
From the hierarchical point of view, the top level considers corporate or strategic
issues on the basis of soft or perceptual measures from stakeholders. In a way the
strategic level is subjective, as it is linked to the vision and long-term goals, though the
248 subjectivity decreases down through the levels, with the highest objectivity existing at
the functional level. The second level considers tactical issues such as financial and
non-financial aspects both from the effectiveness and the efficiency point of view. This
layer is represented by the senior or middle management, depending on the number of
levels of the organization in question. If an organization has four hierarchical levels,
then the second level represents the senior managerial level and the third level
represents the managerial/supervisory level. The bottom level is represented by the
functional personnel and includes the shop floor engineers and operators. The
corporate or business objective at the strategic level needs to be communicated down
through the levels of the organization, in such a way that this objective is translated
into the language and meaning appropriate for the tactical or functional level of the
hierarchy.
The maintenance objectives and strategy, as derived from the stakeholders’
requirements and corporate objectives and strategy, considering the total effectiveness,
front-end processes and back-end processes, integrating the different hierarchical
levels both from top-down and bottom-up manner involving the employees at all levels.
At the functional level, the objectives are converted to specific measuring criteria. It is
essential that all the employees speak the same language throughout the entire
organization.
An MPM system can be divided into three phases: the design of the performance
measures, the implementation of the performance measures, and the use of the
performance measures to carry out analysis/reviewing (Pun and White, 1996). The
feedback from the reviewing to the system design keeps it valid in a dynamic
environment.
Both the identification of appropriate measures and explicit consideration of
trade-offs between them can be significantly assisted if the relationships among
measures are mapped and understood (Santos et al., 2002) well in advance. Therefore,
the development of the MPM system requires the formation of a PM team which should
include stakeholders at various levels and the management and which should carry out
preparatory work for this development work. The PM team should have clear and
specified objectives, a time plan and a plan of action as pre-requisites.

Multi-criteria MPM system


The MPM system needs to facilitate and support the management leadership for timely
and accurate decision making. The system should provide a solution for performance
measurements linking directly with the organizational strategy and by considering
both non-financial and financial indicators. At the same time, the system should be
flexible, so as to change with time as and when required. The MPM system should
have transparency and enable accountability for all the hierarchical levels. From the
application and usage point of view, the MPM system should be technology and
user-friendly and should be easily facilitated by training the relevant personnel. MPIs
can be classified into seven categories (Parida et al., 2005) and are linked to each other MPM: issues and
for providing total maintenance effectiveness: challenges
(1) customer satisfaction related indicators;
(2) cost-related indicators;
(3) equipment-related indicators;
(4) maintenance task-related indicators; 249
(5) learning and growth-related indicators;
(6) health safety and environment (HSE); and
(7) employee satisfaction-related indicators.

Before implementation, the MPIs need to be tested for; reliability; that is, the ability to
provide the correct measures consistently over time, and, for, validity, which is the
ability to measure what they are supposed to measure.

Implementation of the MPM system


Implementation of the developed MPM system for an organization is very critical.
Neely et al. (2000) mention fear, politics and subversion as issues involved in this
phase. Ineffective use of information to improve operation without support of
appropriate tools and lack of active management commitment and involvement is
another critical issue, without which an MPM system can not be effective or
implemented fully (Santos et al., 2002). Dumond (1994), mentions lack of
communication and dissemination of results as important issues. The alignment of
PM with the strategic objectives of the organization at the design and development of
MPM system is critical for achieving effectiveness of the implementation phase
(Kaplan and Norton, 1992; Lynch and Cross, 1991).
Prior to a pilot project studying the MPM system, it is desired that the relevant
personnel of the organization should be trained in advance to create an awareness of
MPM, the need for MPM and the benefits of MPM. A system of continuous monitoring,
control and feedback needs to be institutionalized for the continuous improvement and
successful implementation of the MPM system.

Conclusion
In this paper, the need for maintenance PM is analyzed and a brief review of existing
maintenance performance measures is provided. Measurement of maintenance is a
complex issue, and when it comes measuring the external effectiveness, it becomes
more difficult in linking the objective outcome at operational level to corporate
strategic level. The issues and challenges involved in developing and implementing an
effective MPM system is discussed. MPM model can facilitate the correct estimation of
the contribution of maintenance to the business goal. There is enough scope for future
work in this research area. The authors are currently working on development of a
multi-criteria hierarchical model for maintenance PM with two industries and the
results will be published in the future.
JQME References
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cycle profit concept in the management of industrial enterprises”, paper presented at the
IFRIM Conference, Vaxjo, May 6-7.
Al-Sultan, K.S. and Duffuaa, S.O. (1995), “Maintenance control via mathematical programming”,
Journal of Quality in Maintenance Engineering, Vol. 1 No. 3, pp. 36-46.
250 Al-Turki, U. and Duffuaa, S. (2003), “Performance measures for academic departments”,
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Aditya Parida can be contacted at: [email protected]

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