European Journal of Operational Research 58 (1992)3[)1-317 301

North-Holland

Invited Review

Maintenance management decision making

L.M. Pintelon and L.F. Gelders
Katholieke UniL~ersiteit te Leut:en, Department of Industrial Management, Celestijnenlaan 300A, B-3001
LeuL,en, Belgium

Received June 1991

Abstract: Maintenance management of industrial equipment is an important but still relatively neglected
business function. This paper identifies and discusses the most important elements of its decision making
environment. As such the paper contributes to the structuring of the maintenance management area and
it provides a frame of reference for further research in maintenance policy optimization. The paper starts
with a brief description of maintenance management in a business context. In the remainder of the paper
three parts may be distinguished. The first addresses the system design aspects of maintenance
management in the broader operations management environment, the second examines the most
important issues in maintenance decision making and the last part reviews the managerial tools available
for decision making in this area. An extensive list of references is provided.

Keywords: Maintenance, management, manufacturing industries

1. M a i n t e n a n c e management as b u s i n e s s func- logical skills in order to provide the best possible

tion
1.1. The importance of maintenance
Maintenance of industrial manufacturing e-
quipment may be defined as:
"all activities necessary to restore equipment to,
or keep it in, a specified operating condition".
The objective of maintenance is to maximize
equipment availability in an operating condition
permitting the desired output quantity and qual-
ity. This must be realized in a cost effective way
and conform to safety and environmental regula-
tions. In order to fulfil the maintenance objective,
the enterprise needs management skills to inte-
grate people, policies, equipment and practices.
It also needs adequate engineering and techno-
preventive maintenance, repair and overhaul of
the ever increasing automatically-controlled pro-
duction equipment. Maintenance can actually be
a profit producing activity rather than merely an
unpredictable and unavoidable cost of doing busi-
ness. The effectiveness of maintenance directly
affects the following important elements (Van
Rijn, 1987):
- Capacity and production volume, by ensur-
ing the required availability and reliability of pro-
cess equipment and installations.
- Fixed costs, the maintenance labour force
being part of the fixed costs over short and
medium term.
- Operating cost, the maintenance operating
budget containing such items as spares and con-
sumables and outside or contract service.
- Environmental and employee safety, one of
the tasks of maintenance in most companies be-
ing to ensure that equipment is safe for operators

0377-22t7/92/$05.00 © 1992 - Elsevier Science Publishers B.V. All rights reserved

302 L.M. Pintelon, L.F. Gelders / Maintenance management decision making
and that no environmental damage (e.g. leakages)
occurs.
The impact of maintenance on a company's
profit may be important. This may be illustrated
with numbers colIected from both European (e.g.
Geraerds, 1989; Kruyt, 1990; MalmhoIt, 1988;
Pintelon, 1990a) and US industry (e.g. Basta,
1985, 1988; Brazenor, 1984 and Hickman, 1986).
1.2. Maintenance management in time perspective
Evolution
The perception of maintenance has changed
considerably during the last decades. Until three
or four decades ago, maintenance was simply
regarded as an unavoidable and difficult-to-con-
trol part of production. This view on maintenance
slowly changed and maintenance became the re-
sponsibility of a separate department. This de-
partment was very technically oriented with em-
phasis on specialization and efficiency. The de-
velopment and introduction of maintenance work
studies and standards is typical for this period.
About two decades ago, companies began to
realize that engineering qualities alone were no
longer sufficient for supervising the maintenance
department: maintenance management was born.
It was also felt that the interrelationships with
other business functions could no longer be over-
looked. Maintenance became part of the integral
business concept. Some of the important reasons
for this fairly recent interest in maintenance man-
agement as one of the key support functions of
production are: a growing competitive pressure
that necessitates stringent cost control, a trend
towards further automation that calls for highly
reliable production equipment and the recent
interest in Japanese management philosophies
emphasizing production process improvement.
This evolution of growing awareness of the im-
portance of maintenance management still con-
tinues today.
State-of-the-art
The fact that maintenance management has
only recently been recognized as a real business
function is also apparent from the academic in-
terest in this area (see, e.g. Amoaka-Gyampah,
1989; Chanin, 1979 and Ford, 1987). No real
'classics' on maintenance management have been
written yet, but a few valuable books on the
subject can be found. Among the most complete
and recent ones should be mentioned: Mann
(1983), resulting from seminars for practitioners
in the US, Kelly (1984a), illustrating maintenance
management principles with a lot of case studies
from industry in the UK, Niebel (1985), taking
the industrial engineering point of view, and Pat-
ton (1980), focusing on the interaction between
maintenance and reliability & maintainability.
Another category of maintenance books, such as
Barlow (1967, 1975) and Gertsbakh (1977), dis-
cusses mathematical models for establishing opti-
mal maintenance policies.
Armstrong (1987), Kelly (1980), Tombari
(1982), Pottinger (1983) and Wilkinson (1968)
provide a general descriptive introduction to
maintenance management. However, little atten-
tion has been paid to its structuring, and no
generally accepted framework can be found in
the literature. Books on the subject typically pre-
sent a 'maintenance model', but these models are
nearly always administrative, showing information
and work order flows. Some authors, however,
present maintenance models with more emphasis
on management. Alcalay (1973) draws an inte-
grated production/maintenance model that goes
beyond the administrative models, but still does
not include all aspects of maintenance manage-
ment. Blegen (1968) lists a series of hypotheses
linking maintenance effectiveness with produc-
tion decisions and provides insight in the interac-
tion between production and maintenance man-
agement. Geraerds (1988) describes the TUE
model, where maintenance is placed in a broader
engineering context. The emphasis of the model
is on technical aspects. Organizational issues are
not considered.
Maintenance management is still a fairly un-
structured area. Pintelon (1990a) discusses the
impact of this on maintenance literature and de-
scribes a framework that helps to evaluate the
weaknesses and the strengths of maintenance
management research.
Use of O R / M S techniques
One of the aims of research in maintenance
management is to provide decision making tools
for the maintenance manager. Operations Re-
search/Management Science techniques are
among the tools which can help maintenance
decision making. They allow subjective decisions
to be replaced by objective decisions, taking into
 L.M, Pintelon, L.F, Gelders / Maintenance management decision making
account accurately formulated objective functions
and a complex set of constraints. O R / M S tech-
niques have long been used and appreciated in
areas like production and inventory management.
Although the need for such decision support
models is also felt in maintenance management,
little use is made of O R / M S techniques in this
field (see e.g. Ford, 1987). Slowly, however,
O R / M S techniques are also being adopted and
implemented in maintenance areas as reported
by several authors (Chanin, 1979; Christer, 1987a;
Dekker, 1989; Jardine, 1970 and Turban, 1967).
Other implications
The role of maintenance in e.g. quality im-
provement programs still increases. The mainte-
nance market is discovered by consultants and
software firms. More and more maintenance tasks
are carried out by outside contractors, who pro-
vide specialized services or simply help to solve
temporary peak work loads. As equipment be-
comes more sophisticated, additional training for
maintenance personnel is necessary (especially
for diagnostic skills). Now that maintenance is
regarded as an important business function, the
maintenance manager is given more career op-
portunities than in the past. The use of comput-
ers for administrative and management purposes
i i
OM/MM SYSTEM DESIGN ASPECTS
• Type of industry
(process focus, product focus, other)
• Organizational responsibilities
(organizational chart, decentralization, contracting)
• Maintenance management philosophies
(terotechnology, total productive maintenance, other)
• Production control systems
(MRP, JIT, OPT)
MM DECISION MAKING:
PLANNING AND CONTROL
• Management policy and objectives
• Decision levels
(strategic, tactical, operational)
• Resource management
(personnel management, repair shop,
MRO store, documentation)
• Performance reporting
mw |ll
Figure l. Maintenance management framework
303
increases. Traditional inspection and preventive
maintenance is replaced more and more by com-
puter-controlled condition-based maintenance.
These trends are expected to continue in the
future (Dekker, 1989, Geraerds, 1989, Gilbert,
1985, and Smit, 1988).
1.3. Maintenance management framework
One of the objectives of this paper is also to
discuss the broader context of decision making
for equipment maintenance, refering to the vast
but unstructured literature available. Figure 1
shows the most important aspects of maintenance
management (Pintelon, 1990a). This framework
may also be useful in determining the important
trade-offs for any practical situation in hand.
The building block 'Operations Management/
Maintenance Management: system design as-
pects' places maintenance management in a
broader business context. The success of any
business depends on the performance of at least
three basic functions: marketing, finance and op-
erations or production, which interact very
strongly. In order to avoid each function's at-
tempting to achieve its own limited objectives at
the expense of the overall objectives, their activi-
ties must be coordinated by top management,
ill| limB
MANAGERIAL TOOL KIT
~ ....
• Techniques
(failure modeling, OR/MS)
• Computer support
304 L.M. Pintelon, L.F. Gelders / Maintenance management decision making
which develops a strategy and policies aimed at
the success of the entire organization. One of the
areas of the operations function is maintenance
management. The block 'maintenance manage-
ment decision making: planning and control' de-
tails the planning and control decisions the main-
tenance manager should make. The more techni-
cal maintenance theories and methods like main-
tenance technology (studying technical issues that
can help improve maintenance such as new repair
or monitoring techniques) and maintenance de-
sign theory (trying to incorporate new technologi-
cal achievements in equipment design in order to
improve its maintainability and failure behaviour)
are not considered here. The focus is on the
management aspects of maintenance, not on
technical issues. The last block 'managerial tool
kit' describes the decision aids available to the
maintenance manager.
2. System design aspects for maintenance man-
agement
The scope of maintenance may be different
according to the operations management environ-
ment. Therefore it is interesting to briefly exam-
ine some different manufacturing situations from
the maintenance management point of view.
2. I. Maintenance issues and work flow patterns
In manufacturing industry corporate strategy
connects with Operations Management (OM)
through work flow pattern decisions (e.g. Hayes,
1984 and Silver, 1985):
- A process focus strategy means jumbled flow
of products through the system. Flexibility is max-
imized by organizing resources around the pro-
cess.
- A product focus strategy is just the opposite,
sacrificing flexibility to achieve standard routings,
line flows and resources organized by product.
Managers are generally less concerned about
equipment failures when there is a process focus.
A typical example is a mechanical job shop: there
is generally less automation than in a product
focus environment and the cost of breakdowns is
lower. Work stations tend to be decoupled from
one another because of larger capacity cushions
and substantial work-in-process inventories. Pre-
ventive maintenance is typically performed on a
component base (work station). Since equipment
is more general-purpose, jobs often can be
rerouted to another piece of equipment. Dis-
abling one work station does not halt the entire
line.
Conversely, with line processes, failure at one
operation can quickly shut down the entire line.
This not only idles the work force but could also
cause material losses and lost business opportuni-
ties. Preventive maintenance here is typically of
the shut-down type (the whole line). Dedicated
continuous production lines in the chemical pro-
cess industries and highly automated car assem-
bly lines are well-known examples of such line
processes. As a safeguard against breakdowns
redundant standby equipment is often installed.
Making the main equipment more reliable
through a more efficient maintenance program
could decrease the need for investments in costly
standby equipment. The popular Japanese ap-
proach for such lines is to spend considerable
effort on minimizing frequency and duration of
breakdowns through well-designed and techni-
cally improved equipment, routine maintenance
tasks carried out by production workers and peri-
odic preventive maintenance in-between shifts.
Introduced in the late seventies as a means to
improve productivity of small and medium vol-
ume production, FMS's (flexible manufacturing
systems) have become increasingly popular. Here,
the need for reliable and well-maintained equip-
ment is very high. As the equipment is very
expensive, it is not possible to build in much
redundancy (Herring, 1986). As a safeguard
against breakdowns expensive buffer stocks are
used (Andreasen, 1988). Many FMS's are modu-
lar which means that in case of breakdown, the
failed module can be quickly removed and re-
placed by a good one. The failed module is then
repaired off-line (Owen, 1984). Preventive main-
tenance is either of the shut-down type or per-
formed in extra shifts (according to the Japanese
example).
2.2. Organizational environment
Although this aspect of maintenance manage-
ment does not belong to the focus of this paper, it
is interesting to point out a few characteristics
here since they contribute to shape the environ-
ment in which maintenance operates.
 L.M. Pintelon, L.F. Gelders / Maintenance management decision making
Organization chart
The problem of finding the best place in the
organization chart for maintenance is addressed
by Higgins (1977) and Patton (1980). These au-
thors discuss some alternative structures, each
with a different responsibility for production and
maintenance. The question 'to whom should
maintenance management report' is difficult to
answer. Maintenance management should report
to a level responsible for most other plant groups
served by the maintenance department. This may
be the plant manager or the production manager.
Decentralization
The issue of decentralization is closely related
to the organization chart. The type of mainte-
nance centralization most effective in a compact
plant must be modified considerably to handle a
dispersed plant. However, to decide on decentral-
ization is not easy and a large number of factors
must be taken into account: plant size, number of
subplants, shop space allocation, tool and skill
requirements, size of the maintenance force, size
and distribution of crafts, skill orientation of su-
pervision, numbers of supervisors, corporate or-
ganizational concept and cost of down-time (Hig-
gins, 1977 and Patton 1980). In practice often a
hybrid organization form, trying to combine the
advantages of both centralization and decentral-
ization, is found (Husband, 1978).
Contracting
Another fundamental issue is when to use
outside contractors, in particular the decision to
permanently assign well-defined tasks to contrac-
tors. The contracting decision can be taken be-
cause the tasks are too complex or too specialized
(e.g. medical equipment) or are expected to be
done better or cheaper by outside contractors
(e.g. piping or insulation in the chemical process
industry). The degree of contracting differs from
industry to industry and from firm to firm (Corder,
1976 and Mann, 1983).
2.3. Maintenance management approaches
During the last two decades different new
maintenance management approaches have been
developed. These maintenance approaches do not
explicitly prescribe any maintenance policy. They
may have a considerable impact on that policy
305
however since they reflect the managerial view-
point on maintenance.
Terotechnology
In the seventies the 'terotechnology' concept
was developed in the context of government sup-
port for industry in the UK (Dept. of Industry,
1978). Terotechnology offers a view on mainte-
nance engineering which is a combination of
management, financial engineering and other
practices applied to physical assets in pursuit of
economic life cycle cost (Checkland, 1979). Al-
though a very interesting concept which regained
popularity recently, it has not been taken up on a
large scale in industry. This lack of response was
primarily due to the fact that there was no sup-
port from practical methods and techniques
(Geraerds, 1989 and Smit, 1988). Terotechnology
received almost no attention in the USA, al-
though the idea of life cycle costing is well known
(Blanchard, 1979 and 1981). The life cycle philos-
ophy fits in the logistics engineering context;
maintenance is considered as a major area of
attention in integrated logistics support.
Total productit~'e maintenance
Total productive maintenance (TPM) is a
Japanese maintenance philosophy but it derived
the greater part of its substance from a variety of
non-Japanese management structures and prac-
tices, adapted by the Japanese to their long-
established culture (Takahashi, 1981 and Mort-
den, 1986). The goal of TPM is to maximize
equipment effectiveness through improved avail-
ability, through more assured quality and through
labour saving as a result of plant modification. In
order to achieve that goal, investments in human
resources are preferred over capital investments.
TPM tries to eliminate the different losses that
interfere with the effective operation of the sys-
tem (Monden, 1985): down-time losses (failures,
set-up and adjustment), speed losses (idling and
minor stoppages, reduced speed) and defect losses
(defects in process, reduction in yield).
The publication of the Japanese Institute of
Plant Maintenance (1986) describes the different
steps in a successful implementation of TPM.
TPM is a big success in Japan and has also
received considerable interest elsewhere, espe-
cially in connection with the JIT (just-in-time)
manufacturing philosophy (Nakajima, 1989a and
b).
306 L.M. Pintelon, L.F. Gelders / Maintenance management decision making
Other philosophies
Two other maintenance concepts should be
mentioned here, namely reliability-centred main-
tenance and asset management. The concepts are
not as well-spread as the previous two and will
not be discussed in detail. Reliability-centred
maintenance (e.g. Redmill, 1989 and Anderson,
1990) originated in the US Air Force and is
applicable to industrial equipment in slightly
adapted form. The method identifies mainte-
nance requirements using specific decision dia-
grams and then tries to establish the appropriate
maintenance policy. Asset management (Anlagen
Wirtschaft) was developed in Germany and Aus-
tria and takes a life cycle approach to equipment.
Unlike terotechnology and TPM it is not engi-
neering-oriented but rather emphasizes economic
and financial aspects.
2.4. Interaction with production control philoso-
phies
Since maintenance is a support function to
production and operations management, it is in-
teresting to look into the interaction between
production control systems and maintenance.
Based on a critical literature review, the view-
point of popular production control systems like
MRP (manufacturing resource planning), OPT
(optimized production technology) and JIT (just-
in-time) is discussed. For the concepts MRP, JIT
and OPT the reader is referred to e.g. McLeavey
(1985).
MRP philosophy
The original MRP concept does not explicitly
consider maintenance issues. The MRP philoso-
phy tries to cope with uncertainties, such as 'his-
torical' throughput times, scrap and breakdowns,
by building buffer inventories. Preventive mainte-
nance receives no attention, probably due to the
fact that MRP was developed for job shop envi-
ronments where breakdowns are less disruptive
than in product-focussed continuous environ-
ments. MRP claims to be an integral production
control system, hence the integration of mainte-
nance with MRP systems seems necessary.
Different types of contribution in that area,
often very much case-oriented though, can be
found in the literature (for a more detailed dis-
cussion see Pintelon, 1990a).
JIT philosophy
Successful JIT implementation will reduce in-
ventory and work-in-progress and therefore the
manufacturing system becomes more vulnerable
to breakdowns. When a machine breaks down
subsequent machines rapidly become starved of
work. Improvement of the production process is
nearly always required and maintenance becomes
very important. The JIT philosophy tries to solve
technical or organizational problems instead of
camouflaging them under large safety stocks. A
'classic' example to illustrate this is the 'river of
inventories'. The traditional approach, like MRP,
has been to hide machine reliability problems by
building buffer stocks. JIT is more concerned
with solving these fundamental problems. A pre-
ventive maintenance program aiming at improv-
ing the machine reliability can contribute to that.
This approach is often referred to as total pro-
ductive maintenance (TPM), as discussed above.
Voss (1989) and O'Grady (1988) indicate some
changes in the role of maintenance management
during a JIT implementation.
OPT philosophy
The OPT approach and the related constraint
theory (Fox, 1982; Goldratt, 1986a and b, 1988
and Koziol, 1988) is a blend of MRP and JIT.
OPT identifies the bottleneck resources through
a computer analysis rather than a trial-and-error
process on the shop floor. Resolving these bottle-
necks can be accomplished by eliminating the
problem (JIT) or camouflaging it (MRP). Both
these alternatives can be modelled with OPT so
that management can access their impact and
select the most appropriate course of action. In
addition, OPT focuses on actions that improve
the entire system: total throughput, total inven-
tory and total operating cost.
The bottleneck focus of the OPT philosophy
can easily be extended to maintenance. For re-
pairing breakdowns as well as for planning pre-
ventive maintenance, priorities should be devel-
oped making a clear distinction between bottle-
neck and non-bottleneck resources.
3. Maintenance management decision making
3.1. Management policy and objectives
In order to avoid suboptimization, mainte-
nance management objectives should be derived
 L.M. Pintelon, L.F. Gelders / Maintenance management decision makotg 307

from the company's objectives. Maintenance
management objectives should be realistic and
specific, so that they can be used for guidance
and target setting. The realization of the objec-
tives can then be evaluated easily.
An important task is to set the maintenance
budget for the coming year. Often this budgetting
is done by taking last year's budget minus un-
usual costs plus e.g. 5% for the increase in overall
price level. Although this is common practice in
industry more sophisticated budgeting methods,
like zero base budgeting, can provide a more
balanced budget. Higgins (1977) discusses some
issues specific for establishing a maintenance
budget.
For setting the budget as well as for making
other maintenance management decisions it is
important to have a thorough insight in all main-
tenance costs and their impact on company profit
(Hora, 1987 and Woodhouse, 1985). Armstrong
(1987) pictures the total maintenance costs as an
iceberg (Figure 2). The maintenance costs on the
top of the iceberg are recognized by everyone and
therefore taken into account. Managers, however,
often forget about maintenance-related costs, the
under-water part of the iceberg. These costs may
be as large or even larger than the maintenance
costs (Smit, 1988 and Geraerds, 1985).
3.2. Decision leuels for equipment maintenance
management
Management decisions concerning equipment
maintenance can be long-term (strategic), me-

MAINTENANCE BUDGET:
(maintenance costs)
• manpower
• materials
• tools
• overhead

OTHER COSTS AFFECTED BY MAINTENANCE:

(maintenance related costs)
• equipment
• accellerated wear because of poor maintenance
• excessive spare parts inventory
• unnecessary equipment redundancy
• disproporionate energy consumptiom
• production
• rework because of badly aligned equipment
• excessive scrap and material losses
• idle workers due to breakdowns
• late shipment because of unplanned down-time
[] products
• quality and reliability issues
• lost sales because of long down-time periods
• warranty claims from dissatisfied customers

Figure 2. The maintenance total cost picture

308 L.M. Pintelon, L.F. Gelders / Maintenance management deciswn making

dium-term (tactical) or short-term (operational) (e.g. Christer, 1987b, Tapiero, 1979, and Ver-
decisions (Anthony, 1965). heyen, 1979).

Strategic planning Tactical planning

Strategic planning is concerned with providing
the production resources to ensure the company's
competitive capabilities. The equipment replace-
ment decisions are obviously not the responsibil-
ity of the maintenance manager alone but main-
tenance costs and expected down-time do play an
important role in these decisions as shown in a
recent survey (Hsu, 1988). Along with these main-
tenance aspects capacity considerations, techno-
logical changes (Jones, 1987), economic factors
(Tanchoco, 1987) and investment criteria are
taken into account. These decisions are studied
in engineering economy models. Fraser (1989)
and Luxhoj (1986) present a framework for a
structured approach to these models and their
assumptions. Leung (1987) and Stinson (1987)
study the equipment replacement problem in a
multi-machine environment. Most of the papers
on equipment replacement address the one-mac-
hine probIem and are based on Thompson (1968)
Tactical planning addresses the problem of ef-
fective resource utilization. Appropriate mainte-
nance helps to ensure available and reliable pro-
duction equipment (Gelders, 1988). Tactical
maintenance planning consists of finding the op-
timal, i.e. cost effective, maintenance policy.
Basic concepts in tactical planning. Two old
maintenance concepts are still popular: pure
'emergency' maintenance (operate equipment un-
til it is inoperable or pure corrective mainte-
nanc.e) and what could be called 'loving care' (the
belief that reliability is directly proportional to
the frequency and amount of maintenance or
preventive maintenance). Performing too much
preventive maintenance may lead to high mainte-
nance costs and may cause capacity shortages
because of too frequently planned maintenance
interventions. On the other hand, performing no
(or almost no) preventive maintenance, may lead

Table 1
Basic maintenance policies

Failure-based maintenance (FBM):
Use-based maintenance (UBM):
Condition-based maintenance (CBM):
Opportunity-based maintenance (OBM) : When a plant component fails the opportunity may be taken during the ensueing shut
Design-out maintenance (DOM):
FBM prescribes maintenance to be carried out only on occurrence of failure or break-
down. Hence, FBM is corrective maintenance. In case of purely random breakdowns and
low breakdown costs (e.g. no down-time), this may be a cost effective policy.
UBM prescribes maintenance to be triggered by the event that a specified number of units
of use or time is reached. The latter case is also called fixed-period maintenance (FPM).
UBM assumes that the failure behaviour of the equipment is known and is of the IFR type
(increasing failure rate type, i.e. the probability of failure increases with the time since last
maintenance) and that preventive maintenance is more economic that corrective mainte-
nance.
CBM prescribes maintenance to be activated when the value of a given system parameter
reaches or surpasses a preset value. CBM thus assumes that there exists a system
parameter that can be used to predict the failure behaviour. Again preventive mainte-
nance is assumed to be more economic than corrective maintenance. The traditional
inspection rounds in the plant (inspection-based maintenance, IBM) are in fact a primitive
form of CBM. Recently CBM became quite popular. Kelly (1984b) lists some of the most
used CBM techniques. Baldin (1979) describes a step-by-step plan for implementing CBM.
down to carry out preventive maintenance on other components which have not yet failed.
The choice of components for this opportunity maintenance depends on the probability
distribution of their residual lives which may, in turn, be influenced by the process
operating conditions (e.g. Vanneste, 1991).
The focus of DOM is on improvements in the equipment design in order to simplify
maintenance operations and to increase reliability (e.g. Gelders, 1988).
 L.M. Pintelon, L.F. Gelders ,/Maintenance management decision making
to high maintenance-related costs due to fre-
quent unplanned down-time. Optimizing the
maintenance policy means finding the optimal
(lowest) amount and mix of maintenance inter-
ventions needed to ensure the desired availability
and working quality for each part of equipment.
Using the two generic types of maintenance
interventions - corrective maintenance (CM),
which restores the equipment in its desired oper-
ating condition after a breakdown or failure, and
preventive maintenance (PM), which is carried
out in order to decrease the failure probability -
four basic maintenance policies can be formu-
lated. These policies are called failure-based,
use-based, condition-based and opportunity-
based. Failure-based maintenance is purely cor-
rective, the other types are preventive but correc-
tive maintenance is needed to complement these
policies in case of unexpected breakdowns. The
fifth policy, design-out maintenance, is of a
slightly different nature but was added to the
table for the sake of completeness. The policies
are described in Table 1.
The evolution in 'popularity' of the mainte-
nance policies discussed above also illustrates the
evolution of the recognition of the importance of
maintenance. Some decades ago failure-based
maintenance was well spread, maintenance was
looked upon as an inevitable and uncontrollable
correction of breakdowns. In the sixties and early
seventies use-based maintenance was frequently
advocated as being a relief to all corrective main-
tenance (e.g. Lewis, 1973). As it was very difficult
to predict failures from the insufficiently recorded
history, much of the introduced use-based main-
tenance later appeared to be ineffective against
preventing failures. In the seventies several meth-
ods for measuring the actual state of equipment
and predicting failures became available, and
therefore use-based maintenance was largely re-
placed by condition-based maintenance. This in-
creasing use of condition-based maintenance is
expected to continue (Dekker, 1989, Geraerds,
1989 and Smit, 1988). But some part of mainte-
nance will remain use-based maintenance since it
can be planned in advance and therefore allows
more effective management.
Optimization issues in tactical planning. Main-
tenance optimization models provide a quantita-
tive balancing of costs and benefits of alternative
309
maintenance policies. The first maintenance opti-
mization models appeared in the sixties. Since
that time several papers have been published in
that field. Most models focus on specific aspects
of the maintenance concept and are restricted to
simple systems. Gallimore (1988) and Gits (1984)
present a methodology for establishing a mainte-
nance policy for a realistic plant. The approach of
Gits has already been implemented in several
cases in Dutch industry.
Maintenance policy optimization in its sim-
plest form could be described as follows:
"Given continuously working, single-unit equip-
ment with a known failure behaviour and given a
maintenance policy concept, determine the optimal
ealue for the model parameters; (e.g. determine
the optimal length of the PM interval for an age-
based replacement model (GeMers, 1988)."
It is assumed that the equipment can be in only
one of two extreme states: working OK or failed
completely. Maintenance restores the equipment
in its working condition. Preventive maintenance
is assumed to be cheaper than corrective mainte-
nance. The objective function will typically mini-
mize total equipment operating cost per unit of
time or maximize equipment availability. Opti-
mization is carried out over an infinite horizon.
The first of these models appeared in the
sixties with the book by Barlow (1967) and Mac-
Call's paper (1965) being the standard references.
Other excellent basic books are Barlow (1975)
and Gertsbakh (1977). Pierskalla (1976) and Sherif
(1981, 1982) provide excellent and well structured
overviews of the extensive work done since that
time. Valdez-Flores (1989) and Cho (,1991) survey
recent research models for single-unit systems
and for multi-unit systems, respectively. Pintelon
(1990a) classifies maintenance models according
to the complexity of the production environment
considered.
Operational planning
Operational planning deals with day-to-day op-
erational and scheduling decisions. Maintenance
scheduling addresses the problem of arranging
the sequence in which the work orders will be
executed and by whom. It is necessary to consider
job priorities and the availability of workers, spare
parts, tools and the equipment to be maintained.
Maintenance scheduling is complex due to the
310 L.M. Pintelon, L.F. Gelders / Maintenance management decision making
stochastic nature of maintenance jobs and the
interrelationships with production.
The maintenance scheduling problem is men-
tioned in almost every book on maintenance
management, but almost none attempts to struc-
ture this complex problem. Generally they do not
go any further than listing all indispensable data
for good planning or describing the organisa-
tional information flow maintenance work orders
should follow from request to execution. How-
ever a few papers in the literature address main-
tenance scheduling problems (Pintelon, 1990a).
3.3. Resource management
Sound resource management (Cowick, 1988,
Mann, 1983 and Patton, 1980) is indispensable
for effective maintenance management. Re-
sources to consider are personnel, materials, re-
pair shop and information. These are briefly dis-
cussed below. For each resource one can choose
between internal and external sources. The desir-
ability and mix of internal/external resources will
depend upon the situation at hand (the most
important elements of contracting were already
discussed in Section 2.2).
Personnel management
As the leveI of sophistication of equipment
technology advances and the impact of break-
downs increases (more automation, less work-in-
process inventory), the need for highly trained
maintenance technicians grows (Finch, 1986 and
Senker, 1985). Maintenance workers will need
more diagnostic skills to cope with complex
equipment. They can rely on information systems
which provide technical and historical data. Dis-
cussions on the choice between a maintenance
crew with specialized skill groups or a multi-
skilled crew (according to the Japanese example)
are going on (Basker, 1982 and Smit, 1988). Moti-
vation of maintenance workers is an important
way to improve productivity (Candy, 1982 and
Edwards, 1987). The size of the maintenance
work force should be determined carefully, espe-
cially in environments where hiring/firing is not
easy (Mann, 1982 and Patton, 1980). Whereas
some time ago the maintenance manager was
typically an engineer, often burdened with addi-
tional responsibilities, like e.g. safety, he now
should be a good engineer and a good manager.
In the past maintenance managers have not al-
ways been given many career opportunities. This
should change in order to foster interest in man-
aging maintenance and to clear the maintenance
function of its low esteem image (Hora, 1987).
Repair shop
In the repair shop powered machine tools such
as drilling machines, welding equipment and elec-
trical test instruments are used to repair defective
equipment parts or to manufacture or modify
some specialty spares (Corder, 1976). Repair shop
planning (Kuipers, 1985, Poulsen, 1984 and Srikar,
1989) is very similar to production job shop plan-
ning. Graves (1988) and Kharola (1986) present
models for the simultaneous optimization of
spares inventory level and staffing level for a
repair shop.
M R O store
The MRO (maintenance, repair and operating
supplies) of industrial plants require many differ-
ent spare parts and consumable goods. The MRO
materials management has to guarantee their
availability. It includes the management of spe-
cial tools, materials requests, materials deliveries,
supply requests, price and lead time inquiries and
order and materials receipts (Mercelis, 1989).
Spare parts inventories may be large and some-
times constitute a considerable capital immobi-
lization. In order to optimize investment in spare
parts, it is important to choose the right re-order
policy. Numerous models for these decisions can
be found in literature. Spare parts are classified
according to their rotation (fast, normal and slow
moving items) or on average time spent in the
MRO store. One may also classify spare parts
according to their repairability, criticality, etc.
(e.g. Howard, 1984, Rosenblatt, 1981 and Silver,
1985). The problem of finding the right trade-off
between stocking (how many parts do we need in
stock) and stock outs (how to ensure a reasonable
service level) for slow moving items is a difficult
but often encountered problem in spare parts
inventory management (Gelders, 1978, 1985).
Documentation
Maintenance managers have developed meth-
ods, hired people and bought spare parts to sup-
port their assets, but it is only recently that they
became aware that data should also be consid-
ered an asset (Eason, 1984), There is a need for
 L.M. Pintelon, L.F. GeMers / Maintenance management decision making
technical information (equipment parts, inter-
changeability of spare parts, sequence of (dis)as-
sembly, etc.) as well as for data on equipment
failure history (Patton, 1980). For these purposes
computerized maintenance information systems
can be very helpful (Dekker, 1989).
Procedures are another important element, in
order to allow for smooth management there
should be well-structured and efficient proce-
dures for all maintenance activities, like work
order control and performance reporting. Every
book on maintenance management has one or
more chapters on that subject (e.g. Higgins, 1977).
3.4. Performance reporting
Performance evaluation closes the manage-
ment control loop. It is also an indispensable
element of maintenance management. Perfor-
mance reporting not only reveals how well the
planned actions were carried out, it also allows
problems to be anticipated and improvements for
the future to be made.
/
m
I /
,t
/-"
running-in
failures
useful life
Figure_3 The bathtub curve
311
In maintenance literature little is found on
performance reporting (see Pintelon, 1990a, for
discussion). Recently Pintelon (1990b) proposed a
flexible MMT (maintenance management tool)
concept, which has also been implemented in
several Belgian firms. The MMT consists of two
parts: a control board (CB) and a network of
detailed reports (DR's). The periodically gener-
ated CB helps to identify the potential problem
areas of maintenance management and the DR's
help the maintenance manager to make a proper
diagnosis of those symptoms. The functional link
between CB and DR's makes the MMT a unique
management information tool.
4. Managerial tool kit
This section discusses the managerial tools
available for maintenance decision making. Two
types of techniques are distinguished: failure
modelling techniques which transform failure data
into useful parameters, and O R / M S techniques
! I
I I
j+'/
=, B •
/
,ee
/
time
312 L.M. Pintelon, L.F. Gelders / Maintenance management decision making
for decision support in policy optimization. The
section concludes with a paragraph on computer
support.
4.1. Relevant techniques
Failure modeling techniques
Most maintenance optimization models pre-
sume availability of data. In many cases suitable
and correct data are not present (Dekker, 1989).
Concepts such as failure and repair have a sub-
jective interpretation and are therefore difficult
to measure.
The interpretation of events in the data set is
often primitive, making many data unreliable (e.g.
did preventive maintenance on a given date re-
place a given component or did it only check on
it). Often a long time is needed to collect suffi-
cient data to make reliable estimates of failure
behaviour. Frequent system modifications can
make data obsolete. Data is usually scarce on the
detailed component level. At a unit level there
may be many more data, but the problem then, is
whether it is right to consider all failure modes as
being similar (Seidmann, 1989). A rigourous
treatment of failure modelling is given in Gerts-
bakh (1969).
Setting up a sound data collection and process-
ing system requires careful attention (Patton,
1980). If no historical data are available one can
start with 'expert' knowledge available among
maintenance workers and operators and replace
that expert data increasingly by measurements.
Increased implementation of maintenance man-
agement information systems (MMIS) allows data
processing and consulting to be done much more
reliably and more efficiently. The basic statistics
required to convert failure data into failure pa-
rameters required in optimization models can be
found in the maintenance literature (Hookham,
1981, Mann, 1983, O'Connor, 1991 and Winter,
1984). More advanced techniques can be found in
literature on statistics (e.g. Gertsbakh, 1989).
Failure distribution functions often used in the
maintenance context are the exponential, gamma,
Weibull and (truncated) normal distributions.
A popular concept in maintenance and relia-
bility studies is the bathtub curve (Jardine, 1970).
This curve (Figure 3) consists of three distinct
regions: the running-in period (also called the
burn-in or infant mortality phase), the normal
operation where failures occur randomly (also
called the useful life) and the deterioration (also
called wear-out period). The failure or hazard
rate represents the conditional probability of hav-
ing a failure in the incremental interval d t if the
part has already survived until time t.
The bathtub concept has been both much used
and much criticized. Ascher (1984) indicates that
the reason for this confusion stems from the fact
that there are in fact two bathtub curves instead
of one. The bathtub curve as pictured in Figure 3
holds for a population of unrepairable parts. A
similar (but different!) curve can be drawn for a
repairable system. The curve then represents the
rate of occurrence of failures versus the cumula-
tive operating time of the system. The estimation
of the rate of occurrence of failures can become a
very complicated procedure.
In Figure 3 the impact of preventive mainte-
nance interventions (PM) every m periods of
time is given for each part of the bathtub curve.
In a decreasing failure rate situation performing
PM worsens the failure rate and in a constant
failure rate situations PM does not change the
failure rate. PM obviously makes sense only in an
increasing failure rate situation, because it re-
stores the failure rate to its lowest level.
This simple example clearly illustrates the im-
portance of the type of failure behavior in main-
tenance policy optimization.
O R / M S techniques
O R / M S papers trying to optimize specific
maintenance decisions are appearing more and
more frequently. Some describe case studies
which report on the application of a given
O R / M S method to a specific case. These models
provide some insight in the situation and the
complexity of the maintenance decision, but they
often cannot be generalized. Other models are
dealing with specific and narrow problems and
often focus on tractable mathematical formula-
tions, rather than on realistic hypotheses. These
models provide an insight into the potential as
well as the limitations of the techniques for mod-
elling maintenance decisions and help direct fur-
ther research. Their practical applicability is of-
ten rather limited.
Despite the fact that the gap between O R / M S
theory and practice is slowly narrowing, it re-
mains very large in maintenance management
(Chanin, 1979 and Dekker, 1989). Several reasons
 L.M. Pintelon, L.F. Gelders ,/Maintenance management decision making
can be found for this. First of all, there is a lack
of awareness of available decision making tools
due to the mostly exclusive technical training of
maintenance managers. Moreover, the time pres-
sure most maintenance managers have to face
does not leave much time for additional training
in O R / M S techniques and their applications.
Maintenance problems have many aspects, there-
fore no general models can be formulated and
model assumptions play a crucial role. Essential
to making the appropriate model assumptions
are: a sound engineering insight, a thorough un-
derstanding of the interaction between mainte-
nance and other business functions and a clear
view on the management trade-offs involved. The
stochastic character of maintenance activities
(unexpected events, uncertainty about processing
times) are an additional complication. Lack of
appropriate data is another problem. The grow-
ing number of well-designed MMIS (maintenance
management information systems) introduced in
industry hopefully will solve this problem in the
future and promote the use of quantitative deci-
sion techniques.
Many different quantitative techniques may be
applied to maintenance management. The most
important of these techniques are listed below:
(constrained and uncon-
- D e t e r m i n i s t i c
strained) optimization techniques, like linear pro-
gramming, integer programming, dynamic pro-
gramming and non-linear programming: can be
used to establish optimal preventive maintenance
schemes (e.g. Jardine, 1970).
- Markov decision theory and renewal theory:
can be used to optimize equipment up-time (e.g.
Tijms, 1986).
- Queueing: can be used to determine the
optimal number of repair men in a repair shop
(e.g. Taha, 1982).
- Simulation: can be used to determine the
behaviour of a production line subject to break-
downs (e.g. Phillips, 1976).
- Inventory models: can be used for spare
part inventory management (e.g. Silver, 1985).
- Reliability theory: can be used to compute
and optimize the reliability of equipment under
different maintenance policies (e.g. Barlow, 1975
and Gertsbakh, 1989).
- PERT (project evaluation and review tech-
nique): can be used to schedule major overhauls
and shut-downs (e.g. Niebel, 1985).
313
- Game theory and decision theory: can be
used to decide between several alternative courses
of action in maintenance (e,g., Patton 1980).
- Work study: UMS (universal maintenance
standards) were developed for more accurate es-
timation of job processing times (e.g. Mann, 1983).
4.2. Computer support
Investment in data processing equipment for
maintenance management may yield important
benefits. Studies report that computerized main-
tenance management systems realize better
labour productivity and better equipment avail-
ability, better control of the MRO store (due to
more accurate and timely information on spare
parts availability and to the possibility of parts
cross-referencing which leads to reduced inven-
tory levels), better availability of technical data
and maintenance history information, and easier
performance reporting (Mann, 1983). Several au-
thors present models to justify computers for
maintenance management and give estimates of
expected savings (Mann, 1980, Mitchell, 1980 and
Pierce, 1986).
The first MMIS (maintenance management in-
formation systems) appeared around 1980, as only
then the importance of the maintenance function
was fully recognized, computers were cheap
enough and software firms had discovered the
maintenance market. Initial applications were
limited to cost accounting and inventory control,
thereby reducing administrative work. Gradually
the MMIS packages contained more Decision
Support System features, e.g. for work order con-
trol and scheduling. Almost none of the systems,
however, can yet be called a Decision Support
System. The literature provides an abundance of
papers on questions like make-or-buy the MMIS
software and on hardware selection. Surveys of
existing packages are given in Basta (1985), Kelly
(1984a), Martin (1989), Smit (1983) and Winter
(1984), among others. Hickman (1986) and Mann
(1983) address the implementation issues of
MMIS.
Apart from the typical MMIS systems, com-
puters may have other applications in mainte-
nance management. The above-mentioned condi-
tion-based maintenance (CBM) is one of them
(Dolny, 1985, Mann, 1985 and Seddon, 1984).
Artificial Intelligence and expert systems (e.g. for
314 L.M. Pintelon, L.F. Gelders /Maintenance management decision making
fault diagnosis) are others (Aghjayan, 1989, Ben-
nett, 1985 and Richardson, 1985).
5. Conclusions
Although the impact of maintenance on the
company's financial results may be considerable,
maintenance management has been neglected for
a long time, both in practice and in research.
Fortunately, this is changing. There is good rea-
son to be confident that quantitative models and
Decision Support Systems may make a consider-
able contribution to maintenance decision mak-
ing. These techniques help to replace subjective
judgement by objective, quantitative analysis. In
order to build the appropriate quantitative mod-
els a sound knowledge of O R / M S techniques as
well as a thorough understanding of maintenance
practice and organization is required. The pur-
pose of this paper is to provide a solid framework
for further research in quantitative maintenance
decision making.
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