What is this thing called Maintenance?

Homework 2 Maintenance Definition

Submitted by: Rayendra Anandika

The definition of maintenance change because of the perception of

maintenance activity change. Briefly, picture 1 depicts the history of
maintenance and it shows the change of perception toward maintenance
activity.

Picture 1. History of Maintenance Perspectives [1].

From time to time, maintenance perspective is changing. From 1980

onwards, we have been considering safety, quality, and environment
within maintenance program. Safety is considered in the operation as the
part of companys standard or governments regulation of work. While,
quality is one of the parameters to evaluate that the maintenance runs
well as long as the production the maintained item produces good
quality of the product. Furthermore, the consideration of environment
leads us to the aspect of sustainability which relates to three important
components: environment, economy, and society.
Value creation is also considered as an important side of maintenance.
Regarding the massive implementation of Lean Manufacturing, six sigma,
TPM, JIT and vice versa in many industrial fields even more in other
fields, such as education, service, digital technology sector, government
institution, etc we suppose to effectively do things that can bring more
value to the customer perspective.
British Standard BS 3811:1993 defined Maintenance as the
combination of all technical and administrative actions, including
supervision actions, intended to retain an item in, or restore it to, a state
in which it can perform a required function.
The thing that is missed in this definition is the changing perspective of
maintenance activities to be customer-centralized action. There are many
companies that implement the lean concept in their operation, which
suppose to evaluate their maintenance activity into re-evaluation. They do
not want maintenance activity only to retain and restore item in a state
which hit can perform the required function but also follow companys
strategies. In the case of lean implementation, it should also be a lean
maintenance and gives value creation in the perspective of the customer.
Other companys policy, such as sustainability which nowadays also
become the value added from the customers and governments
perspective, safety standard, etc.
By considering those aspects, then we can modify maintenance definition
as the combination of all technical and administrative actions in the
companys managerial frameworks intended to retain an item in, or
restore it to, a state in which it can perform a required function to deliver
the best value of product or service in the perspective of customer and
society.
Maintenance should not only consider to perform the required function but
also need to consider the companys managerial strategy. This internal
policy does not only consist of certain functions to be fulfilled during
operation but also other aspects such as companys vision, companys
roadmap, quality standard, time production, etc. On the other hand, the
external policy (either from society or government) such as sustainability
standard, safety standard, business ethic, law regulation, etc should also
be addressed and be reflected in the maintenance program.
Reference
1. Shenoy,D. and B. Bhadury (1998). Maintenance Resources
Management. Padstow, T.J. International Ltd.