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AU-eJIR, 7, 2, 48-61

Impact-based forecasts and warnings (IBFs) are seen as important drivers for adequate anticipation and assessment of potential threats to public safety as they give a better understanding of the weather event's impacts. To prepare for impacts of weather events and prevent weather-related accidents, road maintenance services are actively using weather information in their daily work routine. This paper looks into the requirements that road maintenance services have for IBFs and how weather forecasts are used at the moment. The study is part of an interdisciplinary research project and follows a qualitative social science research approach. Findings show that the following factors are general user requirements: relevance of information, recognition of spatial and temporal requests, acceptability, comprehensibility, and technical demands. These are also applicable to IBFs with the extension to provide a benefit for road maintenance services in situations that rarely occur and where no embodied knowledge in the organization is existent.

Volume 2021, Issue 10, Maintenance and service logistics are relevant to capital goods supply such as manufacturing equipment, industrial equipment or primary equipment used for processes of users. The study classifies the significance of maintenance service logistics (MSL) and investigates the challenges the organization faces in maintenance service logistics based on previous research work on the subject. A variable number of opinions have been presented by previous authors showing that maintenance operations in different industries vary according to organizational requirements, which is also a critical task. It has been identified in this study that MSL plays an important role in the overall maintenance management systems since it ensures the availability of resources and timely delivery of finished products throughout the product life cycle. There are limited empirical studies that are relevant to the topic of maintenance services-based logistics, and different studies provide terrible implications about maintenance service requirements in different industries. In future, the research can be broadened with the inclusion of a larger number of research articles or implementation of other methodologies such as primary data analysis methodology., Die Instandhaltungs- und Servicelogistik ist relevant für die Versorgung mit Investitionsgütern, wie z. B. Produktionsanlagen, Industrieanlagen oder Primäranlagen, die für die Prozesse der Nutzer eingesetzt werden. Die Studie klassifiziert die Bedeutung der Instandhaltungs-Servicelogistik (MSL) und untersucht die Herausforderungen, denen sich die Organisation in der Instandhaltungs-Servicelogistik gegenübersieht, basierend auf früheren Forschungsarbeiten zu diesem Thema. Bisherige Autoren haben eine unterschiedliche Anzahl von Stellungnahmen vorgelegt, die zeigen, dass die Instandhaltungsmaßnahmen in verschiedenen Branchen je nach den organisatorischen Anforderungen variieren, was ebenfalls eine kritische Aufgabe darstellt. In dieser Studie wurde festgestellt, dass die MSL eine wichtige Rolle im gesamten Instandhaltungsmanagement spielt, da sie die Verfügbarkeit von Ressourcen und die rechtzeitige Lieferung von Endprodukten während des gesamten Produktlebenszyklus sicherstellt. Es gibt nur wenige empirische Studien, die sich mit dem Thema der auf Instandhaltungsdienstleistungen basierenden Logistik befassen, und verschiedene Studien liefern schreckliche Erkenntnisse über die Anforderungen an Instandhaltungsdienstleistungen in verschiedenen Branchen. In Zukunft kann die Forschung durch die Einbeziehung einer größeren Anzahl von Forschungsartikeln oder die Anwendung anderer Methoden, wie z. B. der Primärdatenanalyse, ausgeweitet werden.

This study aims to examine the effects of maintenance service firms’ resources and capabilities on maintenance performance, measured by the turnaround time of medical devices (TAT). The theoretical framework used in this study is based on the resource-based view (RBV) and agency theory (AT). The hypotheses were tested using information on 764 medical devices and 60 maintenance service providers, resulting in 1403 maintenance transactions. As such, our data sample is significantly larger than those used in previous studies in this area. For this study we used a variation of the proportional hazards model, the conditional frailty gap time hazards model. The empirical analysis of this research is among the first to quantify how the performance of maintenance providers is affected by the core constructs of both the resource-based view and agency theory, using statistical evidence.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to identify what is currently valued in maintenance services. The study first conceptualizes the value construct through an examination of its elements, including both financial and non-financial elements, and second provides insight into its actors’ (i.e. customer companies, service providers, equipment providers) attitudes toward value creation. Design/methodology/approach The study uses data collected from maintenance service professionals by an online survey. First an explorative factor analysis is conducted to examine the value construct. After this cluster analysis is conducted to define the actors. Findings The empirical findings suggest seven main elements that capture maintenance service value: relationship synergies, reliability of the service partner, development, availability, service solutions and problem solving ability, environment, health, safety and quality, and adaptability to suit different situations. Further analysis reveals that the actors can be divided into three main strategy types: basic, quality- and collaboration-oriented partners. Originality/value In previous studies the comprehensive nature of maintenance service value has received less attention, and the literature has focused on the technical and financial aspects. This paper provides a new conceptualization of the value creating elements, including also non-financial elements, and offers an integrated measure for the actors to identify the comprehensive value construct around maintenance services. In addition, the findings show that the actors in the field still have varying strategies when considering value creation. Communication and mutual understanding of the value creating elements are important so that right services are carried out and developed with the right partners.

El presente trabajo de grado se centra en la empresa Colvapor S.A.S., organización dedicada a la prestación de servicios integrales de mantenimiento para cajeros automáticos, corresponsales y agilizadores bancarios a nivel nacional en el sector financiero, inicialmente se realizó un diagnóstico de la empresa con base en la aplicación del modelo MMGO – Modelo de Modernización para la Gestión de Organizaciones, cuyos resultados evidenciaron la oportunidad de fortalecer los procesos de direccionamiento estratégico. Para desarrollar la propuesta de intervención se tuvo en cuenta la metodología del Modelo de Innovación e Intervención Organizacional MIIGO, en miras a fortalecer la administración estratégica de la empresa, con base en la orientación y formulación de rutas de cambio que permitan la aplicación de mejores prácticas que conlleven a nuevas oportunidades con base en la comprensión de la dinámica del mercado y que respondan al cumplimiento de los objetivos en términos de rentabilidad, productividad y competitividad. This undergraduate work focuses on the company Colvapor SAS, an organization dedicated to the provision of comprehensive maintenance services for ATMs, correspondents and bank facilitators nationwide in the financial sector, initially a diagnosis of the company was made based on the application of the MMGO model - Modernization Model for the Management of Organizations, the results of which evidenced the opportunity to strengthen the strategic management processes. To develop the intervention proposal, the methodology of the MIIGO Innovation and Organizational Intervention Model was taken into account, in order to strengthen the strategic administration of the company, based on the orientation and formulation of routes of change that allow the application of best practices. that lead to new opportunities based on the understanding of market dynamics and that respond to the fulfillment of the objectives in terms of profitability, productivity and competitiveness. Magíster en Administración de Empresas - MBA

To support the decision-making process in various industrial applications, many companies use knowledge management and Information Retrieval (IR). In an industrial setting, knowledge is extracted from data that is often stored in a semi-structured or unstructured format. As a result, Natural Language Processing (NLP) methods have been applied to a number of IR steps. In this work, we explore how NLP and particularly topic modelling can be used to improve the relevance of spare part retrieval in the context of maintenance services. A proposed methodology extracts topics from short maintenance service reports that also include part replacement data. An intuition behind the proposed methodology is that every topic should represent a specific root cause. Experimental were conducted for an ad-hoc retrieval system of service case descriptions and spare parts. The results have shown that our modification improves a baseline system thus boosting the performance of maintenance service solution recommendation.

En libros y artículos como “Software Engineering: A Practitioner's Approach” (Pressman R. S., 2008)“Ingeniería del Software” (Sommervile, 2011), se vienen hablando del tema de mantenimiento de software, situándolo entre el 67% y 90% del costo total del ciclo de vida del desarrollo de un sistema de información. A pesar del esfuerzo de estos y otros estudiosos se reportan pocas investigaciones o producción de datos sobre el tema. Hoy por hoy, el mantenimiento de software es uno de los procesos más necesarios e importantes para las empresas, pero, simultáneamente, uno de los más complicados y costosos por lo que, en el presente trabajo, se propone una guía denominada “Mantelasoft”, enfocada en el proceso de evolución y mantenimiento de software para las MiPymes y departamentos de desarrollo de software, corresponde a una combinación entre el proceso Ágil Mantema y los procesos de apoyo planteados por la norma ISO/IEC 12207:2008, la cual incluye un modelo con fases, actividades, métricas y técnicas. En la primera fase se recolectan datos, por medio de una encuesta y un grupo focal a empresarios, sobre cómo algunas empresas de Pereira realizan el mantenimiento de software a sus productos. Luego de analizar la información obtenida y revisar guías de mantenimiento de software ya existentes, se genera y propone “Mantelasoft”. Por último, se aplica “Mantelasoft” en dos empresas de Pereira, donde antes y después de la aplicación se hace una evaluación del mantenimiento de software que allí se realiza, para posteriormente saber las fortalezas y puntos por mejorar de “Mantelasoft”. In books and articles such as “Software Engineering: A Practitioner's Approach” (Pressman R. S., 2008), "Software Engineering" (Sommervile, 2011), which since the 70s, have been talking about the issue of software maintenance, placing it among the 67 % and 90% of the total cost of the life cycle of the development of an information system. Despite the efforts of these and other scholars, few investigations or production of data on the subject are reported. Today, software maintenance is one of the most necessary and important processes for companies, but, simultaneously, one of the most complicated and costly, so, in the present work, a methodological guide is proposed that has been called "Mantelasoft", focused on the process of evolution and maintenance of software, specifically for MSMEs and software development departments, which corresponds to a combination between the Agil Mantema process and the support processes proposed by ISO / IEC 12207: 2008, which includes a model with phases, activities, metrics and techniques. Where in the first phase data is collected, through a survey and a focus group of entrepreneurs, on how some Pereira companies perform software maintenance on their products. After analyzing the information obtained and reviewing existing software maintenance guides, "Mantelasoft" is generated and proposed. Finally, "Mantelasoft" is applied in two companies in Pereira, where before and after the application an evaluation is made of the software maintenance performed there, to later know the strengths and points to improve of "Mantelasoft".

Traditionally, industrial services have been mainly transaction-based, i.e., the equipment user pays the service provider for getting a job done or providing assistance and support for equipment operations. Recently, a trend has emerged of increasing the relational perspective of these services, which are becoming more oriented towards customer value and service performance levels. Among these emergent industrial services, performance-based services represent an opportunity for equipment manufacturers to transform their service offerings towards more relational and customer-oriented services. The purpose of this work is to study the design of a generic performance-based maintenance service under a novel perspective given by systems engineering. This paper is intended to serve as a starting point to fully understand this type of services and to develop a method that can support equipment manufacturers who wish to advance their service offerings.

This study uses multivariate regression analysis to examine the effects of asset specificity on the financial performance of both external and internal governance structures for medical device maintenance, and investigates how the financial performance of external governance structures differs depending on whether a hospital is private or public. The hypotheses were tested using information on 764 medical devices and 62 maintenance service providers, resulting in 1403 maintenance transactions. As such, our data sample is significantly larger than those used in previous studies in this area. The results empirically support our core theoretical argument that governance financial performance is influenced by assets specificity. © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Augmented Reality (AR) is an emerging technology that can provide support to the provision of maintenance and technical assistance services by dispersed technicians, who are not convenient skilled to deal with the increasing complexity of modern products. This paper, through a case study in an industrial context, presents the main technical and organizational challenges that have to be faced in order to introduce AR in the delivery process of maintenance services.

International audience; The circular economy is an economy that meets sustainable requirements, and that advocates a new paradigm, the paradigm of regeneration. This paradigm allows creating new businesses, new jobs and new skills all along about the product lifecycle. This is especially the case for maintenance and retirement processes. Indeed, these processes are the regeneration core. Those of retirements do not sum up to destructuring process but match also with repair, reuse and disassembly processes. As for maintenance, it becomes the cornerstone of all this. Through all its current skills, it allows managing and optimizing the regeneration by deciding when to stop a use and where studied items should go. Besides, maintenance must adapt to the regeneration. In other words, tools and methods used by maintenance can be able to maintain the regeneration potential of an item, and thus, create new jobs and experts. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the major challenges brought by the paradigm of regeneration to maintenance.

CNPq A growing trend in hiring maintenance services has been observed in companies in general in order to enhance competition and reduce costs. This practice becomes even more evident in the context of health institutions, as they strongly employ technology-intensive equipment that must follow tight quality standards that intend to ensure the continuity of the service and the safety of patients. These characteristics contribute in allowing the maintenance to be executed by the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM), since several pre-established procedures must be attended during maintenance. Thus, it becomes relevant to analyze the interaction among customers (hospitals) and the equipment manufacturer in this particular maintenance services market. In the developed model the customers are divided into 2 classes, great size hospitals belong to class 1 and small hospitals belong to class 2 and class 1 customers have priority over class 2 customers. Class 1 customers have the option of hiring an Extended Warranty (EW) with priority or of paying for each maintenance intervention on demand, while class 2 customers have the option of hiring an standard EW (with no priority) or of paying for each maintenance intervention on demand. To model such dynamics a 2-class priority queuing system is implemented. The customers select the option that maximize their expected utilities, as they are risk averse, while the manufacturer needs to set the EW and maintenance intervention prices and select the optimal number of customers of each class to service in order to maximize their expected profit. A Stackelberg Game is used to model the interaction among players, in which the OEM is the leader and the customer is the follower. In the numerical example it has been found that the customers of class 1 decide to hire EW with priority, while class 2 customers decide to pay for maintenance services on demand. Also the OEM decides to service 3 customers of class 1 and 100 customers of class 2, which yields an expected profit of $ 3,204,450. A sensitivity analysis is also performed to analyze how the optimal solution changes due to parameters variations. Uma tendência crescente para a contratação de serviços de manutenção tem sido observada em empresas em geral com o objetivo de aumentar sua competitividade e reduzir custos. Tal prática se torna ainda mais evidente no contexto de instituições de saúde, já que elas utilizam diversos equipamentos intensivos em tecnologia que precisam se adequar a rígidos padrões de qualidade de forma a garantir a continuidade do serviço e a segurança dos pacientes. Essas características contribuem para que os serviços de manutenção sejam executados pelo fabricante do equipamento, já que diversos procedimentos específicos precisam ser seguidos durante a manutenção. Assim, torna-se relevante analisar a interação entre clientes (hospitais) e o fabricante do equipamento neste mercado particular. No modelo desenvolvido, os clientes foram divididos em 2 classes, hospitais de grande porte pertencem à classe 1 e hospitais pequenos pertencem à classe 2 e os clientes da classe 1 têm prioridade em relação aos clientes da classe 2. Os clientes da classe 1 têm a opção de contratar uma garantia estendida com prioridade ou de pagar por cada intervenção de manutenção sob demanda, já os clientes da classe 2 têm a opção de contratar uma garantia estendida padrão (sem prioridade) ou de pagar por cada intervenção de manutenção sob demanda. Para modelar esta dinâmica um sistema de filas com 2 classes de prioridade foi implementado. Os clientes escolhem a opção que maximiza suas utilidades esperadas, já que são avessos ao risco, enquanto o fabricante deve determinar os preços das garantias estendidas e das intervenções avulsas além do número ótimo de clientes que ele deve atender de forma a maximizar o seu lucro esperado. Para modelar a interação entre os jogadores foi utilizado um Jogo de Stackelberg em que o fabricante é o líder e o cliente, o seguidor. O exemplo numérico apresentado mostra que a decisão ótima para os clientes da classe 1 é adquirir a garantia estendida com prioridade, enquanto para os clientes da classe 2 a decisão-ótima é pagar pelos serviços de manutenção sob demanda. O fabricante decide atender 3 clientes da classe 1 e 100 clientes da classe 2, o que lhe gera um lucro de $ 3,204,450. Uma análise de sensibilidade é apresentada em seguida para investigar como a solução ótima muda em decorrência de variações nos parâmetros.

Emerging industrial service process development combined with managing complexity in service supply networks is an area where literature is still scarce. This paper seeks to critically analyse traditional maintenance business practices and to present a model to support the new production paradigm based on collaborative, value-adding networks. This paper is based on interviews and structured discussions with experts in different fields, and analysis of the results of industrial case studies. Our constructive research approach includes formulation of an advanced model to support a collaborative and networked maintenance business based on the identification of the current key challenges. Value networks are still lacking methods, models and practical business scenarios that support the collaborative provision of maintenance services. Adoption of the model presented in this paper is assumed to support service suppliers in coping with the challenges in dynamic maintenance service supply networks. The originality of our work lies in providing an integrated depiction of our model from several perspectives.

This paper studies the flrms’ capital accumulation process in a vintage capital model with embodied technological change. We take into account that depreciation is endogenous and in particular associated with vintage speciflc maintenance expenditure. We prove that maintenance is a local substitute for investment as soon as the marginal cost of maintenance is strictly increasing. We show that maintenance and investment in new capital goods appear as complements with respect to the changes in some exogenous factors such as productivity, cost of maintenance, flxed cost of operation, e‐ciency of maintenance services and appear as substitutes with respect to the price of new machines. Allowing for investment in old vintages, we establish that investment in old machines appears as a substitute of both investments in new machines and maintenance services. We end up by analyzing the efiects of technological progress on optimal plans and prove that a negative anticipation efiect can occur even without any market imperfections.

This work presents an economic and environmental impact assessment of maintenance services in order to evaluate how they contribute to sustainable value creation through field service delivery supported by advanced technologies. To this end, systems dynamics is used to assist the prediction of economic and environmental impacts of maintenance services supported by the use of an e-maintenance platform implementing prognosis and health management. A special concern is given to the energy use and related carbon footprint as environmental impacts.

The aims of this paper are (1) to identify the characteristics of maintenance service providers that directly impact maintenance service quality, using 18 independent covariables; (2) to quantify the change in risk these covariables present to service quality, measured in terms of equipment turnaround time (TAT). A survey was applied to every maintenance service provider (n = 19) for characterization purposes. The equipment inventory was characterized, and the TAT variable recorded and monitored for every work order of each service provider (N = 1,025). Finally, the research team conducted a statistical analysis to accomplish the research objectives. The results of this study offer strong empirical evidence that the most influential variables affecting the quality of maintenance service performance are the following: type of maintenance, availability of spare parts in the country, user training, technological complexity of the equipment, distance between the company and the hospital, and the number of maintenance visits performed by the company. The strength of the results obtained by the Cox model built are supported by the measure of the R2p,e = 0.57 with a value of R p,e= 0.75. Thus, the model explained 57% of the variation in equipment TAT, with moderate high positive correlation between the dependent variable (TAT) and independent variables. © Copyright AAMI 2013.

Nowadays companies, whose mission is to provide maintenance services to support production equipment built by different product vendors, progressively tend to focus on services based on Condition Based Maintenance (CBM). This can be considered a consequence of the availability of ICT components as new remote hardware devices (i.e. smart sensors) and software tools (i.e. for diagnostics and prognostics): these components may play a fundamental role for the development of CBM in the set of services provided by maintenance service providers. In this context, it is interesting to evaluate new technical solutions, such as CBM based solutions, their technical advantages and subsequent benefits, identifying CBM as a relevant leverage to improve a maintenance service contract. This paper focuses on the supporting modelling tools that can be of help in order to assess the technical and economic benefits that a CBM service can provide. Thanks to such supporting tools, it is possible to model the CBM adoption in a maintenance service contract, to optimize it and to estimate the resulting benefits, besides the costs. In a few words, it is possible to set up a CBM service and evaluate its impact for the client company that decides to use it. The paper presents the literature background, in order to demonstrate the usefulness of CBM in the scope of maintenance service provision. Afterwards, modelling tools, which can assist in evaluating the benefits of maintenance services, are discussed: a major focus is on simulation tools, having specific concern to the system dynamics as modelling technique. In this paper a tool is proposed; this tool provides empirical evidence of the use of systems dynamics as a technique promising for supporting the evaluation of technical and economic benefits of CBM in a service contract.

In most European countries as well as in Finland the responsibility for arranging water supply and sewerage services is by law vested in municipalities, including water and sewage network maintenance. This does not, however, mean that municipalities have to produce maintenance-related services completely by themselves. Outsourcing of these services to another service provider, public or private, may provide new innovations and improve productivity also in network maintenance. The water and sewer networks constitute an enormous mass of public property which operation is vital for communities' everyday life. In Finland, as in many other countries, the renovation need of water networks is increasing rapidly. If a maintenance contract is concluded with a service provider, the quality of maintenance services' must be measured somehow to make sure that the public property value and technical properties do not deteriorate during the maintenance contract period. In addition, the Finnish purchase law for special industries like water services requires a buyer to treat service providers as equal and not to discriminate them when tendering. This often calls for different kinds of qualitative and quantitative indicators. The metering of maintenance service quality is difficult in all industrial sectors. Special challenges in water and sewer networks are caused by the fact that the object being maintained is mainly buried underground, thus out of sight. An additional challenge is caused by the slow progress of network deterioration; the maintenance activities carried out or those being neglected do not necessarily cause any significant changes in network performance in the short run. In the worst case a deteriorated network may cause problems and interruptions in water services even if the maintenance partner has carried out all the investments and renovation activities that have been agreed among the contracting parties. Traditional key figures that are monitored from the networks, like leakage rate in water and sewer systems and number of leakages and blockages, do not provide a solid basis for maintenance service quality assessment. The leakage rate in sewer system is highly depending on the e.g. rainfall and water system leakage rate can be affected by a part of the network that is not on the service provider's responsibility. Therefore some additional means of service quality metering must be considered.

In this paper, we examine the large body of existing research on outsourcing, and assess the status of research on outsourcing the maintenance of medical devices. Because so little research in this area currently exists, the study was broadened to include other fields that outsource maintenance services, and considers possible applications to the field of medical device maintenance. In all, this paper examines 55 articles spanning various dimensions, including: mathematical models, empirical studies, and conceptual papers. We conclude that research into the outsourcing of medical device maintenance services in hospitals is still in its infancy stages, and that further progress in this field would benefit from additional empirical study grounded in management theory. © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

In most European countries as well as in Finland the responsibility for arranging water supply and sewerage services is by law vested in municipalities, including water and sewage network maintenance. This does not, however, mean that municipalities have to produce maintenance-related services completely by themselves. Outsourcing of these services to another service provider, public or private, may provide new innovations and improve productivity also in network maintenance. The water and sewer networks constitute an enormous mass of public property which operation is vital for communities' everyday life. In Finland, as in many other countries, the renovation need of water networks is increasing rapidly. If a maintenance contract is concluded with a service provider, the quality of maintenance services' must be measured somehow to make sure that the public property value and technical properties do not deteriorate during the maintenance contract period. In addition, the Finnish purchase law for special industries like water services requires a buyer to treat service providers as equal and not to discriminate them when tendering. This often calls for different kinds of qualitative and quantitative indicators. The metering of maintenance service quality is difficult in all industrial sectors. Special challenges in water and sewer networks are caused by the fact that the object being maintained is mainly buried underground, thus out of sight. An additional challenge is caused by the slow progress of network deterioration; the maintenance activities carried out or those being neglected do not necessarily cause any significant changes in network performance in the short run. In the worst case a deteriorated network may cause problems and interruptions in water services even if the maintenance partner has carried out all the investments and renovation activities that have been agreed among the contracting parties. Traditional key figures that are monitored from the networks, like leakage rate in water and sewer systems and number of leakages and blockages, do not provide a solid basis for maintenance service quality assessment. The leakage rate in sewer system is highly depending on the e.g. rainfall and water system leakage rate can be affected by a part of the network that is not on the service provider's responsibility. Therefore some additional means of service quality metering must be considered.

Nowadays companies, whose mission is to provide maintenance services to support production equipment built by different product vendors, progressively tend to focus on services based on Condition Based Maintenance (CBM). This can be considered a consequence of the availability of ICT components as new remote hardware devices (i.e. smart sensors) and software tools (i.e. for diagnostics and prognostics): these components may play a fundamental role for the development of CBM in the set of services provided by maintenance service providers. In this context, it is interesting to evaluate new technical solutions, such as CBM based solutions, their technical advantages and subsequent benefits, identifying CBM as a relevant leverage to improve a maintenance service contract. This paper focuses on the supporting modelling tools that can be of help in order to assess the technical and economic benefits that a CBM service can provide. Thanks to such supporting tools, it is possible to model the CBM adoption in a maintenance service contract, to optimize it and to estimate the resulting benefits, besides the costs. In a few words, it is possible to set up a CBM service and evaluate its impact for the client company that decides to use it. The paper presents the literature background, in order to demonstrate the usefulness of CBM in the scope of maintenance service provision. Afterwards, modelling tools, which can assist in evaluating the benefits of maintenance services, are discussed: a major focus is on simulation tools, having specific concern to the system dynamics as modelling technique. In this paper a tool is proposed; this tool provides empirical evidence of the use of systems dynamics as a technique promising for supporting the evaluation of technical and economic benefits of CBM in a service contract.

Today, many companies struggle with maintenance work established by pre-requisites during purchasing, installation and start-up of plants, systems and machines. In search for improvements in existing maintenance organizations, it´s easy to conclude that they look like and is a direct consequence of previous engineering decisions and activities. Maintenance is, however, performed in the operation phase with weak coupling to what created it. Using an empirical knowledge base, several examples of this narrow view on maintenance is given along with the consequences it results in today. It is argued, that the increasing need to create and preserve knowledge will be the driver for change and the main contribution to an enlarged and more efficient maintenance function. Improvements are pointed out using references to the leading actors creating the frontier today where most companies could be tomorrow. The paper hopefully will contribute to how maintenance processes and activities are being designed, set-up and carried out.