A decision model for corrective maintenance management

Proper management of maintenance offers many companies significant potential for improving productivity and profitability. Traditional management thinking regards maintenance costs as accidental, rather than planned and controllable. Additionally, research in maintenance management has focused on preventive maintenance and has ignored corrective maintenance even though the latter is also considered to be a critical activity in industry. This study proposes a decision model that could assist in a comparative evaluation of alternative corrective maintenance policies. This decision model consists of a simulation model and economic analysis. The simulation model predicts inventory costs and delivery performance of a corrective maintenance policy in various production systems. Based on simulation results, an economic analysis, consisting of a net present value model and breakeven models, determines the economic value of alternative maintenance policies. A detailed example is offered to evaluate two particular correciive maintenance policies (machine redundancy and worker flexibility) although the decision model can be applied to other options. The results of the example demonstrate the decision model's capability to assist managers in selecting the best corrective maintenance policy.