The Maintenance Management

Abstract

The chapter deals with the maintenance management. The review is based on maintenance and management trends in organisations in 2022 and on other findings. There are also historical parallels. Aspects such as maintenance planning and control and management including downtime, resources in terms as material (spare parts and added materials) and personnel are discussed. The issue is linked to other management systems such as quality control, occupational safety, and environment and information security. The methods of planning and control of equipment maintenance are presented. The application of the process approach and the concept of maintenance as a process that needs to be improved are described. The relationship to the Industry 4.0 is mentioned. Linking to risk management is included in this chapter. The chapter is based on a small survey probe in several organisations, and points out identified nonconformities of the maintenance and suggested actions. The goal is effective maintenance for needs of organisations in a current dynamic environment.

1. Introduction

This chapter deals with maintenance management in organisations. He submits a literary search in connection with the current situation. Based on the implementation of the probe in several companies, it tries to design effective approaches to planning and managing the maintenance process in the context of a process approach and an integrated management system.

2. Historical review

From the very beginning, when a man made the first product, one began to think about how to prolong its life or restore or improve its function. Various technological procedures have been developed. With the transition from manual to mechanical production, this approach has gained more importance and regularity, as well as technical sophistication. Sophisticated mechanical components and then electronic components have made the equipment a more productive, but on the other hand more complex and vulnerable. From this reason, the probability of his failure increased. That status had to be stopped. It went from maintenance to failure to preventive maintenance. Gradual digitisation has resulted in greater diagnostic development and the birth of predictive maintenance. Now, the maintenance is in the stage of integration with the production into one unit. However, the conditions of the significant environment of organisations and the internal context of their maintenance are also changing. Maintenance management must respect the process approach and its aspects. However, most organisations suffer from inertia. Therefore, this development is yet to come, and organisations face a number of difficulties.

3. Publications and the maintenance management

Equipment outages, human errors and product quality deviations are always a signal for organisations to correct maintenance. They lead to efforts to mitigate the impact on production problems as the article [1] mentioned. Many publications therefore deal with partial and general studies in the scope of this topic maintenance management. For preliminary maintenance planning algorithms for steel companies, the text [2] describes generally the study [3]. A study of tools to support maintenance decisions in discrete production is in the study [4]. It brings the issue of processing a group of tasks in parallel on multiple equipment, as in the article [5]. The preventive maintenance planning model for serial parallel systems is described in the publication [6].

Principles of maintenance are examined with respect to time and cost in the article [7]. The creation of a decision-making system for the maintenance of the spatial arrangement of equipment for the city’s road infrastructure is described in the publication [8]. Papers [8, 9] examine the assessment of the level of maturity of a heavy equipment maintenance management system. The solution of barriers and their relations in industrial production are solved in the text [10]. An empirical study of the relationship between maintenance management and employee performance is described in the article [11]. The article [12] devotes to muscle and skeletal disorders in maintenance employees in connection with the risk assessment of these activities. Critical analysis of models that combine maintenance, lean manufacturing and the Industry 4.0, and design of its own for predictive maintenance is mentioned in the article [13]. Multi-target optimisation algorithm for wind turbine maintenance is used in the publication [14]. The explanation in computer-aided maintenance management when considering aspects of the Industry 4.0, such as neural network, models, clouds, the Internet of Things, the article [15] provides. The study [16] assesses and categorises maintenance services across their life cycle and in relation to the Industry 4.0.

Current trends in the production management and the maintenance management are described in texts such as [17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22].

4. Methods

Various management tools are used in the performed studies to streamline maintenance work. The basis is the cooperation of maintenance department with production department in the organisation according to the text [19]. It should be noted that maintenance planning should overlap with production planning, as it is noted in the text [21].

Due to conditions of the substantial surroundings, work with resources and hybrid work [22] are balanced for the predictive maintenance. Emphasis is placed on the installation of sensors [20]. Preliminary maintenance planning can be based on the Genetic algorithm with two-phase optimisation, where the integration of the organisation’s strengths in the article [2] takes place. The planning of each cell system in the text [6] is based on the same algorithm and combination of the maintenance after failure and the preventive maintenance in the article [14].

Various characters of the maintenance process are monitored in organisations, such as: MTTR (Mean Time to Repair), MTBF (Mean Time Between Failures) and OEE (Overall Equipment Effectiveness) to solve outage problems [19, 23]. The small OEE is at 55–70% in the article [21]. The determination of the maintenance policy is based primarily on the characters of the number of failures, the number of operating cycles of the equipment and the time of performing the part replacement according to the text [7]. Based on a search of publications and analysis, models are created, including together maintenance, lean production and the Industry 4.0 in the article [13]. Reducing maintenance costs while increasing production performance and assessing several scenarios in the maintenance is described in the publication [14]. An important source of knowledge is also a critical analysis of computer-aided maintenance management systems as in the text [15]. The non-technical sphere brings the interconnection of sustainable, social and economic requirements for technical systems as in the text [16]. Multi-criteria analysis is also used for the maintenance decision-making system. All stakeholders are involved, which strengthens the solution of the problem, which is pointed in the article [8]. The production process depends on production speed, the number of nonconformities, system availability and other performance characters, such as complex KPI metrics. The context of the information can be determined via the semantic profile of a part of the system as in publications [1, 18]. The Pareto analysis of maintenance barriers in the organisation’s production system is mentioned in the text [10].

The evaluation of equipment criticality is performed through setting priorities and decisions on maintenance with the help of data from computer systems as MES (Manufacturing Execution System) and CMMS (Computerised Maintenance Management System). It is based on cooperation between maintenance and production to increase productivity without increasing investment as in the article [4]. Critical activities are also assessed according to the standard ISO/TR 12295 [12, 24].

To strengthen production performance and to monitor the status of maintenance, meetings and verification of the comprehensibility of tasks by staff in the text [11] are recommended. The health risks of maintenance employees are determined by using an ergonomics study in the publication [12].

The benchmarking in maintenance is promoted as a comparative method. It provides information on the number of unplanned outages and the condition of the equipment. In accordance with the article [23], an audit can be recommended as a tool for measuring the performance of the maintenance process in organisations. Furthermore, it is possible to compare maintenance process through an inventory, where the physical assets and information about them correspond to the data in the computer system as for example CMMS according to the text [18].

Furthermore, methods of evolutionary algorithms, clustering method [25] and/or linear programming [5] are used to plan and schedule maintenance and reduce its costs. Using a digital twin improves the visibility of problems in this process well in the article [17].

CBM methodology is widely used for dynamic maintenance planning, as stated in the publications [3], here in conjunction with the standard ISO 31000 [23, 26]. Methods such as RCM and TPM [23] are also used for a maintenance planning. Reliability-focused maintenance is recommended as suitable for minimising costs when there is insufficient capacity of qualified staff. The standard ISO 55001 [19, 27] is recommended to enhance sustainability. All maintenance process scenarios over time are also considered, as in the publication [3].

The assessment of the level of maturity of the maintenance process is performed based on the standard ISO 55001 [9, 27].

5. Problems of area

The current maintenance process faces a lot of problems in organisations.

Implications of production planning for maintenance planning have not yet been satisfactorily considered. These two areas are not integrated. There is no suitable approach to rescheduling maintenance according to the current situation in the workshop in the article [2]. There is a lack of analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of various maintenance planning and control algorithms [14] and rigorous data analysis according to the text [20]. There is more interest in a production than in maintenance the text [4] notes. It is necessary to address unplanned maintenance also due to the availability of staff as in the text [25]. A major problem for many organisations is a lack of strategic maintenance planning and overall integration of the maintenance into the strategy of organisations according to the article [23]. The implementation of the Industry 4.0 in the maintenance requires a more sophisticated method of maintenance planning, backed by data and industry knowledge and risk analysis as in the article [3]. Maintenance decision algorithms are often based on discrete state variables [28]. Deviations occur in the communication of sensors, actuators and other devices that can affect production decisions. There is a need to improve the work with contexts and workflows [1]. Problems occur also in the application of predictive maintenance in organisations [17].

Many organisations have difficulty to implement the conception TPM and a spatial arrangement of equipment in a shopfloor as the article [13] describes. The eternal problem is to reduce maintenance costs and increase equipment availability for many articles as in [15, 18]. Problems can be seen in the supply chain in the text [19]. Studies often involve individual facilities or shopfloors, not the entire asset management of organisations. It is necessary to update the methodology for determining the criticality of the equipment regarding new conditions of the substantial surroundings and the consistency between bottlenecks of production and the criticality of equipment. Data for maintenance analysis are often not of excellent quality. Stakeholder requirements are not understood. A static approach is applied, and the holistic concept is not considered. The maintenance is often decided by staff who have any access to it, and even the maintenance staff themselves are not familiar with data analysis [4].

According to the article [10], a common reason for maintenance problems in organisations is a poor communication in organisations and a small interest of management. Employees do not report maintenance problems and do not make improvement suggestions for maintenance. There is a need for more training on maintenance for all employees of the organisation, as texts [18, 23] add. There is a lack of qualified staff [21]. The safety of maintenance staff must be ensured [11] because working conditions of maintenance employees are hazardous to health, as shown by studies [12, 23]. Green technologies are not synchronised with the maintenance and the maintenance is not monitored environmentally [10]. Maintenance workspaces will need to be optimised for energy consumption and a carbon footprint as the article [22] notes.

Overall, problems of maintenance are financial, organisational, environmental, social and technological, as the articles [10, 20] write. The assessment of the level of maturity of the maintenance management system needs to be assessed in relation to the maintenance costs as in the text [9]. Occasionally, there is an inefficient maintenance process, as in the publication [23]. The Benchmarking towards the best maintenance group is problematic from position of internal data, as the authors write [23, 29, 30].

6. Trends

There are a number of trends in maintenance management and in workshop maintenance. The goal of all efforts is to improve the organisation’s production performance by more than 40% with the help of preliminary maintenance planning, as stated in the text [2]. The basis is the determination of suitable characters of the maintenance process and their use in sophisticated algorithms that help rapid planning, optimisation and management of maintenance and elimination of staff conflicts in publications [2, 5]. Other factors influencing the maintenance are involved in the prediction, such as vibration [13], energy prices and spare parts wear [14]. It is necessary to establish common characters or metrics for the production process and the maintenance process [4, 16]. Applications of smart technologies such as glasses increase the speed of solving maintenance problems. It also contributed to the transition from the original equipment condition monitoring to continuous multidimensional monitoring and immediate problem solving as it is described by texts [6, 17, 28]. Analysis of the causes of nonconformities will help to subsequently improve the maintenance process [20].

Small- and medium-sized organisations and households need to be supported in the application of computer-assisted maintenance management systems as publications [4, 15] recommended. Data from CMMS are used more often for maintenance planning than from MES, although this one better describes the status quo of the equipment in relation to maintenance and system dynamics. CMMS is used to determine causes of equipment failure, which is a knowledge that production also needs. The management of large volumes of data and their use for planning and managing production and maintenance together is addressed. The task of the future will be to ensure data quality in such a comprehensive management system what the article [4] notes. The programming of the Internet of Things will have to be validated in a real fault environment as in the text [3]. It is necessary to involve expert systems in the maintenance of objects, such as a road condition assessment in the article [8]. Artificial intelligence will affect not only maintenance jobs [19], but also finding compromise solutions between production and maintenance [21].

Frameworks need to be developed for several types of spatial arrangements for maintenance and production [4]. Ergonomic procedures need to be developed, and ergonomic advice should be available to staff. Furthermore, there is a need to expand research into physically demanding jobs that go beyond chronic diseases. There is a need to strengthen the effectiveness of ergonomic assistance in the shopfloor and to create a set of the best ergonomic maintenance procedures, according to the publication [12]. According to the authors [23], approximately 20% of incidents in 2020 year occurred in company maintenance. Therefore, the trend of safety in maintenance in the text [20] is growing.

Organisations should be more committed to a maintenance and risk analysis strategy, according to publications [3, 11]. This must already be included in the design of the equipment. A man and his or her activity cannot be completely excluded from the production process due to manual work, such as maintenance interventions. But his mistake can affect strategy and downtime. Therefore, durable technical equipment and social systems are needed. MES could be a plug-in for an organisation’s production planning and management system, for example, according to the article [4]. The maintenance should be part of Advanced Planning Systems according to the text [1].

Furthermore, organisations must follow cultural changes in the substantial surroundings in maintenance, as the text [23] adds. It means creating a culture of teamwork, effective emergency planning and using of the knowledge from a computer support of the maintenance. ‘Doing more with a fewer people’, according to the article [18]. Human-centred maintenance and the strengthening of communication tools according to the text [22] will help the shopfloor.

7. Discussion

As can be seen from the list of publications above, the maintenance management is an enough broad topic.

The regulating of OEE maintenance metrics as responsibilities does not always seem appropriate for organisations. This method is not yet prescribed by law. However, organisations would need to have some maintenance characters identified and evaluated. The basic characters of maintenance should be a more realistic in the maintenance work environment, which corresponds to the findings in the text [6]. The KPI metric, as stated in the text [18], can be taken in an analogous way. Lack of information on a maintenance performance leads to an inefficient process according to the article [23].

Methods such as RCM, CBM and TPM are used in practice, but in the Czech Republic the RCM method is essential and then the organisations’ own approaches.

The maintenance policy determination procedure is described for technicians not only maintenance in the text [7]. This is a helpful solution. It is aimed at professionals, not primarily managers, as is often the case. For example, processes in the article [1] are thought to be technological, but it is necessary to link them with the system according to the process map of the organisation. In addition, planning is not a process, as stated in the text [19], but an activity. Again, this is about dealing with a hierarchical structure and a directive management as in the article [21], which is unsuitable for the maintenance.

Maintenance planning and management algorithms are refined, and the number of iterations is reduced. The period of preventive maintenance is extended, as stated in the article [14]. The algorithms used so far include procedures that perform maintenance at the expense of production time. The article [4] lists several findings that can be agreed with. This is not suitable in terms of shortening the production lead time as the author [31] wrote. Maintenance calendars are often scheduled separately. There may be no link between the maintenance plan and downtime. Production losses should also be a guide for maintenance decisions. The equipment downtime should be a part of inputs to plans and so on. The only time that is crucial for the production is the main technological time. Those interested in streamlining maintenance should focus primarily on problems and waste in the current process and eliminate them.

Teamwork requires the responsibility of all employees for maintenance in the organisation. There is a need to strengthen the image of the need for maintenance in the organisation as a tool for prevention. Qualified staff is required for the maintenance [19]. However, some organisations are not interested in potential new employees. This can subsequently have a demotivating effect on them. The need for a human-machine collaboration is mentioned, but it should have been solved in the past automation efforts. The responsibility or self-responsibility is a good thing for the maintenance process. However, employees must also have other conditions such as rights and resources, including information, which is doubly true in maintenance. All employees in the organisation must be trained in maintenance so that they not only understand its importance, but also ensure their share of maintenance in their own abilities as a part of their activities. Many organisations get into trouble due to the lack of interest of the organisation’s management and the lack of sufficient resources for their employees, as shown in the text [23]. Employees must be guided to carry out maintenance tasks effectively, but they should be given an appropriate working environment, as in the text [11]. The fact is that teamwork cannot be required if some form of a hierarchical organisational structure is applied at the same time. This form also leads to other ways of management that are associated with it. The reason the maintenance process is inefficient is the insufficient definition of the process according to its characteristics. Organisations should provide their maintenance staff with sufficient quality protective equipment, which agrees with the authors [23]. However, according to the article [12], the teamwork is also the basis for prevention in maintenance ergonomics.

Surprisingly, the availability of spare parts is not so much discussed in the publications, although the article [14] assesses the field of maintenance quite comprehensively. Maintenance inventory management needs to be based on more suppliers and more extensive forecasts given the current situation, which is in line with the text [20]. There are already mentions of waste management and building efficiency, as in the article [22]. This situation with a lack of spare parts and materials in maintenance (e.g. according to the text [19]) leads to an extension of the equipment’s operation in organisations.

From problems described above and according to nonconformities that the author of this chapter encountered, the need for overall integration within the management system is evident. The trend described in the article [19] that environmental and social responsibility issues will be involved in the performance evaluation and the organisation strategy has been deviating since February 2022, although it would be necessary. The holistic of production and maintenance is necessary to increase productivity. This will strengthen the appropriate specification of characters in the integrated management system, in accordance with the text [4]. The problem is that a profit is often required, and the equipment must run constantly. This is a traditional myth of managers. The article [3] describes the involvement of design in risk assessment and maintenance planning. But it is unique. It is associated with production. Therefore, rather than a quality-oriented culture in maintenance, as in the text [23], organisations should build a safety-oriented culture or a holistic culture in the maintenance.

For these reasons, the next text of the chapter focuses on the application of the process approach in the maintenance process and on finding suitable methods for maintenance planning and management.

8. The status quo

The dynamics of the competitive environment is growing [23]. Rapid technological development is underway [19]. Initially, maintenance organisations over the past 5 years have focused on implementing the Industry 4.0 and on the increasing efficiency. The COVID-19 crisis and the current situation, as well as other threats, change the situation of all organisations and affect maintenance as in the text [17]. Maintenance systems come under pressure in such conditions [19]. The supply chains for materials and spare parts are disrupted [20]. As a result of these crises, financial resources are being reduced not only for maintenance [21]. Due to the epidemiological situation, service actions were postponed due to a lack of shift employees and a limit on the number of people who could meet at one workplace. As a result of delayed maintenance, there was a chaining and an increase in the number of problems on the equipment. The root causes of nonconformities have not been addressed [17].

There is a growing need to learn how to work and maintain new complex equipment. Therefore, not only financial and material resources for maintenance are important, but also the staff and their commitment. They are afraid of losing their jobs. Conflicts between maintenance and production are common as in the text [23]. Hybrid work is used [22]. Maintenance employees work under time pressure, under stress. The activities are long-lasting and inconvenient, and performed with an inadequate equipment. The upper limbs and torso are endangered. Handling large loads, working at heights, occasional activities are problematic, maintaining employees age. There is an extended period of training and insufficient knowledge. The organisation of work in enterprises is difficult in the team [12].

Within the survey probe, 10 organisations were examined for the purposes of this chapter on maintenance management. There were seven small- and medium-sized organisations and three large organisations. They operate in the Czech Republic. Their fields of activities are mechanical engineering, electrical industry, automotive industry, glass industry, textile industry and services. The type of production was piece or serial. The organisational structure was full and hierarchical one. There was one group of maintenance employees in organisations. Organisations had implemented basic management systems—quality ISO 9001 [32], occupational safety ISO 45001 [33], environment ISO 14001 [34] and industry standards. They usually do not have implemented the information security management system according to the standard ISO/IEC 27001 [35].

The research interest was focused on the maintenance and its links. Following nonconformities were found out by observations, interviews with companies´staff and by data analysis: outdated equipment, poor storage of spare parts, insufficient identification of facilities, lack of staff, duplication of data, data transcription errors, lack of maintenance records, low material quality, spare parts not available on the market and different maintenance procedures are applied for the same type of work, insufficient staff qualification, work safety incidents, problematic communication, low motivation, hacker attacks and loss of know-how, insufficient training, poor quality previous maintenance work, only one supplier of spare parts and materials for the organisation, data are only collected and analysis is not performed; maintenance plans and production plans diverge. In addition, there is a poor relationship between operators and their equipment.

In terms of the frequency of these nonconformities, the most numerous are occupational safety incidents, incomplete and missing records, communication, different maintenance, and production plans, not performed analyses, reduced material quality and data transcription errors. Due to the COVID crisis, organisations are learning to cope with the lack of maintenance staff and with the size of workshops. The most risk factor in the maintenance is occupational safety incidents. The health and lives of employees are endangered. Hacking attacks are dangerous in terms of data loss, change of instructions or blocking of maintenance work and then stopping the equipment. Making records means consistency and diligence. The situation in supply chains is deteriorating. The prices of items for maintenance are rising. There are not enough of them on the market. Delivery times are too long. The quality of the items is sometimes not good. It is possible to come across fraudulent actions of suppliers.

From the point of view of waste, utilisation of maintenance staff, waiting, unnecessary work and poor-quality material inputs are evident in maintenance according to publications [36, 37].

9. Process approach

The process approach is currently the cornerstone of an organisation’s management systems. It is based on the common foundations of the TQM and ISO 9001 [32]. concepts. It is based on decentralisation, cooperation, stakeholder interest, basic documentation of a process, waste elimination, object identification, leadership, communication, value-added solution variability, measurement, comparison, and review as sources of objective evidence and for the continuous improvement of the management system. Effective forms of maintenance also use these interfaces. Some of the types of flexible organisational structure are suitable for the maintenance process. This solution ensures decentralisation, autonomy and initiative. Leadership as a form of leadership supports this. Communication is then free. This makes the whole more flexible. Suitable interpersonal conditions then create an ideal mushroom for creativity and initiative. At the same time, the independence of the individual is supported. At the same time, disinterest and frustration are declining. This also reduces the number of nonconformities in the process. Characters are more apt for such a process. Maintenance procedures can be documented more consistently. Data are collected and analysed as a source for further process development.

10. Planning and control of maintenance

In general, planning in an organisation can be divided into time, material and capacity as in the book [38]. Sometimes, financial planning is added to them. All this can also be applied to maintenance.

The planning tells staff how often to conduct inspections and at what times, for example daily, weekly, monthly. Given the machinery and other assets, the organisation has an idea of ​​how long the maintenance work will take. Normative indicators are still insufficient. Maintenance depends on the design of the equipment and its disassembly options, on the location in the building and accessibility, on the work of previous maintenance. These factors can significantly change maintenance time. Furthermore, it is the detection of the cause of the fault that prolongs the on-going time of maintenance. Maintenance time also increases depending on the technological activities performed.

Material planning tells staff how much material is needed. For example, how many bearings of a certain type on the machine, and how many litters of oil for lubrication. Here, they play a role and are assessed: delivery conditions, availability of the purchased item on the market, its price, failure rate, consumption time, storability, required quantity for maintained objects, frequency of request for use in maintenance. The storage of spare parts and materials must comply with the required storage conditions and the stacking instructions for the item. Due to the current difficult situation of suppliers, it is possible to expect a request for an increase in maintenance stocks. The ABC method can be recommended for the analysis of input materials for maintenance. As with machines, their criticality for the organisation is evaluated here. A novelty in this area will be a greater emphasis on the recycling of materials, their environmental friendliness and the return of packaging.

Financial planning tells staff how much it will cost. These are items such as materials and spare parts, wages and levies, maintenance work, taxes, depreciation.

Capacity planning indicates how much resources are needed for maintenance work. The sources in this case are workers and equipment (machines and hand tools). Qualification and awareness play a role for employees. This category also includes assembly and disassembly procedures and own maintenance procedures, as well as legislative requirements.

There are four specific maintenance levels. They correspond with publications [29, 30].

Equipment inspections can be performed by electronic systems or the human senses of an operator. They are usually performed every day.

The production operator or maintenance employee also performs caring maintenance or service every day. It means replenishing the lubricant and other media that are needed to operate the machine and adjust the machine.

Prevention or repairs to the equipment according to the type of maintenance selected are performed by maintenance personnel over a longer period.

Overhauls of equipment or outages mean that the production process is stopped in a matter of weeks to months. The outage follows mostly preventive maintenance. It is usually necessary to perform maintenance on a larger technical unit or key equipment. This means stopping the production of the company. The shutdown must be planned at all points. All resources must be provided in advance and procedures for maintenance activities, organisational team and documentation, and SW equipment must be prepared. The safety measures of individual objects and the use of protective equipment by maintenance personnel must not be forgotten either. The following must be kept in mind. Residues of substances in equipment can cause safety incidents due to chemical and physical phenomena. During the entire outage, it is necessary to collect data that will be evaluated after the outage. The main risk of downtime is overtime. It could not be foreseen advance. The solution procedure is then determined on the spot, as well as the necessary resources are determined. An extension of the time until the device is put into operation is a consequence. This status creates production losses for the organisation and increases maintenance costs. The evaluation of the shutdown should be reflected in the maintenance documentation. It is an update of the maintenance procedure. An indispensable part of the outage at present is diagnostic devices—vibro, thermo, tribo, measurement of pressure, air leakage, microcrack diagnostics, etc.

The original maintenance planning and management algorithms were based on the business situation in the 1970s. It was a hierarchical organisational structure, directive management, extensive administration, and a complex planning system. However, due to waste, inadequate information and a long flow of data, day-to-day operational interventions had to be used to prosecute both production and maintenance. Maintenance after the failure prevailed. This approach can still be found in some organisations.

PPS (Production Planning and Control) methods are intended for operational planning and management of production. The most common methods such as MRP II, KANBAN, BOA and OPT are available. Maintenance is de facto piece to small series production. Therefore, the JIT method is not included. Although the MRP II method is comprehensive in terms of planning and management, its characteristics do not correspond to the process approach. The BOA method is based on the maximum capacity utilisation and the pressure method in terms of production flow, which is also not the best. The comparison with maintenance would therefore be close to the KANBAN and OPT methods, which are based on decentralisation and are based on the pull method. However, regarding the exclusion of time, material and resource planning, they are not sufficient. Therefore, the development of a more suitable PPS method is expected due to the process approach. Therefore, the connection with maintenance planning and management will take some time.

The planning and control management of maintenance must meet goals to improve the cost effectiveness of the maintenance process and increase equipment uptime and eliminate maintenance risks.

RCM (Reliability Centred Maintenance) is a standardised method according to the standard IEC 60300-3-11 [39], which helps implement an organisation’s preventive maintenance program. This method considers safety and reduces environmental impact. It determines the technical system, its parts and their functions. It determines the probable causes of failures of the so-called functionally principal elements. Consequences and probabilities of their failures are determined. The consequences are categorised in the decision tree. They are assigned efficient maintenance activities. The result is a maintenance program that can be constantly updated according to the operating situation.

TPM (Total Productive Maintenance) is a comprehensive philosophy of effective preventive maintenance. It is not only focused on the equipment, but also on the involvement of employees who are both production operators and carers for the equipment. Equipment innovations and improvement proposals are put into practice. Staff is trained and emphasis is placed on occupational safety. The performed maintenance must be performed well. De facto, this method comprehensively strengthens the culture of the organisation.

RBM (Risk Based Maintenance) is a method that identifies and evaluates the corresponding risks when planning the maintenance of the object. They are assigned a list of faults for which the severity is evaluated. The resulting risk is the product of three parts—human health losses, productivity losses and cost losses. Probabilistic analysis is performed using a fault tree (FTA). From here, the occurrence of faults can be determined in production [40].

FFM (Failure Finding Maintenance) is a method that aims to find hidden faults that are often associated with the security features of the equipment. Even the specification of these maintenance tasks will not prevent equipment failure. The method is based on risk analysis and safety regulations from the manufacturer for the given type of equipment. Maintenance according to this method is performed at regular intervals.

TBM (Time-Based Maintenance) is a method that includes preventive maintenance, performed at regular intervals on a specific device. The goal is to prevent the object or the entire device from failing. The intervals are either time-related or tied to another quantity (e.g. the number of km driven by the car). This method is applied to working equipment.

CBM (Condition-Based Maintenance) is a method based on the identification of physical manifestations of the equipment. No consequence is expected, but manifestations preceding this device failure are detected. It is based on the P-F curve. The point P indicates the detection of the manifestation leading to the fault. The point F indicates a loss of object functionality. The distance between points P and F is the time interval when the maintenance intervention must be performed immediately. In contrast to post-failure maintenance, this type of maintenance can help the organisation prepare for intervention in terms of material preparation, spare parts, tools and maintenance platoon. On the contrary, the method is not suitable if the failure has high variability [29, 30, 40].

The first two of the methods are the most complex and, according to the author’s surveys, the most used in organisations.

Maintenance planning and management also depends on the criticality of the object. In this sense, the objects—devices, are classified into three groups:

Key objects are essential for the main production and often complex. They are irreplaceable in technology or performance. They tend to be expensive or new. They are significant due to the depreciation period according to the country.

Common objects can be replaced technologically or numerically. They are moderately complex. Spare parts for these objects are more accessible.

Auxiliary objects are less complex. They are sometimes used for ancillary work. They are usually older.

Each device should have its own passport. This document contains all information about the equipment—production drawings, technological procedures, diagrams, material certificates, test reports, etc. Passport is also the basis on which to determine the criticality of the object and the subsequent planning and management of maintenance.

The calculation of the criticality of the object depends on the cost of failures (1).

$$Faultcosts=faultcurrentparameter\ast \left[\begin{array}{l}\left(\begin{array}{l}\sum faultrepaircosts+environmentalimpactcosts\\ +occupationalsafetycosts\end{array}\right)\\ +meanrecoverytime\ast hourdowntime\end{array}\right]$$E1

The second option is to use analysis using point evaluation of a group of characters on the equipment. These features are then evaluated in terms of criticality of this device in a semi-quantitative manner.

For the purposes of this chapter, an analysis of strategic planning and management methods was performed according to publications [30, 31, 41, 42, 43]. It was based on the current state of the market and the situation of organisations, considering nonconformities and trends in the field of maintenance management. There are a lot of methods available in this area. However, they are de facto modifications of the following methods. The following basic methods were assessed: Porter’s Five Forces, Boston Matrix, Balanced Scorecard, Key Performance Indicators, GAP analysis, Management by Objects, MOST Analysis, PESTLE Analysis, Winterling Crisis Matrix, Technique of Scenarios, SPACE Analysis, 10 Megatrends, VRIO Analysis, Forecasting. They are often mentioned as suitable for the strategic management of organisations. However, the focus on maintenance requires a primarily technical concept rather than an economic (market) concept. Furthermore, today’s organisation needs to work with risks and security factors. The linking to production must be possible. The method must be able to capture a lot of data from various sources for subsequent analysis and decision making. It should consider all relevant stakeholders. Finally, it must be in accordance with the process approach that is the basis of such organisations from the point of view of management systems.

Some methods have been removed from the menu. They are quite theoretical for practice and their application in business practice would be quite difficult. Other methods are very economically oriented. Others are relevant to different environmental conditions than they currently exist or correspond to a functional approach.

After a thorough analysis of the above methods in terms of their application, algorithm and required data sources, the following are suitable for maintenance management in the current situation: Key Performance Indicators, GAP analysis, PESTLE Analysis, Winterling Crisis Matrix, Technique of Scenarios.

Key Performance Indicators is a performance metric of a process, department or organisation. It includes features of economic, quality, performance and IT services, which helps build the Industry 4.0, features of inventory with respect to spare parts and materials. It fulfils the SMART methodology for goal setting.

GAP analysis is a method of decision making and problem solving in a certain area. It describes the current state, the required goals, determines the difference between the state and the goals, considers nonconformities and measures, proposes, and evaluates solutions. Its safety part is especially important for maintenance. It also has market and legislative parts.

PESTLE Analysis is an analysis of the essential environment of the organisation in terms of strategy. It includes factors such as technical, social, environmental, economic, and political. It also considers nonconformities, events and risks. This method is therefore a risk analysis regarding the internal and external context of the assessed area.

Winterling Crisis Matrix is a risk analysis of the assessed area, which plots the dependence of the probability of risk on its consequences into a matrix.

Technique of Scenarios is an analytical method that devises the course and consequences of various crisis situations with a view to the development of the organisation and changes in the environment. It can also work with qualitative characters (indicators). It then also sets out the procedure for resolving the relevant contingency. This method is a more general.

The Balanced Scorecard method would be borderline for the needs of maintenance management. However, it works less with risks and security.

Smaller organisations can also use the Area Diagram method, where they select and apply the values ​​of maintenance process characters to individual axes. They will then assess them against the target values ​​at certain time intervals.

The widely used SWOT analysis method is more general and is primary intended for the analysis of the organisation’s risks. Evaluation frameworks are part of its modifications.

All these selected methods help guide the organisation’s maintenance and management efforts in dynamic conditions too. They work with a system of current characters and their target values. From this reason, the strategic planning is applied. These methods help to determine the ways to manage the area so that the organisation can achieve them effectively. This can be called strategic management. The organisation’s strategy in the current conditions can be determined with a view to a maximum of 2 years.

11. Characteristics of the maintenance process

Characteristics of the maintenance process is possible solved according to the book [43] and standard as EN 13460 [44], EN 13306 [45], EN 15341 [46], IEC 60300–3-11 [39] and so on.

For most organisations, the maintenance process is the basic process that supports the main production process. Its effectiveness lies in the ability with as few maintenance employees and maintenance equipment as possible to keep as many equipment as possible operational for as long as possible, so as not to reduce function or even to downtime. This is all to happen at minimal cost. The managerial myth of today is that they need to implement predictive maintenance at all costs. As can be seen from practice, for example, the RCM method directly shows that some objects have maintenance after a failure even cheaper. However, aspects such as occupational safety, environment and information security must be considered. If the consequence of the failure affects any of these areas, consistent prevention is in place. This is the case for installations such as the distribution network, water mains and nuclear power plants. Price is not the only aspect. This area shows the essence of a holistic understanding of the integration of management systems in organisations with a significant impact on the maintenance.

Inputs are staff, material and spare parts, equipment, passport of maintenance and its records, medium. Output is equipment under function. Also, there is a waste. Tool can be the Pareto analysis or the FMECA for example. Rules are standard at the end of the chapter. Characters can be for example: cost of maintenance, number of maintenance staff, average maintenance time, number of failures per month, number of safety incidents, average time between failures, delivery time. Owner can be leader of process.

12. Maintenance staff

Employees are an important item of the maintenance. These are not production employees. They must be quite qualified. Their work includes both manual and mental activities. The maintenance team must be able to perform not only mechanical and electrical work, but they must also observe order, cleanliness, degreasing and handle hazardous substances carefully. It must also be able to solve the problem of interconnection of HW (connectivity) and SW for current systems within the Industry 4.0 for proper operation without deadlocks and to ensure quality data transmission. Maintenance employees should have imagination, analytical skills, knowledge of equipment operation, foresight. Therefore, they need a special approach. They must have enough training. Due to the importance and complexity of their work, they must proceed with caution. They need not only responsibilities but also powers and sufficient resources. Their work is, in a sense, creative. Therefore, regarding management schools such as from T. Peters, the standardisation of their work is not appropriate here. It leads to stress and nonconformities. Motivation and communication are important. Timely and full information of employees help speed up maintenance activities, and prevent conflicts and security incidents. The flexible organisational structure is suitable for the maintenance. Equality between members and their mutual trust is essential. Leaders should be their leader, not superiors. A suitable structure is therefore, for example, a team. From a long-term perspective, there is also a need to balance work and personal life. In the past, maintenance employees were called to intervene even when they were out of the emergency status. This had a negative effect on their family life, involvement in associations in the region and their rest. The work pace of the maintenance employees depends on the current work practice, but also on his health condition (e.g. it may be affected by ‘the Post Covid’) and the type of temperament (e.g. choleric, or melancholic). Appropriate communication contributes to awareness, explanation of unclear issues and encouragement. Ethics, safety and reliability come the first in the maintenance.

13. The Industry 4.0 and maintenance

The Industry 4.0 brings new aspects of maintenance. Compared to the production process, this area is developing more slowly. According to the surveys in which the author participated, the possibility is to state the following. Maintenance work is facilitated by electrical permitting systems and small diagnostic probes for evaluating an object from a multi-character perspective. Maintenance staff use various code readers and data terminals. Furthermore, more self-diagnostics of the equipment is used, which will allow to carefully plan maintenance intervention. The devices are equipped with one or a set of different sensors, which are connected to a SW system for storing and analysing and evaluating data. The equipment can communicate with each other in this way due to production and maintenance. This is the Internet of Things. Auxiliary logistics for maintenance in the form of small autonomous material trucks and autonomous equipment for certain tasks, such as drone inspection of the building, is advantageous. However, this solution is an expensive for some organisations. Internet services are now primarily cloud storage. It is suitable for large volumes of data such the maintenance has. However, it is important where the storage is physically located for security reasons, such as incidents such as theft, damage or data blocking. The organisation’s knowledge would be compromised, or the production equipment could be reset or shut down.

Artificial intelligence includes self-learning systems to enhance equipment automation as well as evaluate the life of its spare parts. Businesses collect data from a variety of business areas, including maintenance. They can be marked as the big data due to their volume. However, the data are often incomplete. This in turn leads to the problem that there is nothing to make maintenance predictions. The link between equipment development and maintenance and parts recycling is just beginning to gain ground. Reverse engineering with 3D parts scans and their subsequent conversion into a model and then to 3D printing make it easy to supply some spare parts right now. It depends on the material used and other properties of the unit that the spare part made in this way is reliable for use in the equipment in terms of operation and useful properties. This in turn affects maintenance planning and speeds up its execution.

14. Conclusion

Maintenance planning and management is based on the organisation’s current equipment and its capacity, especially the staffing team. It should be noted, however, that maintenance is decided much earlier. This time is the design stage of the device. The design and manufacture of equipment must be designed to allow their subsequent maintenance. This also affects the planning and management of the maintenance process. Dismantled joints, such as welding and gluing, are disadvantageous in this respect. The production must also comply with all relevant standards. Cost savings often lead to material savings, even in areas where wear and tear occur faster due to under sizing. The choice of materials is also important, both in terms of technology and use, and in terms of recycling. Emphasis should be placed on the maintenance stage, called care—service. This applies to refilling lubricants and changing filters. For each equipment, it is necessary to determine whether maintenance is economically worthwhile. Parts should have approximately the same service life so that one component does not burden the equipment that is otherwise successful. Simply simpler construction, even in current conditions, simplifies maintenance and streamlines production. This includes the concept of maintenance as a process and helps to integrate management systems. Ergonomic and safety conditions must be considered. Staff must ensure that maintenance is documented in all activities in a uniform manner in accordance with the maintenance process guidelines. It is necessary to check the stock for the maintenance.

Greater emphasis must be placed on the soft characters of the maintenance process, which also needs to be evaluated. The whole management system is then more flexible. The maturity assessment of the maintenance management system should also be based on this. The recommended planning and management methods then contribute both to the maintenance and to the organisation.

This is a different view of maintenance. Risk management is integrated in it. Within this chapter, only methodological steps were outlined on how to link operational planning and maintenance management and how to proceed in the strategy. Research needs to continue. However, these partial findings are already working in practice. The goal is an efficient maintenance process in organisations.

Acknowledgments

This work was supported with institutional support for long term strategic development of the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic.