Enterprise level maintenance strategy selection an empirical model

Maintenance plays a significant role in increasing the overall profit of an organization. However, the lack of efficient maintenance strategy selection procedures causes the operating costs to increase thereby decreasing the organizational profit. A review of the commonly used maintenance strategy selection models shows that the cost of maintenance is not considered during maintenance strategy selection. This thesis proposes an empirical approach for selecting maintenance strategies based on the economic impact of the strategy on the organizational profit. The Enterprise Level Maintenance Strategy Selection (ELMSS) model proposed in this thesis calculates the total maintenance lead time (TMLT) and total maintenance cost (TMC) of the equipment by simulating the system under different maintenance strategies and breakdown conditions. The simulated values are then used for calculating the profit associated with different maintenance strategies. The mean profits associated with each strategy are then tested for its statistical significance and the strategy that generates the highest profit is selected as the best strategy. Finally, the selected strategy is validated by simulating the system and comparing the process metrics with the existing metrics. The methodology also gives a crude estimate of the optimal maintenance scheduling time that will aid in maximizing the profit.