A DECISION-MODEL FOR CORRECTIVE MAINTENANCE MANAGEMENT

Proper management of maintenance offers many companies significant pot ential for improving productivity and profitability. Traditional manag ement thinking regards maintenance costs as accidental, rather than pl anned and controllable. Additionally, research in maintenance manageme nt has focused on preventive maintenance and has ignored corrective ma intenance even though the latter is also considered to be a critical a ctivity in industry. This study proposes a decision model that could a ssist in a comparative evaluation of alternative corrective maintenanc e policies. This decision model consists of a simulation model and eco nomic analysis. The simulation model predicts inventory costs and deli very performance of a corrective maintenance policy in various product ion systems. Based on simulation results, an economic analysis, consis ting of a net present value model and breakeven models, determines the economic value of alternative maintenance policies. A detailed exampl e is offered to evaluate two particular corrective maintenance policie s (machine redundancy and worker flexibility) although the decision mo del can be applied to other options. The results of the example demons trate the decision model's capability to assist managers in selecting the best corrective maintenance policy.