scope:

Introduction and scope of application

Maintenance as a functional unit of a company has the task of ensuring the availability of systems and equipment under the headings of reliability, quality, safety, environmental protection and ergonomics. The economic efficiency of the overall enterprise is the main criterion for all maintenance activity.

In the past, maintenance units were treated as "cost centres", i.e. controlling processes for performance and costs were not carried out specifically or systematically. The necessary indicator systems and parameters were lacking. Today maintenance is run like a profit centre, i.e. performance and costs have to be continuously monitored and tightly controlled. Maintenance is a service which supports the company in achieving its commercial targets. There is competition between internal and external maintenance organisations.

Indicators are a suitable means of representing technically and economically relevant degrees of target achievement. Indicators make corporate structures, processes and developments transparent (see VDI 2884) and provide insights on the basis of quantitative values. In maintenance, indicators can be a basis of the following processes (see VDI 2886):

• strategy planning
• budget planning
• analysis of weak points in terms of technology and organisation
• verification of the efficacy of measures planned or carried out
• system and company comparisons/ benchmarks

It is thus necessary to take process information from the various levels of maintenance and from other corporate areas, to place these in relation to each other and to condense them as required. Indicators formed in this way are a suitable aid in implementing the above-mentioned tasks of maintenance successfully and on a sustained basis.

Indicators are, however, also an integral part of the benchmarking method (see VDI 2886). They provide the option of quantifying benchmarking findings and thus support comparisons of processes and functions.

An important precondition for comparability is the clear and correct definition of the indicators to be agreed between the benchmarking partners.