Engineering support issues for flexibility in maintenance : An SAP‐LAP framework

Purpose – Flexible system management has brought a concept of flexibility in all spheres including maintenance management. Considerable literature is available on various facets of flexibility management, namely, production, supply chain, day‐to‐day activities, etc.; however, not much literature on flexibility in maintenance is reported. The purpose of this paper is to bridge this gap highlighting various issues involved in flexibility on maintenance. Design/methodology/approach – A situation‐actors‐process (SAP)‐learning‐action‐performance (LAP) model has been applied to understand and analyze the concept of flexibility in maintenance. The paper analyses a case study of ABC, a Government maintenance organization for repair of automobiles in India, to discuss the various issues arising out of maintenance flexibility. Findings – Various issues concerning flexibility in maintenance are: business or corporate philosophy, systems and processes, inventory, manpower, performance measurements and information systems. Research limitations/implications – The concept of flexibility in maintenance has been demonstrated using only two facets of maintenance, i.e. manpower and the repair scope in the case study. Practical implications – The SAP‐LAP model presents the concept of flexibility in maintenance adequately. The concept can be implemented while planning the maintenance in any organization for various issues like inventory stock levels, manpower, repair scope, etc. The technicians may be trained on more than one specialty so that they can easily re‐muster into other streams in case of flexible maintenance environment. Originality/value – This is an original approach to apply the concept of flexibility in the area of maintenance management. The issues affecting maintenance flexibility are identified and future researchers may find these gaps interesting.