Towards higher maintenance effectiveness : Integrating maintenance management with reliability engineering

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to propose a few steps to enhance maintenance effectiveness in practice. Design/methodology/approach – The author reviews the strengths and limitations of different approaches to maintenance management (MM). Some relevant practical observations of reliability engineering are discussed. Based on these, and drawing on the research on MM in relevant literature, the author suggests a few steps, suitable for implementation, for effective MM. Findings – Review of available approaches to MM and some factors of reliability engineering points to some ways to improve maintenance effectiveness in the practical sense. Practical implications – Implementation of the steps, as suggested in the paper, should enhance the effectiveness of MM leading to higher machine uptimes with less of maintenance costs. In such steps, the ease of implementation in practical situations has been given due importance. Originality/value – In the steps, called as an “Actionable Program for Maintenance,” that the author suggests, he has highlighted some issues, and has made some suggestions, which are new.