Benchmarking of maintenance performance: a case study in two manufacturers of furniture

When profit margins of a plant are decreasing, the need for reliable and efficient maintenance policy becomes more important. Measuring maintenance performance is important for companies to recognize whether their planned goals are achieved or not. Also, such measurements can be utilized for benchmarking, which is one of the tools for never-ending improvement. But, these objectives cannot be achieved without well-documented data of the relevant variables. Better data coverage and quality is necessary for following maintenance performance development and it would, in many cases, clarify the ambiguity concerning the main problem in the context, namely that neither the production nor maintenance department can show what effect maintenance has on profitability. A more effective maintenance policy indirectly implies improvements in product quality and manufacturing process effectiveness. Elongation of the production time, i.e. reducing the downtime due to failures, planned replacements and repair, in addition to the improvement in the total maintenance activities, are also some of the results that can be expected when an efficient maintenance policy is used. Measuring and monitoring maintenance performance measures is required partly for detecting, and eventually treating as soon as possible, undesirable changes and partly to make benchmarking with the best in the branch, which saves appreciable economic losses for companies. In this paper, a model for how to identify the measurable variables, which are needed to develop measures for monitoring maintenance performance behaviour systematically, is developed. Five maintenance performance measures are proposed and applied. An additional model for systematically analysing the trend of maintenance performance measures, for an overall assessment of the company's situation, is presented. Two case studies in manufacturers of furniture are conducted to verify these models.