Int. J.

Production Economics 70 (2001) 237}244

Linking maintenance strategies to performance

Laura Swanson*
Department of Management, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, Edwardsville, IL 62026-1100, USA

Abstract

In order to achieve world-class performance, more and more companies are replacing their reactive, "re-"ghting
strategies for maintenance with proactive strategies like preventive and predictive maintenance and aggressive strategies
like total productive maintenance (TPM). While these newer maintenance strategies require increased commitments to
training, resources and integration, they also promise to improve performance. This paper reports the results of a study of
the relationship between maintenance strategies and performance. Based on the responses from a survey of plant
managers and maintenance managers, the analysis shows strong positive relationships between proactive and aggressive
maintenance strategies and performance.  2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Maintenance management; Total productive maintenance

1. Introduction maintenance may mean more frequent equipment

replacement because of shorter life.
In order to achieve world-class performance, Traditionally, many companies employed a
more and more companies are undertaking e!orts reactive strategy for maintenance, "xing machines
to improve quality and productivity and reduce only when they stopped working. More recently,
costs. For more and more companies, part of this improved technology and the increased sophistica-
e!ort has included an examination of the activities tion of maintenance personnel have led some com-
of the maintenance function. E!ective maintenance panies to replace this type of reactive approach.
is critical to many operations. It extends equipment A proactive strategy for maintenance utilizes pre-
life, improves equipment availability and retains ventive and predictive maintenance activities that
equipment in proper condition. Conversely, poorly prevent equipment failures from occurring. An
maintained equipment may lead to more frequent aggressive strategy, like total productive mainten-
equipment failures, poor utilization of equipment ance (TPM), focuses on actually improving the
and delayed production schedules. Misaligned or function and design of the production equipment.
malfunctioning equipment may result in scrap or While these newer maintenance strategies require
products of questionable quality. Finally, poor greater commitments in terms of training, resources
and integration, they are also expected to provide
higher levels of equipment and plant performance.
* Corresponding author. Tel.: 618-692-2710; fax: 618-692- The purpose of this article is to empirically exam-
3979. ine the performance implications of these di!erent
E-mail address: [email protected] (L. Swanson). strategies for maintenance. As a part of the study,

0925-5273/01/$ - see front matter  2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
PII: S 0 9 2 5 - 5 2 7 3 ( 0 0 ) 0 0 0 6 7 - 0
238 L. Swanson / Int. J. Production Economics 70 (2001) 237}244

exploratory factor analysis is utilized to determine activities that monitor equipment deterioration
whether the use of speci"c maintenance practices and undertake minor repairs to restore equipment
can be explained by these three maintenance to proper condition. These activities, including pre-
strategies. ventive and predictive maintenance, reduce the
probability of unexpected equipment failures.
Preventive maintenance is often referred to
2. Review of the literature as use-based maintenance. It is comprised of
maintenance activities that are undertaken after
Many authors have described di!erent strategies a speci"ed period of time or amount of machine use
for maintenance management. Bateman [1] de- [6,7]. This type of maintenance relies on the esti-
scribed three basic types of maintenance programs, mated probability that the equipment will fail in the
including reactive, preventive and predictive main- speci"ed interval. The work undertaken may in-
tenance. Preventive and predictive maintenance clude equipment lubrication, parts replacement,
represent two proactive strategies by which com- cleaning and adjustment. Production equipment
panies can avoid equipment breakdowns. Weil [2] may also be inspected for signs of deterioration
added another approach in his description of the during preventive maintenance work.
maintenance continuum by including TPM. TPM The bene"ts of preventive maintenance are re-
is an aggressive maintenance approach that seeks duced probability of equipment breakdowns and
to improve equipment performance while continu- extension of equipment life. The disadvantage of
ing to avoid equipment failures. This paper focuses preventive maintenance is the need to interrupt pro-
on the use of these three di!erent strategies for duction at scheduled intervals to perform the work.
maintenance: reactive or breakdown maintenance, Predictive maintenance is often referred to as
proactive maintenance including preventive and condition-based maintenance. Speci"cally, main-
predictive maintenance and aggressive mainten- tenance is initiated in response to a speci"c equip-
ance. ment condition [5,6]. Under predictive maintenance,
diagnostic equipment is used to measure the phys-
2.1. Reactive maintenance ical condition of equipment such as temperature,
vibration, noise, lubrication and corrosion [8].
Reactive maintenance may be described as When one of these indicators reaches a speci"ed
a "re-"ghting approach to maintenance. Equip- level, work is undertaken to restore the equipment
ment is allowed to run until failure. Then the failed to proper condition. This means that equipment is
equipment is repaired or replaced [3]. Under react- taken out of service only when direct evidence
ive maintenance, temporary repairs may be made exists that deterioration has taken place.
in order to return equipment to operation, with Predictive maintenance is premised on the same
permanent repairs put o! until a later time [4]. principle as preventive maintenance although it
Reactive maintenance allows a plant to minimize employs a di!erent criterion for determining the
the amount maintenance manpower and money need for speci"c maintenance activities. As with
spent to keep equipment running [5]. However, the preventive maintenance, predictive maintenance
disadvantages of this approach include unpredict- reduces the probability of equipment breakdowns.
able and #uctuating production capacity, higher The additional bene"t comes from the need to
levels of out-of-tolerance and scrap output, and perform maintenance only when the need is immi-
increased overall maintenance costs to repair cata- nent, not after the passage of a speci"ed period of
strophic failures [1,4]. time [7,9].

2.2. Proactive maintenance 2.3. Aggressive maintenance

Proactive maintenance is a strategy for mainten- An aggressive maintenance strategy goes beyond
ance whereby breakdowns are avoided through e!orts to avoid equipment failures. An aggressive
 L. Swanson / Int. J. Production Economics 70 (2001) 237}244 239

maintenance strategy, like TPM, seeks to improve workers and engineers work together to identify
overall equipment operation. Maintenance may and correct conditions that make maintenance
participate in these improvements through involve- di$cult [15,16]. This allows the full range of solu-
ment in e!orts to improve the design of new and tions to be considered and deployed as appropriate.
existing equipment. Maintenance involvement in team-based activ-
TPM is a philosophy of maintenance manage- ities has several bene"ts. The e!orts of maintenance
ment developed in Japanese manufacturing plants improvement teams should result in improved
to support the implementation of just-in-time equipment availability and reduced maintenance
manufacturing, advanced manufacturing technolo- costs. Maintainability improvement should result
gies and to support e!orts at improving product in increased maintenance e$ciency and reduced
quality. TPM activities focus on eliminating the repair time.
`six major lossesa. These losses include equipment
failure, set-up and adjustment time, idling and mi-
nor stoppages, reduced speed, defects in process 3. The research methodology
and reduced yield [10].
TPM has been described as a partnership The information reported here is a part of a sur-
approach to maintenance [11]. Under TPM, small vey of maintenance management practices. To be
groups or teams create a cooperative relationship included in the sample, each plant had to be prim-
between maintenance and production that helps in arily involved in a metalworking industry. The
the accomplishment of maintenance work. Addi- industries included: primary metals (Standard
tionally, production workers become involved in Industrial Classi"cation (SIC) 33), fabricated metal
performing maintenance work allowing them to products (SIC 34), industrial and metalworking
play a role in equipment monitoring and upkeep. machinery (SIC 35), precision instruments (SIC 36),
This raises the skill of production workers and and transportation equipment (SIC 37).
allows them to be more e!ective in maintaining The plants included in the survey sample were
equipment in good condition. identi"ed using the Harris Indiana Industrial Index
Team-based activities play an important role in [17]. The survey was sent to the maintenance man-
TPM. Team-based activities involve groups from ager and production manager at each plant in the
maintenance, production and engineering. The sample. A total of 708 surveys were sent to 354
technical skill of engineers and the experience of plants. To encourage response rates, the surveys
maintenance workers and equipment operators are were addressed directly to the individual. The name
communicated through these teams [9]. The objec- of the plant manager was obtained from the Harris
tive of these team-based activities is to improve Directory. The name of the maintenance manager
equipment performance through better commun- was obtained by placing a telephone call to each
ication of current and potential equipment prob- plant. The survey respondents included 125 plant
lems [12,13]. Maintainability improvement and managers (43.6%) and 162 (56.4%) maintenance
maintenance prevention are two team-based TPM managers with dual responses received from 56
activities. plants. The 287 responses represent a response rate
Maintenance prevention teams work to improve of 40.5%. For plants with dual responses, the aver-
equipment performance through improved equip- age of the responses is used. Comparison of respon-
ment design. The maintenance function works with ding plants to non-responding plants on the basis
the engineering department during the early stages of size, age and industry showed that no response
of equipment design. This allows the team to design bias occurred.
and install equipment that is easy to maintain and Respondents were asked to provide information
operate [12,14]. about the operating characteristics of their plants.
Maintainability improvement teams work to im- This information is shown in Table 1. The number
prove the ways in which maintenance is performed of employees reported ranged from very small at 37
[9]. Maintenance, production workers, craft- employees to very large at 13,730 employees, with
240 L. Swanson / Int. J. Production Economics 70 (2001) 237}244

Table 1 improvement was the result of maintenance e!orts,

Characteristics of respondent plants 5"more than 80% of performance improvement
was the result of maintenance e!orts).
Percent

Number of employees 3.2. Data analysis

Less than 200 16.0
200}500 employees 48.5 In this section, the statistical methods used to
500}1000 employees 16.9 analyze the data are discussed. The analysis
More than 1000 employees 14.3
Unknown 4.3 was done in two steps. First, it was necessary to
derive constructs for the di!erent maintenance
Maintenance employees strategies. Second, the performance implications of
Less than 20 maintenance employees 46.3
20}50 maintenance employees 26.9 the strategies were tested.
50}100 maintenance employees 13.0
100}500 maintenance employees 10.8 3.2.1. Identixcation of maintenance approaches
More than 500 maintenance employees 2.6 As a "rst step, it was necessary see if it was
Unknown 0.4 possible to empirically derive constructs consistent
Annual maintenance budget with the three maintenance strategies. To check for
Less than $1 million 24.2 underlying dimensions, the nine questions concern-
$1}5 million 28.6 ing speci"c maintenance practices were examined
$5}15 million 10.0
More than $15 million 6.1 using exploratory factor analysis. The relationships
Unknown 31.1 between the di!erent maintenance practices were
analyzed using principal component factor analysis
with varimax rotation. This procedure produced
three factors representing di!erent maintenance
a mean of 710. The size of the maintenance depart- strategies, each factor having an eigenvalue greater
ment ranged from 0 to 3500 employees, with than 1.0. These three factors account for 61.4% of
a mean of 67. The highest proportion of plants was variation. Table 2 shows zero-order correlations
between 25 and 50 years old. between the measures of maintenance practices.
Table 3 shows the factor structure.
3.1. Measures The factors may be interpreted as representing
the three di!erent maintenance strategies discussed
A brief discussion of the measures used in the above. Three items load on factor 1. These items,
study follows. The actual survey questions are helping to improve the production process, helping
shown in the appendix. to design the production process and helping the
Maintenance practices. To measure maintenance purchasing department in OEM selection, repres-
practices, respondents were asked to report the ent an improvement-oriented approach to main-
level of importance that their maintenance depart- tenance. Factor 1 may be described as an aggressive
ment placed on nine di!erent maintenance activ- maintenance strategy. The items loading on factor
ities (e.g., monitoring the production equipment 2 include monitoring production equipment status,
status, analyzing equipment failure causes and analyzing equipment failure causes and e!ects,
e!ects, restoring equipment to operation). maintaining equipment in operation and perform-
Performance measures. To assess performance, ing preventive/predictive maintenance work. These
respondents were asked to report the level of main- factors are all consistent with an approach to main-
tenance contribution to improvements in product tenance that seeks to prevent breakdowns, a proac-
quality, equipment availability and reduction in tive strategy. The two items that load on factor 3,
production costs in the previous two years. restoring equipment to operation and installing
Responses were recorded using a "ve-point Likert- new equipment, represent the traditional, reactive
type scale (1"less than 20% of performance strategy for maintenance.
 L. Swanson / Int. J. Production Economics 70 (2001) 237}244 241

Table 2
Summary statistics

Variable Means S.D. Correlations

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

1. RESP1 3.64 1.21

2. RESP2 3.85 0.95 0.38
3. RESP3 4.68 0.61 0.08 0.16
4. RESP4 4.38 0.80 0.20 0.27 0.15
5. RESP5 3.82 1.04 0.24 0.39 0.04 0.46
6. RESP6 3.56 0.95 0.01 0.03 0.32 0.08 0.01
7. RESP7 3.34 1.18 0.33 0.27 0.07 0.20 0.15 0.14
8. RESP8 2.72 1.30 0.29 0.34 0.08 0.14 0.22 0.23 0.72
9. RESP9 3.07 1.27 0.21 0.28 !0.02 0.06 0.17 0.25 0.37 0.53
10. PERF1 2.59 1.02 0.27 0.23 !0.11 0.09 0.19 0.05 0.20 0.20 0.17
11. PERF2 3.22 0.96 0.25 0.18 !0.13 0.15 0.22 0.09 0.11 0.13 0.08 0.51
12. PERF3 2.65 0.95 0.28 0.17 !0.09 0.08 0.24 0.04 0.19 0.21 0.21 0.54 0.40

Correlations above 0.13 are signi"cant at p(0.05.

Table 3
Factor analysis of maintenance responsibilities

Questionnaire items Factor 1: Factor 2: Factor 3:

aggressive proactive reactive
maintenance maintenance maintenance

RESP1 Monitoring the production equipment status 0.37602 0.48622 !0.10107

RESP2 Analyzing equipment failure causes and e!ects 0.32873 0.63605 0.04726
RESP3 Restoring equipment to operation !0.09439 0.18630 0.81371
RESP4 Maintaining equipment in operation !0.03323 0.75225 0.19772
RESP5 Performing preventive/predictive maintenance work 0.07879 0.78673 !0.07566
RESP6 Installing new equipment 0.29266 !0.14053 0.74331
RESP7 Helping improve the production process 0.78775 0.19018 0.08352
RESP8 Helping design the production process 0.86721 0.16767 0.09528
RESP9 Helping the purchasing department in original equipment 0.75363 0.04875 0.03142
(OEM) manufacturer selection
Eigenvalue 2.29190 1.94690 1.28893
Percentage of variance explained 25.5 21.6 14.3

3.3. Performance product quality as the dependent variable. As

expected, both the proactive and aggressive main-
Based on the literature, the proactive and aggres- tenance strategies have signi"cant, positive rela-
sive maintenance strategies would be expected to tionships with the dependent variable. In contrast,
lead to improvements in maintenance performance reactive maintenance has a negative, marginally
while a reactive strategy would hurt performance. signi"cant relationship with the dependent vari-
Multiple regression analysis was used to test able. The results for the other dependent variables
the relationships between maintenance strategies are similar. In the second column, contribution to
and performance. Table 4 shows the results of the improvement in equipment availability, both the
analysis. proactive and aggressive maintenance strategies
The "rst column in the table reports the results of are positive and signi"cant while the reactive
the regression with contribution to improvement in maintenance strategy is negative and marginally
242 L. Swanson / Int. J. Production Economics 70 (2001) 237}244

Table 4
Results of regression analysis of maintenance strategies on maintenance performance

Independent variables EFF1: improvement of EFF2: improvement in EFF3: reduction in

product quality equipment availability production costs

Factor 1: aggressive maintenance 0.253 0.136 0.236

(0.066) (0.063) (0.061)
Factor 2: proactive maintenance 0.194 0.212 0.183
(0.065) (0.062) (0.060)
Factor 3: reactive maintenance !0.112
!0.107
!0.115

(0.037) (0.065) (0.062)
Constant 2.592 3.222 2.657
(0.065) (0.063) (0.060)
Overall F 8.963 6.395 9.386
Adjusted R 0.098 0.069 0.102
N 221 220 221

Standard errors are in parentheses.

p(0.10.
p(0.05.
p(0.01.
p(0.001.

signi"cant. Finally, with contribution to reduction lyzing equipment failure causes and e!ects provide
in production costs as the dependent variable, the support for knowing how often to perform preven-
proactive and aggressive maintenance strategies are tive maintenance and which equipment conditions
positive and signi"cant and the reactive mainten- to monitor through predictive maintenance.
ance strategy has a signi"cant negative coe$cient. Factor 1 represents the aggressive strategy for
maintenance. The activities that load on this factor
represent aggressive maintenance involvement in
4. Discussion improving equipment performance. The activities,
helping to design and improve the production pro-
The intent of this paper was to explore di!erent cess and assisting in OEM selection, re#ect a main-
maintenance strategies and their relationship with tenance organization that interacts with other
maintenance and plant performance. The results of functional areas to identify equipment design im-
the exploratory factor analysis are consistent with provements.
the three di!erent maintenance strategies described According to the literature, the three di!erent
in the literature. Factor 3 is consistent with the maintenance strategies outlined above are ex-
traditional reactive strategy for managing mainten- pected to have di!ering impacts on performance.
ance. Under this approach, maintenance views Proactive and aggressive maintenance strategies
its role as installing equipment and repairing are expected to be associated with improved perfor-
equipment once it breaks. mance. A reactive maintenance strategy is expected
Factor 2 is consistent with a proactive strategy to be associated with lower performance. The
for maintenance. Performing predictive and pre- regression analysis bears out these expectations.
ventive maintenance are activities that will help The reactive strategy has a marginally signi"cant
a plant proactively avoid equipment failures. The negative relationship with all three performance
other activities that load onto this factor are also measures. Both the proactive and aggressive strat-
consistent with a proactive approach. Indeed, egies have signi"cant positive relationships with the
monitoring production equipment status and ana- measures of performance.
 L. Swanson / Int. J. Production Economics 70 (2001) 237}244 243

4.1. Managerial implications Likewise, an aggressive maintenance strategy can

include contributions to design changes in both
The constructs extracted through factor analysis new and existing equipment.
can be useful to managers developing maintenance The "ndings on performance can also help in
strategies. Managers will not only be aware of the justifying the use of these strategies. As stated
performance implications of the di!erent strategies, earlier, the proactive and aggressive approaches
they can understand some of the practices neces- require increased levels of maintenance training,
sary to support each of the strategies. For example, resources and integration. By demonstrating the
in the case of the proactive strategy, preventive and impact that these strategies can have on plant per-
predictive maintenance activities should be accom- formance, managers may be more comfortable in
panied by equipment monitoring and analysis. making these investments in maintenance.

Appendix. Questionnaire items

Maintenance tasks

How much emphasis is placed on each of the following activities as responsibilities of your plant's
maintenance department? (circle number)
Not Not Somewhat One of
applicable important important the most
important
Monitoring the production equipment status 0 1 2 3 4 5
Analyzing equipment failure causes and e!ects 0 1 2 3 4 5
Restoring equipment to operation 0 1 2 3 4 5
Maintaining equipment in operation 0 1 2 3 4 5
Performing preventive/predictive maintenance work 0 1 2 3 4 5
Installing new equipment 0 1 2 3 4 5
Helping improve the production process 0 1 2 3 4 5
Helping design the production process 0 1 2 3 4 5
Helping the purchasing department in 0 1 2 3 4 5
original equipment manufacturer (OEM)
selection
Performance
Less than 20% of About 50% of More than 80%
performance performance of performance
improvement improvement improvement
was the result was the result was the result
of maintenance of maintenance of maintenance
e!orts e!orts e!orts
Over the past two years, how much has 1 2 3 4 5
maintenance contributed to the improvement
of product quality?
Over the past two years, how much has 1 2 3 4 5
maintenance contributed to the improvement
of equipment availability?
Over the past two years, how much has 1 2 3 4 5
maintenance contributed to the reduction
of production costs?
244 L. Swanson / Int. J. Production Economics 70 (2001) 237}244

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