Original Scientific Paper distributed under the CC BY 4.0
Year 2021, Volume 1, Issue 1-2, Pages 34-49
Andreas Weißenbach
Baden-Wuerttemberg Cooperative State University Mosbach,
Head of Department Mechanical Engineering, Production and Maintenance Management
andreas.weissenbach@mosbach.dhbw.de
Operational maintenance is responsible for ensuring the availability and reliable functioning and performance of technical units as required for specific operations. Not all companies recognize this connection. Particularly in the case of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), often little attention is paid to operational maintenance. Neglect of the technical units is accepted, which puts SMEs in a disadvantageous position compared to large companies.
The discussion of these problems and the consideration of organizational-structural aspects lead to new forms of partnership cooperation in the field of operational maintenance in SMEs. A "horizontal maintenance cooperation" for the bundling of maintenance resources in a network of companies represents a possible solution approach and contains great potential for SMEs compared to the usual approaches of in-house and external maintenance. This can be impressively demonstrated by means of practical case studies and simulations of different scenarios of planned and unplanned maintenance - the results are clear.
The joint maintenance within the framework of a horizontal maintenance cooperation of companies opens up completely new possibilities for the operational maintenance of SMEs. It is an important step on the way to responsible and professional maintenance management.
Weißenbach, A. (2021) Cooperative maintenance for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) - A concept for new organizational forms of maintenance, Science of Maintenance Journal, vol. 1, no. 1-2, 34-49