Karen Huybens s3066967
Supervisor: dr. ir. W.H.M. Alsem Co-assessor: prof. dr. K.J. Roodbergen Company supervisors: W. Dieterman
E. Nuyten D. Hartman
Rijksuniversiteit Groningen
MSc. Program: Business Administration
Master: Technology and Operations Management
Don’t let Maintenance go to wastes!
Integrating sustainability in existing maintenance processes.
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The author declares that the text and work presented in this Master’s Thesis is original and that no sources other than those mentioned in the text and its references have been use in creating the Master’s Thesis. The copyright of the Master Thesis rests with the author. The author is responsible for its content. Rijksuniversiteit Groningen is only responsible for the educational coaching and beyond that cannot be held liable for the content.
Nothing from this document may be copied or reproduced without notifying the author.
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Preface
Writing a thesis, is hard work: were exactly the same words I started the preface of my former master thesis with, and they have proven to be right again. If a subject is relatively unknown in literature it provides a tremendous opportunity, but it also makes it hard to visualize the research and to construct a coherent story.
At first, I would like to thank my professor mister Alsem, who sometimes seemed to have more faith in my abilities to conduct this research than I had myself. I want to thank him for his guidance and challenging me to gain the best from this research. In addition I want to thank mister Roodbergen for co-assessing my research.
All those whom I interviewed, want to thank them for their willingness to share their knowledge with me. The questions weren’t easy, but with their help I have been able to collect the information required to write this thesis. In particular, I would like to thank Willem Dieterman, Edwin Nuyten and Danny Hartman for giving me the opportunity to perform the research at their companies, and the feedback and support that I needed.
At last I want to thank my family fort their enormous help and support. Especially my farther who was kind enough to act as a sparring partner and to share his maintenance experience with me. I am especially grateful that he allowed me to use his network in my search for companies to perform the research at.
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Abstract
Decisions in maintenance are in most cases based on costs (minimalization). Because the pressure upon organizations to pay attention to their environment is growing, organizations feel the need to improve the environmental sustainability aspect of their maintenance process. However, in practice and literature, not much attention is paid to sustainable maintenance and not much is known about the underlying variables of sustainable maintenance. In addition, specifications, guidelines and / or frameworks to link sustainability to maintenance are missing.
This research will therefore consider how the environmental and economic aspects of sustainability can be integrated into an existing maintenance process. An explorative case-study is performed at three companies to develop a framework to identify the underlying characteristics of sustainability and how they could enrich a maintenance process. Based on literature and the results of semi-structured interviews a framework has been developed that identified the measures in which the environmental sustainability of a maintenance process can be improved. The most important are:
1. Maintenance objectives: economic performance and environmental performance objectives should be derived from corporate and manufacturing strategies.
2. Maintenance plan: in addition to the maintenance policy, one should also determine which maintenance action is most appropriate.
3. Maintenance performance analyse: a maintenance process should be evaluated continuously in order to improve the efficient usage of resources (material, water and energy).
To evaluate the performance of the developed framework performance indicators where identified for the elements of the framework. These performance indicators consist of; maintenance activity indicators, economical performance indicators and environmental performance indicators.
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Contents
Preface ... 2
Abstract ... 3
Contents ... 4
1. Introduction ... 6
2. Research framework ... 8
2.1 Asset management ... 8
2.2 Sustainability ... 15
2.2.1 Lean Manufacturing ... 17
2.2.2 Circular economy and 6R methodology ... 19
2.3 Sub conclusion ... 21
3. Research Questions ... 24
4. Research Design ... 26
4.1 Framework Development ... 26
4.2 Framework testing ... 28
4.3 Scope ... 28
5. Case-study results ... 30
5.1 Maintenance process analysis ... 30
5.2 Maintenance process indicators ... 33
5.3 Sub conclusion: ... 37
6. General Discussion ... 39
Subconclusion ... 41
7. Conclusion ... 42
7.1 Conclusion ... 42
7.2 Limitations and recommendations for further research... 43
References ... 45
Appendix ... 50
A: Economical performance Indicators ... 50
B. Environmental performance indicators ... 53
C. Questionnaire ... 54
D. Coding-tree ... 58
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E: Analysis of the maintenance indicators ... 60
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1. Introduction
Maintenance undertakes an important role in a manufacturing process as it keeps an organization's productive assets (plant, equipment, vehicle fleet, etc.) available for use and performing to the standard that is required by an organization to achieve its objectives (Campbell & Reyes-Picknell, 2016). Proper maintenance therefore does not only contribute to lowering the operating costs and extending equipment durability, it also positively affects the overall performance of the company (Jasiulewicz-Kaczmarek, 2013a). For example, inadequate maintenance can result in higher levels of unplanned equipment failure, which has many inherent costs to the organization including rework, labour, fines for late order, scrap, and/or lost order due to unsatisfied customers (Jasiulewicz- Kaczmarek, 2013a). The recognition that the competiveness and performance of the production equipment depends on the availability, reliability and productivity caused the focus on maintenance to evolve from a necessary evil to cost-driven and value adding activity (van-Horenbeek & Pintelon, 2014).
Today, such a change in the focus on maintenance is needed again. Because our environment has limited resources, the materials that are converted in to products are limited (Gungor & Gupta, 1999).
With the alarming rate resources are currently being depleted from the planet earth (Jawahir &
Bradley, 2016), the stress on natural systems is no longer something that can be ignored (Liyanage, et al., 2009). The consumption of resources and the creation of wastes need to be reduced in order to preserve the high standard of living achieved by organizations now and in the future (Jayal, et al., 2010). Organizations need to become more sustainable in order to remain competitive (Jayal, et al., 2010). Sustainability can be thought of as a strategy that integrates environmental and social considerations in addition to the technological and economic ones (Despeisse, et al., 2012). Instead of doing the same things better an organization’s improvements effort must yield benefits at both economic, environmental, and societal level (van-Horenbeek & Pintelon, 2014).
Maintenance as an important contributor to an organization’s overall performance, should thus not only be about the repairs of machines and devices, but should also include the actions that are striving for more efficient resources management (Saniuk, et al., 2015). Especially because facility operations and maintenance policies and procedures have a direct impact on the waste production and ecological issues like emissions, spills, leakages etc. (Liyanage, 2007). Maintenance activities can help to reduce losses and thereby improve the efficiency of the processes used in the production of commodities and services (Saniuk, et al., 2015). Sustainable maintenance is therefore defined as proactive maintenance operations striving for providing balance in social, environmental and financial dimensions (Jasiulewicz-Kaczmarek, 2013b).
However, a major challenge is that businesses still have failed to clearly identify and define those aspects at the production and manufacturing asset level that are sensitive to fulfil the commitments of the business towards sustainability (Liyanage, 2007). There is an absence of specifications, guidelines, and/or frameworks to outline how performance of important business processes such as maintenance can be linked to sustainable business frameworks (Despeisse, et al., 2012) (Liyanage, et al., 2009). A central challenge and need is to explain how a relationship between sustainable business and quality of Maintenance performance in a manufacturing assets exists. (Liyanage, 2007). Besides,
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as much as current research has done in order to identify the carbon footprint of products, so little has been done for the criteria of sustainable manufacturing (Gaussin, et al., 2013). The focus of the available integrated sustainability frameworks is therefore mostly on a product level within the organization (Labuschagne & Brent, 2007) and not on the manufacturing process.
The aim of this research is to gain a better understanding of the underlying aspects of sustainability and especially how these could enrich an existing maintenance process. Whit the development of a framework to determine which parts of the maintenance process needs to be adjusted for the implementation of sustainable aspects into an existing maintenance process, this research aims to reveal to managers the possible opportunities for improvement and the impact of decisions on the sustainability of the maintenance process.
Due to time limitations, this research will somewhat limit this objective. Although the identification of possible areas for sustainability improvement of maintenance are included in the research. The evaluation of the effectiveness of these measures as well as the planning, implementation and improvement of the measures will not be carried out in this study.
In addition, this research will only consider the economic and environmental aspects of sustainability.
The relationship between maintenance and the people aspect of sustainability is considered to be out of scope, since the laws covering employment in the Netherlands are many and various. The Dutch Government regularly evaluates if these laws still provide good working conditions and safe workplaces for all employees (Employment, 2016). With the result that the Dutch working conditions are one of the best in Europe (Douwes, et al., 2014).
Another limitation is that this research only focuses on the maintenance that is executed for the asset in the utilization and maintenance phases of an assets life cycle. Although the biggest sustainable improvements can be gained in the acquisition and disposal of an assets, these phases are considered to be out of scope. Mainly because asset replacements require high investments which not all organizations can afford (Vranakis & Chatzoglou, 2012).
As a result, the main research question becomes:
‘How can both environmental and economical sustainability be integrated in the current maintenance process of an existing asset?’
In this first chapter a general idea is given of what the research is about, by introducing the research topic, the research question, the methodology, contribution and structure of the thesis. A deeper understanding of the research topic will be given in the second chapter “Research Framework” by describing what has been established in the literature about maintenance, sustainability and sustainable maintenance. In the third chapter ‘Research questions’ the conceptual model, its underlying relations and the research questions are presented. In the fourth chapter “Research design”
the research design that is used in this study will be described in detail. The case-study results will be presented in the fifth chapter ‘case study results’ and discussed in the sixth chapter ‘General Discussion’. The seventh chapter ‘Conclusion’ will consist of the conclusions, limitations and recommendations for further research of this research.
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2. Research framework
In this chapter the theoretical background around the research topic is presented. Before sustainability can be linked to maintenance it is important to determine which activities have to be performed for keeping a company’s assets to the required standard. The aim of paragraph 2.1 is therefore to gain a better insight in the role and place of maintenance in the life cycle of an asset. Paragraph 2.2 will provide a better insight in methods for the improvement of sustainability aspects by an initial exploration of the current academic literature for sustainable development methods, such as lean and 6R. These methods will be discussed on their pros and cons.
2.1 Asset management
The competitiveness and performance of manufacturing companies depend on the availability, reliability and productivity of their production equipment (van-Horenbeek & Pintelon, 2014). Effective management of the production equipment therefore plays an increasingly important role in optimising the businesses profitability (Schuman & Brent, 2007) (Tsang, 2002). Production equipment is mostly defined as physical assets. In which an asset is defined as an element that generates revenue, provides plus requests services to/from its user throughout its life cycle and requires considerable effort and cost in ensuring effective utilisation (Ratnayake & Markeset, 2012). The asset management process extends over the complete life-cycle of the asset; from its design, procurement and installation through operation, maintenance and eventually retirement (Schuman & Brent, 2007). It is defined as: a strategic, integrated set of comprehensive processes to gain greatest lifetime effectiveness, utilisation and return from physical assets (Schuman & Brent, 2007).
As shown in figure 1, a typical life cycle of an asset consists out of six phases: a concept development phase and a design phase, a construction phase, a start-up commissioning phase, operation / maintenance phase, and then a decommissioning or retirement phase (Labuschagne & Brent, 2007).
When an asset is purchased and is not an in-house design the three design phases of an asset can be considered as the selection phase (Labuschagne & Brent, 2007).
Figure 1. Life cycle phases of process asset systems (Labuschagne & Brent, 2007).
The main goal with the implementation of a new asset is to manufacture a product or to improve the manufacturing of a product that can meet the needs of a customer. The operational phase of an asset
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is thus the manufacturing or production phase of the product (Labuschagne & Brent, 2007). However, deterioration of an asset’s condition and hence its capability, begins to take place as soon as the system is commissioned (Muchiri, et al., 2011).
Maintenance can be regarded as the discipline that directly affects and is accountable for the technical condition of an asset (Liyanage, et al., 2009). Maintenance exist of a combination of all technical and associated administrative or managerial activities required to keep equipment, installations and other physical assets in the desired operating condition or restore them to this condition (Muchiri, et al., 2011) (Jasiulewicz-Kaczmarek, 2013b). To attain the desired results, management of maintenance process is important (Muchiri, et al., 2011). Because the way maintenance is performed, has not only an important influence on the quantity and cost of production, but also on the safety of people and the environment (Tsang, 2002). Equipment maintenance and system reliability are thus important factors that affect an organization’s ability to provide quality and timely services to customers and to be ahead of the competition (Muchiri, et al., 2011).
However, an organization without a systematic way of understanding what it has or has not achieved is unlikely to succeed, irrespective of its aims or determination (Liyanage, et al., 2009). Because inefficient maintenance can reduce the performance of systems, create a lengthy down time, high costs or other unwanted results, decision-making in maintenance became a strategic issue for many organizations (de-Almeida, et al., 2015). The topic of designing the ideal model to drive maintenance activities is a fundamental question to reach the effectiveness and efficiency of maintenance management and to fulfil organizational objectives. It therefore has become a widely-studied research topic (Marques, et al., 2009). Sharma et al., (2011) provided a good literature overview of these developed maintenance models. They and Garg & Deshmukh, (2006) indicated a few problems with these maintenance optimization models: Most models flourished as a mathematical discipline within operations research. Because very few of these models have been applied in industry, there is a gap between theory and practice. Most models in the industry are developed as a solution to the problem owner, they therefore focus on the design of systems instead of maintenance. None of the investigated models attempt to integrate quantitative approaches with qualitative ones (Garg & Deshmukh, 2006) (Sharma, et al., 2011). There seems to be a need for an optimization model that is developed in combination with the different types of maintenance parameters and activities (Sharma, et al., 2011).
Because the effectiveness of the performance of maintenance depends on the support of maintenance activities, it is highly important to take the organizational context of maintenance activities into account when dealing with maintenance problems in practice (Tsang, 2002) (Bazrafshan & Hajjari, 2012). One should monitor whether the maintenance tasks are performed so well that the desired results can be attained (Muchiri, et al., 2011). The framework of Muchiri et al., (2010) is an operational level-based framework that links maintenance objectives to the activities of the maintenance process and its results (Bazrafshan & Hajjari, 2012). This research therefore uses the framework of Muchiri et al., (2010) as displayed in figure 2, as its base for the development of a sustainable maintenance strategy decision making framework.
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Figure 2. The Performance measurement framework for the maintenance function (Muchiri, et al., 2011)
Before something can be obtained, it must be defined (Tsang, et al., 1999). Therefore, the first step in a maintenance process according to Muchiri et. al, (2011) is to identify the maintenance objectives.
These maintenance objectives help maintenance managers to set performance targets and benchmarks for the desired maintenance results (Muchiri, et al., 2011).
In the literature, there is consensus that equipment maintenance and system reliability, availability and productivity of their production equipment are important factors that affect an organizations ability to provide quality and timely services to customers and to be ahead of competition (Tsang, et al., 1999) (van-Horenbeek & Pintelon, 2014). Duta (2012) defined availability in maintenance as the degree to which machinery or equipment is in an operable and committable state at the point in time when it is needed and reliability as the probability that a system will function at the given time (Duta, 2012). The main objective of maintenance is thus to keep a facility to continue to have its productive capacity (Sharma, et al., 2011). Since maintenance seeks to meet this objective at an optimal cost, it is imperative to include the cost effectiveness of the maintenance activities as a maintenance objective (Muchiri, et al., 2011). Other factors, which authors have taken into consideration are safety, health and environment and cost of lost production (Sharma, et al., 2011). An incomplete overview of these and different maintenance objectives in literature is provided in table 1.
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Van Horenbeek &
Pintelon (2014)
Muchiri et al.
(2011)
Wayenberg and Pintelon (2002)
Sharma et al.
(2011)
Wang et al. (2007)
Functional and technical aspects:
- Availability - Reliability - Maintainabilit
y - OEE - Productivity - Output quality
Plant functionality - Availability - Reliability - Desired
output - Product
Quality
Availability - Reliability - Availability - Capacity
Feasibility
- Acceptance by labours - Technique
reliability
Maintenance budget
- Maintenance costs - Maintenance
value
Cost effectiveness in maintenance
Costs - Maintenance
cost - Lost
production
Costs
- Hardware - Software - Personel training
People and environment - Environmental
impact - Safety/risk/he
alth - Personnel
management
Plant safety and environment
Safety - Safety
- Health - Environment
Safety - Personel - Facilities - Environment
Plant design life - Capital
replacement decisions - Life cycle
optimization
Ensuring plant achieves design life
Longetivety
Support
-inventory of spare parts
- logistics
Other Overtime Added value
- Spare part inventories - Production
loss - Fault
identification Flexibility
Table 1. Overview of maintenance objectives in literature
In order to accomplish the top-level objectives of the corporate and manufacturing strategy, these objectives need to be translated to the lower levels of the organizational structure (van-Horenbeek &
Pintelon, 2014). Maintenance objectives are therefore based on both the corporate and manufacturing objectives (Waeyenbergh & Pintelon, 2002) (Muchiri, et al., 2011). There are various methods to translate the operational objectives into maintenance objectives. One of these methods is the Balanced ScoreCard (BSC). Unlike conventional measures which are control oriented, the BSC puts overall strategy and vision at the centre and emphasizes on achieving performance targets (Marques,
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et al., 2009). This is done by consideration of four perspectives: the financial, the customer, the internal-business-process and the learning and growth perspective (Mooraj, et al., 1999). Key Performance Indicators are identified and established by the consultation of internal and external stakeholders, senior management, key personnel in the operating units of the maintenance function and the users of the maintenance service (Marquez, 2007). The main disadvantage of the BSC is that it is difficult to quantify its results, making it less useful as a tool (Mooraj, et al., 1999).
Risk assessment techniques is another tool that can be used to align maintenance actions to corporate objectives (Richet, et al., 1995). Whit these techniques the ‘risk’ is generally evaluated by comparing the computed risk of a unit to the standard (acceptance criteria) (N.S. Arunraj, 2008). A variation of this concept known as the ‘probability/risk number’ (PRN) in which R = PxC, where P is probability and C is consequence is used to form the criticality matrix or RCM matrix of figure 3. The procedure to follow in order to carry out an assets criticality analysis following risk assessment techniques could be then depicted as follows:
1. Define the purpose and scope of the analysis;
2. Establish the risk factors to take into account and their relative importance;
3. Decide on the number of asset risk criticality levels to establish;
4. Establish the overall procedure for the identification and prioritization of the critical assets (Marques, et al., 2009).
Figure 3. Criticality matrix
Once the objectives have been defined, the next step would be to develop a maintenance strategy to follow. A maintenance strategy can be considered as the set of various maintenance interventions and the general structure in which these interventions are foreseen. A maintenance strategy forms the framework from which installation-specific maintenance policies are developed and is the embodiment of the way a company thinks about the role of maintenance as an operations function (Waeyenbergh & Pintelon, 2002). As such, a maintenance strategy formulates an optimal maintenance schedule for the plant by describing what events trigger what type of maintenance action (Alsyouf, 2007). It includes the engineering decisions and associated actions, that are necessary and sufficient for optimization of specified equipment capacity, quality and responsiveness (Muchiri, et al., 2011).
(Waeyenbergh & Pintelon, 2002). A maintenance strategy depends on several factors such as the goals of maintenance, the nature of the facility, the equipment to be maintained, the work flow patterns and the work environment (Pinjala, et al., 2006). According to Tsang (2002), there are four dimensions on which organizations have to make decisions regarding to their maintenance strategy in order to achieve competitive advantage towards other organizations:
1. Service delivery options: The choice between in-house capability and outsourced maintenance service suppliers.
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2. Organization to the maintenance function and the way maintenance tasks are structured:
Strategic decisions involving plant specialization (plant flexible or plant specialized), workforce location (centralized, mixed or dispersed), composition and flexibility of workforce
3. Maintenance methodology: The selection of maintenance policies.
4. Design of the infrastructure that supports maintenance: Consists of the values, management behaviour, information systems, training, performance management and reward systems of an organization.
Within a maintenance strategy, a maintenance policy dictates which parameter triggers a maintenance action. (Goosssens & Basten, 2014). There are three basic approaches to maintenance:
Corrective maintenance: maintenance is only carried out after a breakdown has occurred (Waeyenbergh & Pintelon, 2002).
Preventive maintenance: Items are replaced or returned to good condition before a failure occurs. PM action is performed on the item regardless of its actual condition. The trigger for maintenance can be usage based or time driven (Tsang, 2002) (Waeyenbergh & Pintelon, 2002).
Condition based maintenance: if condition of the item is monitored continuously or intermittently it will be possible to carry out PM actions only when failure is judged to be imminent (Tsang, 2002).
Although Muchiri et al., (2011) state that a maintenance strategy should be formulated from the maintenance objectives, its framework give no guidance in how to do this. Wayenberg and Pintelon, (2002) developed a framework for the development of a maintenance strategy. The three steps of this framework should be added to the framework of Muchiri et al., (2011):
1. Identification of the Most Important Systems (MISs) in order to be able to identify the systems that could influence the maintenance objectives the most. Often the number of assets potentially at risk outweighs the resources available to manage them. It is therefore important to know where to apply available resources to mitigate risk in an effective and efficient manner (Marques, et al., 2009). The identification of MISs in most cases are restricted to a very narrow analysis in which only the effects on the cost is observed (van-der-Weide, et al., 2010). With the increase in the standards that require to be met in the safety and environmental area, cost minimization that might imply increasing environmental risk or human damage is not acceptable (de-Almeida, et al., 2015). To take a multiple-criteria into account, Multi Criteria Decision Models (MCDM) are very helpful (Waeyenbergh & Pintelon, 2002). A literature review of 186 articles of de Almeide et. al, (2015) revealed that the most used techniques for maintenance decisions are Multi-Attribute Utility Theory (MAUT) and Analytical Hierarchical Process (AHP). MAUT is recommended due to the uncertainty that is related to maintenance problems and because AHP is often criticised for lacking the ability to include tacit knowledge (de-Almeida, et al., 2015).
2. Identification of the Most Critical Components (MCCs) within the selected MISs to identify the components whose failure consequences could have a severe impact or jeopardise the systems performance. Wayenberg and Pintelon (2002) suggest to perform the criticality analysis with a Failure Mode Effect and Criticality Analysis. FMECA first identifies all possible failure modes of each components. This information is used to determine the impact each failure would have on the maintenance objectives (NVDO, 2016).
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3. Choose the correct maintenance policy for all the MCCs within the selected MISs. This is done with a slightly adjusted version of the decision-making-tree of Waeyenbergh and Pintelon (2002) as shown in figure 4.
Figure 4. Adjusted decision-making-tree of Wayenbergh and Pintelon (2002)
After the maintenance strategy has been formed, the selected strategy will be implemented (Marques, et al., 2009). The way the maintenance activities are executed determines the performance of maintenance (Tsang, 2002) (Muchiri, et al., 2011). It therefore considers a ‘maintenance work management cycle’ to consists of a complete and continuous loop of the following activities:
(Campbell, 1995).
Work identification: identifying the right work to be performed at the right time by the maintenance staff based on maintenance objectives
Work planning: development of procedures and work orders for the maintenance activities identified.
Work scheduling: evaluates the availability of all resources required for the work at the time frame for executing it.
Work execution: carrying out the scheduled activities within the allocated time and through effective use of the resources (Muchiri, et al., 2011)
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To meet challenges of the contemporary competitive environment, an organisation must continuously adapt proactive innovative strategies for enhancing its maintenance activities and performance (Maletic, et al., 2012). Maintenance organizations that are efficient in delivering high quality services will not remain viable for long if they are slow in developing new expertise that will meet the emerging needs of the user departments (Tsang, et al., 1999). One of the existing quality initiatives for achieving competitive excellence is, therefore, continuous improvement (Oakland, 1999).
Performance measures should therefore not only provide an important link between the strategies and management action they should also support implementation and execution of improvement initiatives (Muchiri, et al., 2011). Comparison of the achieved results with the objectives and targets enables maintenance managers to identify performance gaps and opportunities for continuous improvement (Muchiri, et al., 2011). Indicators that technically describe the system to maintain, as well as indicators that describe the interrelations between the different systems and the indicators that describe the general organisational structure are needed (Waeyenbergh & Pintelon, 2002). These indicators have three purposes, which are; to raise awareness of the issues which it indicates, to help decision making and to measure the achievement of an established goal (Brown, et al., 2014). It is important that these indicators are positioned in a strategic context, as they influence what people do (Tsang, et al., 1999). Or in other words: What gets measured gets done (Peters and Waterman, 1982).
Availability of maintenance performance frameworks and indicators may not necessarily guarantee performance improvement (van-Horenbeek & Pintelon, 2014). If some necessary aspects are not considered, the maintenance strategy will never reach its full potential (Waeyenbergh & Pintelon, 2002). Since maintenance processes are a determent of the maintenance outcomes and results, the indicators related with the maintenance process can be seen as leading indicators (Muchiri, et al., 2011). A leading indicator is one that warns the user about objectives beforehand (Parida, et al., 2015).
The framework of Muchiri et al., (2011) enables to identify suitable performance indicators (see appendix A) for a maintenance activity (Bazrafshan & Hajjari, 2012). The indicators of Muchiri et al., (2011) are therefore the indicators this study selected to measure both the performance of the maintenance activities as the maintenance results.
2.2 Sustainability
As stated in the previous paragraph, in order to ensure a good performance of the production plant, maintenance managers need a good overview of maintenance processes and achievements (van- Horenbeek & Pintelon, 2014). Most of these overviews are restricted to a very narrow analysis, as in most cases only the consequences on cost (minimization) are observed (J.A.M.vanderWeide, et al., 2010) (Garg & Deshmukh, 2006). With an increase in objectives that require to be met in the environmental area, cost minimization that might imply increasing environmental risk or damage is not acceptable (de-Almeida, et al., 2015). In many countries, governments created environmental laws, regulations and tax implications that force manufacturers and consumers to pay more attention to the environmental issue (Gungor & Gupta, 1999). In addition, the consumer perspective is changing.
Consumers became aware of their environment and are conscious of the problems that can be created by neglecting it. They started to show more interest in buying products that are environmentally friendly (Gungor & Gupta, 1999), and are now demanding proof of the sustainability performance of operational initiatives (Liyanage, et al., 2009). Competitive advantage in current and dynamic business settings therefore require that commercial industries take firm actions to develop policies and procedures in compliance with sustainable demands (Liyanage, 2007).
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However, as the concept of sustainability is understood intuitively, it is difficult to express it in concrete operational terms (Labuschagne, et al., 2005). Sustainability in research remains an evolving concept and many of the underlying issues remains ill-defined and non-standardized. (Liyanage, 2007). For example, by 1992 there were already more than 70 definitions for sustainable development (Liyanage, et al., 2009). And it has been long recognized that the generic definitions of sustainability only provide a minimal guidance in identifying product sustainability factors and elements (Shuaib, et al., 2014).
Most definitions do agree that sustainability consists of three goals, namely environmental performance (planet), societal performance (people) and economical performance (profit) (Labuschagne & Brent, 2007). These goals are referred to as the three pillars, triple bottom line (TBL) or objectives of sustainable development (Labuschagne & Brent, 2007). Sustainable products for example are thus those products that provide environmental, societal and economic benefits over their full commercial cycle (Shuaib, et al., 2014). The first formal definition of sustainability is the UNWCE definition in 1987: ‘sustainability is meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’ (Davies, 2012). But in line with the three pillars this research considers sustainability to be ‘to emphasize the cautious use of natural resources with minimal impact on the ecosystem to meet the needs of all people while keeping the company economically sound’ (Jasiulewicz-Kaczmarek, 2013b).
Sustainable performance has become a means to enable companies to move in the direction of competitive advantage (Feng, et al., 2010). Different business sectors seem to have taken various precautionary measures to re-evaluate their criteria to assess and to report the quality of their business activities following sustainability frameworks (Liyanage, 2007). However, while financial performance and equipment performance measures are well established and serve as a basis for decision-making in maintenance, widely accepted or mandated standards for environmental performance are lacking (Liyanage, et al., 2009) (Shuaib, et al., 2014). There are many international initiatives that have developed guidelines, recommendations and indicator sets to report sustainability and environmental impact. Feng et al., (2010) presented a review of these sustainable manufacturing metrics and indicators. their application domains are primarily on a company, regional, national and global level (Feng, et al., 2010). In addition, there are many complaints about the complexity of the data collection (Brown, et al., 2014). A specific need for broader assessment tools that can be generalized therefore still exists (Shuaib, et al., 2014).
Shuaib and colleagues (2014) developed a method that incorporates all the parts of the three key aspects of product sustainability (Tripple Bottom Line, life cycle stages and 6R) for the manufacturing of products. This research assumes that these indicators (see appendix B) are applicable to sustainable maintenance. For branding purposes, it would be desirable to develop a method that could calculate the overall index of sustainability. However, the way that the sustainable indicators are combined to consult in an equation for sustainability is debatable and largely unresolved (Brown, et al., 2014).
Shuaib and colleagues (2014) warn that methods applied for normalization and weighting could introduce subjectivity to the overall evaluation. A single standard normalization method that can be applied for all metrics does not exist, since the normalization of each individual metric is case specific and depends on several factors (Shuaib, et al., 2014).
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2.2.1 Lean Manufacturing
Achieving sustainability in a maintenance process would require more than sustainable objectives. It would also require that traditional approaches based on doing the same things but better are replaced by innovative approaches that do things completely differently (Liyanage, et al., 2009). According to Kopac (2009) the way to help companies improve their economic, environmental and social performance is by:
Minimizing the production of waste
Efficiently using resources such as materials, water and energy
Avoiding or at least improving management of metalworking fluids, lubricating oils and hydraulic oils
Improving environmental, health and safety performance
Adopting lean manufacturing and other sustainable engineering techniques
Improving working conditions
Using best practice in the process of producing and maintaining movement
Training all employees about sustainable practices.
A key to sustainable maintenance is finding where and why in the maintenance process resources are wasted (Saniuk, et al., 2015). Lean thinking can help maintenance by the application of its proven tools and techniques to target the reduction of waste and non-value added maintenance activities (Jasiulewicz-Kaczmarek, 2013a). By implementing Lean maintenance companies can reduce wasted products and impact on the environment by 70% or more (Jasiulewicz-Kaczmarek, 2013a).
Lean manufacturing places emphasis on continuous improvement in product quality while decreasing product costs (Jasiulewicz-Kaczmarek, 2013a). The core motivation of lean manufacturing is that multi- dimensional management practises can work synergistically to produce finished products at the pace of customer demand with little or no waste (Jasiulewicz-Kaczmarek, 2013b). It promotes the achievement of a desirable maintenance outcome with fewest inputs possible. Inputs include: labour, spare parts, tools, energy and management efforts (Jasiulewicz-Kaczmarek, 2013a).
Waste plays a crucial role in the way processes are perceived in Lean. Waste according to Lean is defined as anything that does not add value to the product or service from a customer’s perspective (Mostafa, et al., 2015). Ohno (1998) identified seven initial types of waste within a manufacturing production: waste from overproduction, waste from waiting inventories, waste from unnecessary motion, waste from unnecessary processes and waste from defected products (Mostafa, et al., 2015).
As shown in figure 5 Bicheno (2000) added a further seven new wastes (Davies & Greenough, 2010).
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Figure 5. Lean production wastes and analogous wastes within maintenance (Davies &
Greenough, 2010).
To eliminate these types of waste, Lean manufacturing uses tools such as workplace organization, visual communication and control, quick changeovers, pull system, error proofing etc... (Jasiulewicz- Kaczmarek, 2013b). For Maintenance, this involves evaluating whether each element of a maintenance process and activities realized during maintenance processes used adds value to the product and benefit to the customer (Jasiulewicz-Kaczmarek, 2013a). To effectively achieve this lean maintenance improvement, the key lean tool Value Stream Mapping should be employed (Mostafa, et al., 2015).
Value stream mapping (VSM) is an important technique that can be used to identify waste and its sources by visualizes the flows of information and material within a supply chain (Mostafa, et al., 2015) (Faulkner & Badurdeen, 2014). The benefit lies in being able to visually (and clearly) present the stat of performance of a production line or any other system studied (Faulkner & Badurdeen, 2014). A VSM consists of three steps:
1. Produce a Current state diagram that captures all value added and non-value added activities or material and information flows that are involved in a series of processes required in a maintenance process (Brown, et al., 2014).
2. Create a Future state map to identify the root causes of waste
3. Create a Implementation plan for the details and actions that are needed to gain the objectives in process (AR & al-Ashraf, 2012).
Although most of the in Lean defined wastes touch on environmental sustainability in the efficient use of resources and the reduction of waste and pollution, not all lean processes, procedures and waste reduction efforts are positively related to environmental performance or pollution reduction (Dues, et al., 2013). To be useful as a tool to assess the sustainability of maintenance, indicators for both the economical and environmental sustainability must be included in the VSM. Inclusion of a greater number of metrics in the VSM allows the observer to depict a more detailed representation of the system, but on the other hand more metrics, also means there will be more information to process on the VSM which if not held in check will inhibit its communicative ability (Brown, et al., 2014). To
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preserve its value as a useful and easy to use tool, the VSM must preserve its benefit to clearly present the state of performance of a production line or any other process studied (Faulkner & Badurdeen, 2014). In order to do this, Faulkner and Badurdeen (2014) developed the visual representation of the environmental indicators as shown in table 2.
Criteria Visual Representation
Raw Material usage: amount of raw material used per unit
Energy consumption: amount of energy consumed per unit during and between each process
Process water consumption: amount of water used per unit for cooling, washing, lubrication, etc. (not in product)
Table 2. Visual representation of environmental metrics in VSM (Brown, et al., 2014).
When applying VSM it is necessary to identify the desired scope of consideration. Especially in lengthy production, or complex systems with many components merging together for assembly, it may not be possible to represent the entire value stream on a single map (Faulkner & Badurdeen, 2014). In situations with high variety and low volume the selection of product families may be difficult. However even in the most stable production environment, difficulties could arise limited visibility resulting from the performance of many steps of a single automated machine (Brown, et al., 2014).
Despite the beneficial combination of Lean and sustainability, only a few examples are available in literature to explain how managers can integrate sustainable methodologies into current Lean practices (Dues, et al., 2013). As a result, the use of VSM for a sustainable analysis is not well defined, and in most cases the documentation of identified criteria through symbolic visualization is also not well addressed (Faulkner & Badurdeen, 2014). Because the sustainable VSM is developed by Faulkner and & Badurdeen, (2014) for the manufacturing environment, further customization and selection of different/additional indicators may be needed for its use in maintenance.
2.2.2 Circular economy and 6R methodology
For organizations, it is necessary to not only reduce the amount of resources used with Lean but also to improve the proportion between incoming and outgoing resources as well (Kopac, 2009). As 94% of the substance that is pulled out of the earth, enters the waste stream within months, a future in which all products at the end of their primary use are recovered and either reused, remanufactured or recycled for multiple generations, has become a necessity (Jawahir & Bradley, 2016). Within the maintenance process also a strategy of improving of resource utilization need to be considered to extend the product lifecycles in order to significantly reduce waste disposal levels (Kuik, et al., 2011).
This is done by creating a continuous positive development cycle that preserves and enhances natural capital, optimises resource yields, and minimises system risks by managing finite stocks and renewable
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flows (Ellen-McArthur-Foundation, 2015). Whit the conversion of waste back into resources an organization becomes a circular economy (Andersen, 2007). A circular economy means that the amount of waste sent to landfills is minimized by recovering materials and parts from old or outdated products through recycling and remanufacturing (Gungor & Gupta, 1999). Benefits will be obtained not only by minimising use of the environment as a sink for residuals but perhaps more importantly by minimising the use of virgin materials for economic activity (Andersen, 2007). Maintenance processes should therefore be analysed in the context of how all resources are used and preserved (Saniuk, et al., 2015). To enable significant improvement of the overall product sustainability, the 6R-methodology has been introduced (Zhang, et al., 2012). The 6R methodology aims for a circular economy, as it facilitates the optimal use of resources, by use of multiple product life-cycle systems (Jawahir &
Bradley, 2016). The methodology consists of 6 R’s:
Reduce: refers to the reduced use of resources in pre-manufacturing, reduced use of energy, materials and other resources during manufacturing, and the reduction of emissions and waste during the use stage.
Reuse: refers to the re-use of the product as a whole, or its components after its first life-cycle for subsequent life-cycles in order to reduce the use of virgin materials.
Recycle: refers to converting material that would otherwise be considered as waste into new materials or products.
Recover: refers to the disassembling, sorting and cleaning of products at the end of the use stage for utilization in subsequent life-cycles.
Redesign: refers to the redesigning of next generation products that will use components and products from previous life-cycles.
Remanufacture: refers to the re-processing of already used products for restoration of their original state through the reuse of as many parts as possible. (Jawahir & Bradley, 2016) In the manufacturing sector, applying the 6R concept can enable improving the manufacturing strategies to a more sustainable manufacturing of products (Jasiulewicz-Kaczmarek, 2013a). Since its systematic approach allows organizations to look in a more economical and environmental way at both the processes and resources used (Jasiulewicz-Kaczmarek, 2013a). However, intensive study of 6R considerations to improve waste minimisation is lacking, and none of the existing studies explored the practical issues of the implementation of the approach (Kuik, et al., 2011). An exception is the study of Zhang et al. 2012, who developed a framework for metallic automotive components. This framework as shown in figure 6, identified the natural sequence of the 6R methodology within the entire automotive components lifecycle and its decision points and closed-loop options (Jawahir & Bradley, 2016).
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Figure 6. Structure of closed-loop material flow with total life cycle consideration and the 6Rs (Zhang, et al., 2012).
In this framework, that starts at the products end of life, the first step is to consider whether the products are recoverable. When the recovered components after a full inspection and cleaning, are qualified for reuse, they can be directly (re)used for assembly to make new products. In case direct reuse is not possible, the components do not have serious defects such as damaging cracks, and their original specifications can be restored by remanufacturing, the components should be remanufactured. After the remanufacturing the components can be transported back to the manufacturing plant. The materials need to be recycled in case the materials cannot be restored to their original specifications by means of remanufacturing. If products or materials cannot be recovered for use they are directly considered as waste or redesigned in such a way that they can serve as input for second generation products (Zhang, et al., 2012).
Although Zhang et al, (2012) stated that this framework is product and industry specific, further customization and selection of different/additional indicators may be needed for its use in maintenance. Redesign for example is disregarded from the framework because it is considered not to provide a contribution to the operational stage of an asset. Although the usage of resources can be reduced by redesigning of the process. In most cases, such modifications are known not to be commercially feasible due to large cost involved in making major technical changes to rectify problem areas during the operation phase (Liyanage, et al., 2009).
2.3 Sub conclusion
Maintenance exists of a combination of all technical and associated administrative or managerial activities required to keep equipment, installations and other physical assets in the desired operating condition or to restore them to this condition. Because the competitiveness and performance of manufacturing companies depend on the availability, reliability and productivity of their production equipment, decision-making in maintenance is a strategic issue for many organizations.
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Because the effectiveness of the performance of maintenance depends on the support of maintenance activities, the framework of Muchiri et al., (2011) and its indicators are used in this research as the base for the development of a sustainable maintenance strategy decision making framework.
According to this framework the first step in a maintenance process is to identify the maintenance objectives. These maintenance objectives should be derived from corporate and manufacturing strategies. The BSC and the RCM-risk-Matrix are methods that can be used to translate the operational objectives into maintenance objectives. The RCM-risk-matrix is preferred, because it is difficult to quantify the BSC’s results. Next a maintenance strategy will be developed. A maintenance strategy forms the framework from which installation-specific maintenance policies are developed and is the embodiment of the way a company thinks about the role of maintenance as an operations function.
Because the framework of Muchiri et al., (2011) doesn’t give guidance in how the maintenance strategy should be developed, the three steps of the framework of Wayenberg & Pintelon (2002) should be added to the framework of Muchiri et al., (2011).
Comparison of the achieved results with the objectives and targets enables maintenance managers to identify performance gaps and opportunities for continuous improvement. It is important that the indicators within these analyses are positioned in a strategic context, as they influence what people do. If some necessary aspects are not considered, the maintenance strategy will never reach its full potential. The framework of Muchiri et al., (2011) enables to identify suitable performance indicators for a maintenance activity. These indicators are used in this study to measure both the performance of the maintenance activities as the maintenance results.
Most of these overviews are restricted to a very narrow analysis, as in most cases only the consequences on cost (minimization) are observed. With an increase in objectives that require to be met in the environmental area, cost minimization that might imply increasing environmental risk or damage is not acceptable. Competitive advantage in current and dynamic business settings therefore require that commercial industries take firm actions to develop policies and procedures in compliance with sustainable demands. However, sustainability in research remains an evolving concept and many of the underlying issues remain ill-defined and non-standardized. Most definitions do agree that sustainability consists of three goals, namely environmental performance (planet), societal performance (people) and economical performance (profit). This research uses the indicators of Shuaib and colleagues (2014), because they incorporate all the parts of the three key aspects of product sustainability (Tripple Bottom Line, life cycle stages and 6R).
Achieving sustainability in a maintenance process would require more than sustainable objectives. It would also require that traditional approaches based on doing the same things but better are replaced by innovative approaches that do things completely different. A key to sustainable maintenance is finding where and why in the maintenance process resources are wasted. Lean thinking can help maintenance by the application of its proven tools and techniques to target the reduction of waste and non-value added maintenance activities. Value stream mapping (VSM) is an important technique that can be used to identify waste and its sources by visualizing the flows of information and material within a supply chain. Because not all lean processes, procedures and waste reduction efforts are positively related to environmental performance or pollution reduction, indicators for both the economical and environmental sustainability must be included in the VSM instead.
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Within the maintenance process also a strategy of improving of resource utilization needs to be considered to extend the product lifecycles in order to significantly reduce waste disposal levels. The 6R methodology aims for a circular economy, as it facilitates the optimal use of resources, because the amount of waste sent to landfills is minimized by recovering materials and parts from old or outdated products through recycling and remanufacturing. Its systematic approach allows organizations to look in a more economical and environmental way at both the processes and resources used. Zhang et al., (2012), identified the natural sequence of the 6R methodology within the entire automotive components lifecycle and its decision points and closed-loop options and is used in this research.
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3. Research Questions
The aim of this research is to provide a first step in the development of a decision framework to integrate sustainability into the mainly economic performance oriented maintenance process. Based on this goal the main research question as stated in chapter 1 becomes:
‘How can both environmental and economical sustainability be integrated in the current maintenance process of an existing asset?’
The objective of this study is met with the identification of improvement opportunities by development of a decision-making framework. For the framework to be valid it should be useful and hold in practise. Which makes it important to evaluate if the developed framework fits to the existing maintenance activities of the companies under investigation. The sub-questions that have been developed in order to answer the main question are divided in sub-questions regarding the development of the framework and sub-questions for the evaluation of the decision-making framework:
Sub-questions for building the decision making framework:
1. ‘Which maintenance activities as part of the asset life cycle need to be taken into account to form a comprehensive maintenance policy decision making framework?’
2. ‘Which sustainability methods should be incorporated that could benefit the environmental performance of maintenance’?
3. ‘Which framework can be constructed to integrate the sustainability aspects of question 1 and the maintenance activities of question 2?
Sub-questions for evaluation of the decision-making framework:
4. ‘Which performance indicators can be linked to the elements of the framework?
5. ‘How can measures be identified from the framework to improve the environmental and economic sustainability of maintenance?
From the variables discussed in the previous chapter, their relations are shown in the conceptual model of figure 7. In a traditional maintenance process, maintenance objectives are to be derived from the corporate and manufacturing objectives. Once the maintenance objectives are outlined, maintenance strategy formulation decides which type of maintenance needs to be done, when to do it, and how often it should be done. This maintenance strategy is formulated according to the four strategic dimensions of Tsang (2002) as mentioned in paragraph 2.1, and by use of the framework of Wayenberg and Pintelon (2002). After the maintenance strategies have been executed in the maintenance work, comparison of the achieved results with the objectives and targets enables maintenance managers to identify performance gaps and opportunities for continuous improvement (Muchiri, et al., 2011). Therefore, both the maintenance results and maintenance objectives form input in the maintenance strategy.
However, as stated before traditional maintenance must be made more sustainable. Sustainability can be thought of as a strategy that integrates environmental and social considerations in addition to the technological and economic ones (Despeisse, et al., 2012). To ensure that the desired performance of maintenance is achieved on all levels, next to the (economic) maintenance results the environmental
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performance need to be monitored. In order to improve sustainability chapter 2 indicated that the implementation of lean and 6 R methodology could benefit the sustainability of the maintenance process.
Figure 7. Conceptual model
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4. Research Design
As stated in the previous section the research is divided into two sections: framework development and framework testing. This chapter will first discuss the research design for framework development before it discusses the research design for framework testing.
4.1 Framework Development
Currently, it is unknown how maintenance can be linked to sustainability. As stated a sustainable maintenance framework needs to be developed that explains the relationship between sustainability and maintenance. In order to create this framework a theory building approach is used.
The exploratory case study method in addition to the literature review is chosen because the variables of sustainability are still unknown and its effect on maintenance is not yet fully understood. The case study method allows to investigate maintenance in its natural setting, and therefore investigate the complete phenomenon more fully (Meredith, 1998). Performing both a literature study and a case- study will gain a more in-depth understanding of the link between sustainability and maintenance to answer the sub-questions 1, 2 and 3.
The unit of analysis of this research is a maintenance process. As stated in chapter 2 maintenance processes are defined by their strategy. Which according to Tsang, (2002) depends on several factors such as maintenance as a potential to achieve a sustainable competitive edge, strategic vulnerability of the asset, workload characteristics, asset location, cost of unavailability, skills & knowledge required and production policy. These factors are therefore used as the selection criteria of the cases.
The comparison of the observations of cases allows to clarify if the found effect is characteristic to a specific maintenance strategy or if these can be generalised to other maintenance strategies (Voss, 2009). Multiple case studies consisting of 3 cases are performed to avoid misjudging of effects.
Theoretical replication of the cases is chosen in order to compare the differences between cases and to gain a better insight into how these differences influence maintenance strategy and with that its link to sustainability (Broekhuis & Scholten, 2016). In addition, literal replication is used, to compare if cases with similar criteria will lead to similar results (Voss, 2009). Table 3 shows how these replication logics relate to the criteria that were used to select those cases.
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Company A Company B Company C
Type of company Harbour Chemical
manufacturer
Chemical manufacturer Class of industrial
asset
Infrastructure asset Manufacturing asset Manufacturing asset
Asset Radar system Pump Pump
Potential of asset for achieving sustainable competitive
advantage
Low Medium Medium
Degree of strategic vulnerability
Low High High
Workload characteristics
Low High High
Asset location Decentralized Centralized Centralized
Cost of unavailability High High High
Skills and Knowledge required
High Low Low
Production policy Availability &
Reliability &
Environmental performance
Cost effectiveness Cost effectiveness
Table 3. Case selection criteria
Triangulation plays a central role in the validation of the research. A combination of multiple sources and different methods is used for the collection of data to ensure triangulation (Voss, 2009). These methods are semi-structured interviews and available documentation.
Semi-structured interviews will be provided in order to identify the characteristics of the current maintenance process and its relationship towards sustainability. The questionnaire of the semi- structured interviews can be found in appendix C. The semi-structured interviews will be used to check whether the cases fit into the selected criteria for the case study. Survey’s will be provided during the semi-structured interviews in order to quantify the relationship between the variables that are discovered in the literature review. The interviews will be conducted with those people in an organization that influence the maintenance strategy of the chosen maintenance process. These multiple sources of evidence were chosen to gain a more holistic overview of the maintenance process and to increase the reliability of the data. The interviews will be held face to face in a private room at a location that is chosen by the participant. Only when a respondent agrees the interview will be recorded on tape to provide an accurate rendition of what has been said. The typed transcripts of the interviews will be send to the participants for confirmation and to increase the construct validity of the research. In order to increase the details expressed by the respondents the interviews will be held in Dutch as it is the mother tongue of the respondents.
