Sustainability-based multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) for industrial asset assessment: A case study on midlife alternatives for high voltage circuit breakers

Maintenance management has over the years evolved from a narrow perspective to a wider and strategic dimension called Physical Asset Management (PAM). PAM in a modern context includes elements of strategy, economy, risk management, environment, which earlier existed separately in organizations. UN business & sustainable development commission estimate 12 trillion USD of opportunities in achieving sustainable development goals (SDGs). Businesses eye the opportunity not only to support the vision of sustainability but also to achieve a competitive advantage. During maintenance decisions many customers have traditionally looked at direct costs, however, focus on increasing failure rates, sustainability and life cycle thinking is trending. These criteria are not well included in repair-replacement decisions in the electric power industry; therefore, the purpose of the thesis is to assess how sustainability criteria can be included in industrial asset management decisions which are validated through a case study on high-voltage circuit breakers. A multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) is adopted to assess how sustainable criteria based on the triple bottom line (TBL): Social, Environmental, Economic criteria can be included in a decision model. The results show that a decision model based on MCDA in some extent is able to include sustainable criteria, however it can still be valuable to discuss the validity and reliability of the indicators that has been collected. The study also show that social and environmental criteria have a significant impact on the final decision compared with a decision based solely on economic criteria, thus supporting the hypotheses that sustainable criteria make a revision (repair) more viable than a replacement