Prioritising maintenance improvement opportunities in physical asset management

Physical Asset Management (PAM) initiatives suffer many barriers in implementation that can hinder their influence and sustainability. One of these barriers is the lack of buy-in from all levels in the organisation, due to a lack of understanding of the perceived benefits of PAM. Organisational alignment in a PAM project is achieved by aligning employees’ views on the deficient areas in the organisation, and managing their expectations of the perceived benefits of a good application of PAM. Barriers in implementation are created, however, by the lack of a transparent method for conveying the significance of critical areas in the system and by an unclear way of communicating these problems. Typically these initiatives are constrained by available resources. In order for PAM initiatives to be successful, there first needs to be an alignment in the execution through a clear understanding of which assets are critical, so that resources can be allocated effectively. In this study, this problem is thoroughly examined, and a method is sought that seeks to isolate the effects of the maintenance function in an operation and to uncover critical areas. A study is performed on the methods that are typically used to create such understanding. This study highlights the shortcomings of these methods, which limit their applicability. A new methodology is therefore created in order to overcome these problems. The methodology is validated through a case study, where it shown to be highly beneficial in uncovering critical areas and achieving organisational alignment through the communication of results