Chapter 4: Maintenance Theories, Models and Frameworks

A theory is a generalised approach that describes a phenomenon (Collins, 2020). It is used to predict and explain relationships between variables about a particular idea within specified boundaries. Without a comprehensive theoretical framework, a theory cannot serve its purpose of extensively and holistically describing a concept. The theories underpinning this chapter are from maintenance and management disciplines. Maintenance theories describe principles of retaining, restoring and improving the reliability of infrastructure, while management theories describe the process of developing objectives, planning and managing resources at maintenance execution and control stage and continuously improving maintenance operations.

RCM originated in the 1960s in the civil aircraft industry (Nowlan & Heap, 1978), with the objective of reducing costs of preventive maintenance (PM) and achieving the required reliability benchmark (Bertling et al., 2005; Jones, 2007). This includes retaining the functions of the asset under maintenance and prioritising critical components of the system for asset reliability. Siddiqui and Ben-Daya (2009) assert that the history or initial development of RCM began from a report compiled by Nowlan and Heap (1978) on the relationship between maintenance, reliability and safety. The Nowlan and Heap (1978) report was for United Airlines, and it was sponsored by the US Department of Defence.