Some aspects of measuring maintenance performance in the process industry

Performance indicators of operational maintenance can help maintenance staff improve its operations, so that the direct and indirect costs of failure processes can be reduced. Many papers have been written on performance indicators for operational maintenance. However, no consensus on which indicators to use in a particular industry has been reached so far. The authors take an industrial engineering approach to this problem by describing the information system needed to be able to make any inferences on operational maintenance performance in the process industry. The indicators suggested focus on finding the most costly equipment from a maintenance perspective, the cost of the current maintenance concept and the major components of maintenance costs. It is emphasized that standards and procedures need to be developed and that adherence to them has to be ensured.