The Changing Role of Maintenance in Physical Asset Management

Abstract

Physical asset management (PAM) is an area with a growing role in the asset intensive industry. The purpose of this chapter is to emphasize the role of maintenance within PAM. For this purpose, a case study was conducted in a Slovenian organization. The results show that maintenance is recognized as part of PAM activities in the observed paper mill company. Furthermore, the results of the study show that the strongest involvement of maintenance in PAM-related tasks was found in the creation and maintenance of the maintenance management system and the least in the definition of key success factors for the asset system and the design of the asset system. In addition, the case study uncovered two main factors that have the greatest impact on the involvement of maintenance and its activities within PAM, namely leadership and knowledge management. This study is one of the few studies that aims to explore the role of maintenance within PAM, considering all life cycle phases of the asset system.