Decision-making regarding the best maintenance strategy for electrical equipment of buildings based on fuzzy analytic hierarchy process; case study: elevator

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to propose the best method of maintenance for electrical equipment of a building and especially elevators in order to achieve various benefits.Design/methodology/approachLiterature review shows that there are various methods such as corrective maintenance, condition-based maintenance, time-based maintenance and reliability-centered maintenance (RCM) for the maintenance of electrical equipment of a building. Selecting the most appropriate maintenance method, especially in large buildings such as commercial ones, is a multiple-criteria decision-making problem. To solve this problem, the fuzzy analytic hierarchy process is used in the present study. It considers the uncertainties of the experts' judgments to provide an optimized maintenance method.FindingsTheoretically, the RCM method will take a lot of time and cost. But in prioritizing the methods, RCM gained more points with regard to safety criteria and value added. The main finding of this study suggests that RCM can be used in the case of elevators and would improve the safety and reliability of buildings.Originality/valueThe authors believe that this study will be valuable because one of the problems in building maintenance complexes is the lack of knowledge about the best method to prevent the risks of elevators. The proposed method has compared with other methods in various sub-criteria, and the results have been fully analyzed.