Better maintenance decision making in business networks with a LCC model

Outsourcing of maintenance operations has created new kind of decision-making situations. These situations require above all increased cost-awareness. Our industrial research partners have noticed in several occasions that there is a need for a common network-level tool which would enable the planning of maintenance operations. Most planning is even today made by each partner's own simple calculations or is based on the empirical knowledge of maintenance experts. Co-operation between the customer and the service provider is still rather uncommon. This article presents a life-cycle model that helps in planning maintenance operations better than previous models. Most models are very case-specific, suitable only for the item or the purpose of use in question. In many cases the models are quite theoretical and include complicated mathematical solutions, requiring special skills from the user. Usually the models have also been constructed for the needs of asingle company without a network perspective. Our general item level life-cycle model takes into account the point of view of all maintenance network members, it makes planning the future scenarios of maintenance operations together possible, and it provides a practical tool for daily use to reach cost and time savings in the whole network.