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.