The concept of maintenance in the field of complex equipment wasdeveloped in the USA being quickly adopted by European countries and Japan. TheAmerican maintenance concept has the significance of creating a support system forindustrial equipment functioning. Functional maintenance is one of the most frequentused methods in maintenance management for industrial enterprises. This paper tries topresent some aspects related to the systemic approach of the functional maintenancemodel, starting from technical elements of the maintenance process but also taking intoaccount the economical perspective i.e. maintenance-related expenditure.The final partof the paper presents a systemic method of representation of the model, taking intoaccount the two mentioned aspects.functional maintenance, system, management

Ciprian Cucu

Ioan Cucu

English

Research Papers in Economics

Annales Universitatis Apulensis Series Oeconomica, 11(2), 2009 
 
 
 
 
 
827
MODERN MANAGEMENT METHODS FOR  
EQUIPMENT MAINTENANCE 
 
 
Ioan Cucu
1 
Ciprian Cucu
2 
 
 
ABSTRACT: The concept of maintenance in the field of complex equipment was developed in the 
USA being quickly adopted by European countries and Japan. The American maintenance concept 
has the significance of creating a support system for industrial equipment functioning. Functional 
maintenance is one of the most frequent used methods in maintenance management for industrial 
enterprises.  This  paper  tries  to  present  some  aspects  related  to  the  systemic  approach  of  the 
functional maintenance model, starting from technical elements of the maintenance process but also 
taking into account the economical perspective i.e. maintenance related expenditure.The final part 
of the paper presents a systemic method of representation of the model, taking into account the two 
mentioned aspects. 
 
Key words: functional maintenance, system, management 
 
JEL codes:L23   
 
 
Introduction 
The theoretical and  practical basis  of the need for an industrial  equipment maintenance 
system relates to the following aspects: 
￿  the functional maintenance of technological equipment represents a component of the 
production function, but with independent tasks and responsibilities; 
￿  a  connection  must  be  established  between  manufacturing  technologies  and  tools  and 
equipments maintenance; 
￿  the economical efficiency of maintenance and interventions activities must be linked to 
the real productivity of each equipment as well as to the quality of the products that are being 
manufactured; 
The functional maintenance model[5], consideres technological equipment maintenance as 
an integrated function of the production process. Thus completing the tasks of a productive section 
while respecting quality, cost and time constraints, implies an analysis of the following factors: 
￿  Personnel training, including production personnel but also maintenance and intervention 
personnel. Activities coordination, organization and monitoring in the system has to have a 
tight connection to professional competence Cp that depends on: 
￿  personnel professionalism (P): knowledge of the activity type, established norms 
and solving all functioning problems of equipment being used or maintained; 
￿  personnel  aptitudes  (Ap):  aptitudes  regarding  task  completion  and  capacity  to 
address a complete range of requirements; 
￿  technical  aptitudes  (At):  aptitudes  related  to  the  technical  and  economical 
responsibility of the activities being undertook. 
Thus the functional model of professional training can be represented as: 
Cp=f (P, Ap, At) 
 
                                                       
1University of Petro ani, Aleea Poporului 6/5, Petro ani, cucuioan2002@yahoo.fr 
2 “1 Decembrie 1918” University of Alba Iulia, Nicolae Iorga 11 13, Alba Iulia, c.ciprian@yahoo.com Annales Universitatis Apulensis Series Oeconomica, 11(2), 2009 
 
 
 
 
 
828
￿  Technological analysis of the technology being used relates to two main groups – product 
manufacturing  technology  and  maintenance  and  intervention  technologies  for  the 
manufacturing equipments. 
Gaps in the correlation between the two technology groups mentioned above can generate 
production loss, quality decrease, cost and consumption increase and overall efficiency reduction. 
By using this model, a strong correlation between the two groups is ensured – applying advanced 
manufacturing technologies implies immediate modernisation of the maintenance and intervention 
technologies. 
￿  Manufacturing  activities  management,  in  relation  to  equipment  maintenance  and 
intervention implies the design and implementation of methods and techniques that ensure 
the accomplishment of fundamental objectives of functional maintenance such as: 
￿  recording statistics in relation to technological equipment functioning quality; 
￿  using  new  monitoring  techniques  such  as  vibration  measurement,  temperature 
recording or oil analysis. 
 
￿  Design and development of a specific informational system that acts as a synthesis tool 
that  allows  the  monitoring  of  main  activities  and  the  assessment  of  the  risk  of  each 
scenario.  This  subsystem  has  to  keep  up to date  the  dashboard  of  the  maintenance 
responsible by: 
￿  grouping all relevant information in relation to programmed activities; 
￿  presenting  in  a  structured  manner  the  information  required  for  technical  and 
economical analyses; 
￿  offering a timeline of phenomena with associated information; 
￿  warning with regard to possible negative phenomena; 
￿  presenting the necessary information for the decision making process in various 
signaled scenarios. 
By using the new maintenance model [4] in industrial enterprises, some of the following 
results are expected: 
￿  The reduction to a minimum of defects, that would lead to an overall efficiency increase of 
the enterprise by: 
￿  using a preventive maintenance system that would allow a better monitoring of 
current  equipment  wear,  weak  spots  detection,  usage  uncertainty  and  defects 
prevention; 
￿  increasing the quality of maintenance and intervention activities; 
￿  optimal  exploitation  of  technological  equipment,  according  to  their  technical 
specifications. 
￿  The optimisation of the reparation time frame, as a consequence of: 
￿  application  of  methods  based  on  operational  research  such  as  network  timeline, 
critical path method, PERT, simulations, statistical and mathematical analyses, cost 
optimisation etc; 
￿  coordination and organisation of the activity for each intervention group or for each 
person that belongs to the mechano energetical sector; 
￿  preparing interventions from a technological point of view, materials and spare parts 
provisioning; 
￿  using modern techniques to establish wear degree for different components of sub 
components of the equipment undergoing repair; 
￿  using  an  operative  information  sub system  that  will  take  over  all  information 
regarding repairs but that can also provide employees with the information they 
require. Annales Universitatis Apulensis Series Oeconomica, 11(2), 2009 
 
 
 
 
 
829
￿  The  complete  provision  with  spare  parts  taking  into  account  the  time  frame,  required 
quality and quantity for various types and dimensions as a result of: 
￿  using specific methods to determine the spare parts necessary; 
￿  implementing an efficient storing and movement system for spare parts based on 
mini max  type  stock  variations.  This  model  has  as  criteria  choosing  from  more 
options an action that would decrease the extremes. In decision problems regarding 
stock it is recommended the adoption of a strategy that minimizes the maximum risk 
for component unavailability. 
 
    Systemic approach on functional maintenance management 
The  functioning  of  technological  equipment  in  specific  safety  conditions  implies:  a 
technological preparation of interventions based on real and complete knowledge of the equipment 
wear, planned monitoring of safety status by periodical technical inspections, professional training 
of the personnel etc. 
The  desire  to  use  advanced  techniques  and  methods  in  maintenance  and  intervention 
management must be supported by a financial, material and human effort to ensure the development 
of the technological and informational base required. 
In  this  context,  the  model  of  functional  maintenance  represents  a  new  approach  on 
equipment maintenance and intervention management based on the interdependence between the 
systems' elements and on their critical analysis. 
The fundamental components of the functional maintenance model include: 
￿  management of maintenance and intervention activities; 
￿  the actual technological process of maintenance and intervention activities connected 
to the tero technical system of activities; 
￿  the existance of an information sub system with a database of processed data that 
ensures the connection between the managing mechano energetic system and the managed system 
in relation to terotechnical processes and to the assurance of a feed back connexion needed for 
regulation based on decisions or self regulation in the case of more evolved systems; 
￿  economical analysis of maintenance expenditures and analysis of methods to recover 
such expenditures in the course of the production section. 
  The adjustment of the new model must be made on the basis of the cause ↔ system ↔ effect 
elements. In the case of phenomena from the area of technological equipment use, the adjustment 
from  the  cause  implies  the  adoption  of  a  positive  reaction  i.e.  evolution  monitoring  in  the 
constraints the equipment needs to function. 
  The evolution of the system in a specific direction under the influence of certain positive 
constraints can be adjusted based on control actions such as: 
￿  planned  periodic  technical  inspection  that  must  aim  to  detect  weak  spots  of  the 
equipment undergoing monitoring; 
￿  operative monitoring of repairs for which there has been a network graph developed 
based on critical path; 
￿  operative monitoring of capacity loading for the manufacturing of spare parts for the 
existent equipments; 
￿  monitoring the evolution of spare parts consumption; 
￿  economical analysis of maintenance and intervention costs for each equipment. 
  The adjustment of phenomena evolution in comparison to the effect registered at the system 
output is based on information regarding system output from a feed back connection. Thus any 
disturbance    consisting in deviations from preset functioning parameters and discovered at system 
output – has to be used in the adjustment of its evolution. 
The  approach  on  maintenance  and  repairs  on  systemic  basis  shows  the  existence  of 
successive levels of objectives conforming to management levels. Thus each level sets its objectives Annales Universitatis Apulensis Series Oeconomica, 11(2), 2009 
 
 
 
 
 
830
and resources requirements, and the objectives control will be done in an opposite direction through 
the  feed back  connection,  starting  from  the  final  results  to  the  mechano energetic  section 
management. 
The role of the information system in the management of the enterprise and thus in the 
management  of  the  mechano energetic  section  consists  in  having  a  continuous  perspective  on 
resources  and  objectives  on  the  activities  model  and  on  all  the  factors  that  can  influence 
maintenance and repair activities in a certain direction. 
The  functional  maintenance  model  must  also  be  adapted  to  the  structures  of  the  other 
functional subsystems of the enterprise such as material and technical provisioning or personnel 
training. 
Further considering the terotechnical system of activities specific tu maintenance and repairs 
we can state that terotechnics[1] has the purpose to “take care” i.e. it is wider than maintenance 
engineering since it includes the complete process of assembling, putting into service maintenance, 
reparation, replacement, organisation as well as technological standards for personnel training, 
information processing methodologies, various analyses and the increase of equipment reliability. 
The  economical  concept  of  functional  maintenance  implies  that  decisions  related  to 
interventions are based on the following criteria[3]: 
￿  safety of operation, criteria that has no constraints and does not take into account the 
duration or cost of intervention; 
￿  preset budget for maintenance expenditures as well as the cost for interventions has 
to be included in the general budget approved by the section management; 
￿  the duration of interventions is variable; thus some interventions can be requested as 
an emergency in this case the budget being not set. Optimization requirements are subordinated to 
the criteria related to the duration of the respective intervention. 
The Model implies in most cases a decision making process related to maintenance and 
repair interventions based on the correlation of the three fore mentioned criteria. 
From an economical point of view, maintenance costs (Cm) depend on a functional level on: 
￿  the duration of the technological equipment in a safety state (Ts); 
￿  the moment of replacing the worn equipment (M); 
￿  the  evaluation  of  the  necessary  budget  for  equipment  maintenance  for  its  entire 
exploitation period (Fe). 
The functional relation of expenditure with system maintenance is thus: Cm= f (Ts; M; Fe). 
A structuring model for the functional maintenance and intervention model [2] is presented 
in figures 1 and 2 and shows as previously stated the two main subsystems included: 
￿  The maintenance and intervention system (figure 1), that includes: preventive and 
corrective  maintenance  components,  spare  parts  and  defects;  programming,  preparation  and 
monitoring  of  activities;  execution  of  specific  interventions;  objective  controlling;  technical 
analysis of activity execution 
￿  The  economical  system  (figure  2)  that  includes:  monitoring  maintenance 
expenditures and including them in the approved budget, identifying intervention with high costs 
and costs of defects. 
  The two types of analyses – technical and economical – will lead to the development of an 
optimum solution in relation to the decision regarding each equipment maintenance and repair. 
 
 Annales Universitatis Apulensis Series Oeconomica, 11(2), 2009 
 
 
 
 
 
831
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Fig. no. 1: Functional maintenance and repair system Annales Universitatis Apulensis Series Oeconomica, 11(2), 2009 
 
 
 
 
 
832
 
Conclusions  
In the actual economic context, using modern maintenance models that are supported by an 
adequate  informational  system  can  ensure  an  increased  efficiency  of  industrial  equipment 
exploitation for any manufacturing enterprise. To accomplish this, a significant level of attention 
must be given to such maintenance models by the management of the organization. 
 
References: 
1. Ceausu I., 2004, Compediu de management, Ed. Academica de Management, Bucuresti; 
2. Cucu  I.,  1999,  Managementul  activitatii  de  mentenanta  industriala,  Ed.  Universitas, 
Petrosani; 
3. Gormand C., 1996, Le cout global, pour investir plus rationellemannt, Ed AFNOR, Paris; 
4. Nakajima S., 1988, Introduction to Total Productiv Maintenance,  Ed. Productivity Press, 
USA NY; 
5. Pavel N., 1989, Conducerea activitatii de intretinere functionala  Revista Economica nr 
19, Bucuresti. 
Fig. no. 2: Economical activities system related to the functional maintenance and repair 

MODERN MANAGEMENT METHODS FOR EQUIPMENT MAINTENANCE

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