Abstract :
Since the early 1990s, the drivers for outsourcing maintenance have grown and there has been a pronounced shift to maintenance being a noncore activity. Yet there is dissatisfaction across many market sectors with the way outsourced maintenance has turned out. Even so, the trend seems irreversible; successful contracting organisations of the future will have to be prepared to take on risk to ensure the client gets best value from their maintenance service. Maintenance embraces both long and short-term planning, operational expenditure and capital investment costs, and a diverse range of skill requirements for varying types of asset. Given this level of complexity, the question is: how can we move to asset based performance contracts where the supplier carries risk and has a stake in the successful performance of the assets it maintains? Asset based performance contracts focus the contractual effort on ensuring the assets perform, and suitably reward the contractor for the risk taken in meeting the agreed performance criteria. Significantly, a deeper and more mature understanding of the contractual relationship works to the benefit of both parties.
