Maintenance productivity factors-a case study

A project is described where maintenance productivity savings of 70% have been made, at the same time, accompanied by service-level improvements. The author describes the changes made and suggests what the underlying productivity factors may be. The organization was changed into three teams initially to separate the support and maintenance activities with a single service desk. A metrics program was implemented using a problem management system to log incoming queries and problems. A program of preventive maintenance was established. Full management control was established with procedures for the maintenance processes and interfaces, including, for example, testing, quality control, configuration management and version control, release management and problem management