Maintenance engineering: the current state of the art

This paper stems from the early stages of research being carried out by the authors into the effectiveness of maintenance engineering in British industry. The research is being financed by the S.R.C. The paper surveys the approaches taken to the maintenance function across different industries. While a few industries consider maintenance as a highly important aspect of their operations it is clear that the majority still treat maintenance as a `poor relation¿¿. The organisation of maintenance at company level is also reviewed in the paper. The problems associated with authority linkages between the production, design and maintenance functions, are considered. Finally the Loughborough research programme is outlined briefly.