KBAM
Among the various engineering assets that require management, one of very high importance is maintenance management. There is no question about the significant effects and savings gained both in terms of increased efficiency as well as higher savings from the implementation and practice of asset and maintenance management systems. The competitive advantage as well as the profits gained is well documented through various books and journals. Every business needs different kinds of equipment in order to produce their output. With various improvements made to these equipments with the changing technology brought about to increase productivity, efficiency, etc. the cost of these assets and equipments have increased dramatically. Hence, when these assets are not put to optimal functional or operational state heavy losses are faced by the organisation. For example, the biggest asset in the airline industry are obviously their airlines, and when just a single airline is out of action the estimated losses faced is roughly half a million dollars. All assets over time, degrade, age and decrease in value till it reaches a stage where it is not fit for operational purposes. The rate at which these assets degrade depend on various factors, like the design, the working environment, the assembly stage, etc. But another factor that plays a big factor on the rate at which assets degrade is the operational as well as maintenance practices applied by the organisation. The maintenance practice could be corrective maintenance (CM) where actions are taken after the failure of the asset or predictive maintenance (PM) where preventive measures are implemented along with good practices during the operational stage. A significant percentage of the operational budget, as a result is allocated towards the maintenance activities ranging from 5% right up to 50% depending on the industry.