Applying lean principles in preventive maintenance field services

摘要

The importance of field service operations is continuously growing as capital goods manufacturers seek competitive advantage in taking responsibility for asset value creation beyond commissioning. As the relative share of service generated revenues grow, and the competition intensifies, eyes are turned towards efficiency. This paper explores the applicability of lean manufacturing concepts in the pursuit of efficient and effective field services. The reason for choosing lean as the offset is twofold. On one hand there have been previous applications of lean in other service contexts. On the other, being able to explain field service efficiency in terms of lean could bridge manufacturing and service operations management, which is typically characterized by tensions in the studied context. In order to gain a deep and thorough understanding of the scarcely studied context, single-case study was chosen as the appropriate research design. While the context characteristics had several implications when seen through the eyes of lean, the key findings concerned the lean concept of pull. We found that in a relationship-based service, with an intangible deliverable, there is a bias towards measuring efficiency in a way which disconnects it from efficacy. In preventive maintenance this bias drives the service provider to over-maintain customer equipment. To address the problem, an aggregate level performance measure connecting efficiency and efficacy was developed. Preliminary analysis shows that the case company could reduce maintenance resource usage by 5-10% without a notable effect on service quality.