Design and development of Knowledge Based System for Integrated Maintenance Strategy and Operations

The importance of maintenance has escalated significantly by the increase in automation in manufacturing processes. This condition changed the perspective of maintenance from being considered as an inevitable cost to being seen as a key business function to drive competitiveness. Consequently, maintenance decisions need to be aligned with the business competitive strategy as well as the requirements of manufacturing/quality functions in order to support manufacturing equipment performance. Therefore, it is required to synchronise the maintenance strategy and operations with business and manufacturing/quality aspects. This article presents the design and development of a Knowledge Based System for Integrated Maintenance Strategy and Operations. The developed framework of the Knowledge Based System for Integrated Maintenance Strategy and Operations is elaborated to show how the Knowledge Based System for Integrated Maintenance Strategy and Operations can be applied to support maintenance decisions. The knowledge-based system integrates the Gauging Absences of Prerequisites methodology in order to deal with different decision-making priorities and to facilitate benchmarking with a target performance state. This is a new contribution to this area. The Knowledge Based System for Integrated Maintenance Strategy and Operations is useful in reviewing the existing maintenance system and provides reasonable recommendations for maintenance decisions with respect to business and manufacturing perspectives. In addition, it indicates the roadmap from the current state to the benchmark goals for the maintenance system.