Title: Traditional and extended fleets in literature and practice: definition and untapped potential

Authors: Sini-Kaisu Kinnunen; Ari Happonen; Salla Marttonen-Arola; Timo Kärri

Addresses: Industrial Engineering and Management, School of Engineering Science, LUT University, Yliopistonkatu 34, P.O. Box 20, FI-53851 Lappeenranta, Finland ' Software Engineering, School of Engineering Science, LUT University, Yliopistonkatu 34, P.O. Box 20, FI-53851 Lappeenranta, Finland ' Faculty of Technology, University of Sunderland, David Goldman Building, St Peters Campus, Sunderland, SR6 0DD, UK ' Department of Industrial Engineering and Management, School of Engineering Science, LUT University, Yliopistonkatu 34, P.O. Box 20, FI-53851 Lappeenranta, Finland

Abstract: The concept of fleet is traditionally discussed in certain industries, such as military, marine, logistics, and aviation industries. In asset management context, the fleet can also consist of machineries or equipment. It would be beneficial to exploit the learnings from the traditional fleet management fields in other environments, where fleets can be considered in an extended manner. E.g., digitalisation generates massive amounts of data which can be exploited more efficiently for fleet management purposes. The aim of this paper is to identify fleets appearing in the literature and to find out whether we should make extended fleet definitions to which the fleet management practices from traditional fleets can be applied. The research has been conducted by reviewing the literature and describing empirical examples of different fleets. The results indicate that fleet management learnings can be applied widely to different types of asset groups, in other words to extended fleets. There is potential to apply fleet management, e.g., to improving business processes, managing complex systems as a fleet, and categorising fleets at multiple levels.

Keywords: fleet; asset management; fleet management; physical asset; extended fleet; fleet literature; fleet decisions; case study.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSEAM.2019.108467

International Journal of Strategic Engineering Asset Management, 2019 Vol.3 No.3, pp.239 - 261

Accepted: 02 May 2019
Published online: 14 Jul 2020 *

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