Title: Maintenance quality policy statement: its research, design and executive support system

Authors: K. Elangovan, V. Selladurai, S.R. Devadasan

Addresses: Mechanical Engineering Department, Coimbatore Institute of Technology, Coimbatore – 641 014, Tamil Nadu, India. ' Mechanical Engineering Department, Coimbatore Institute of Technology, Coimbatore – 641 014, Tamil Nadu, India. ' Production Engineering Department, PSG College of Technology, Coimbatore – 641 004, Tamil Nadu, India

Abstract: After the evolution of the ISO 9000 series standards, organisations began to nourish the power of policy statements in achieving quality strategies. However, there are many fields in which policy statements are yet to be exploited. Maintenance quality engineering is one of them. This paper reports a research project which has been undertaken to overcome this deficiency existing in both contemporary research and practice. During this research project, a methodology for developing a maintenance quality policy statement has been designed. Since this methodology requires the support and commitment of top executives, an Executive Support System (ESS) has been developed. The validation of this ESS has been checked by demonstrating it to the executives of two Indian companies and obtaining their feedback. In concluding, this paper finds that wider dissemination of the importance of a maintenance quality policy statement among maintenance engineering professionals is the need of the hour.

Keywords: maintenance quality policy; total productive maintenance; TPM; maintenance engineering; executive support systems; ESS; India; policy statements.

DOI: 10.1504/IJTPM.2006.011251

International Journal of Technology, Policy and Management, 2006 Vol.6 No.3, pp.237 - 255

Published online: 09 Nov 2006 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article