Impact of Maintenance Resource Limitations on Manufacturing Productivity

This paper explores the impact of the size of a staff of equally trained maintenance technicians on the productivity of a serial production line. First, we use the reliability and maintainability characteristics of the line to derive optimal preventive maintenance (PM) policies for each unit of equipment. Second, we use simulation modeling to evaluate the performance of the line assuming all repairs and PM actions are performed immediately upon request. Third, we evaluate line performance for finite staff sizes assuming maintenance actions are performed on a first-in, first-out basis with repairs having priority over PM actions.