Sustainable maintenance performance measurement system for automotive industry

Abstract

This study is motivated to embed sustainability issues for maintenance management implementation in the automotive industry as one of the capital intensive industries. Maintenance objectives at the operational level should be aligned with corporate sustainability goals by defining key performance indicators at every level in a company. However, very few studies have attempted to link sustainability initiatives with maintenance performance and there is no standard set of Sustainable Maintenance Performance (SMP) measures. This research aims to bridge the gap by developing a balanced hierarchical SMP measurement framework. This framework consists of 78 indicators where 14 indicators were identified to be at the corporate level, 21 indicators at the tactical level, and 43 indicators at the functional level, respectively. A survey was conducted with 200 sent questionnaires, 101 were usable leading to a response rate of 50.5%. Statistical analyses were applied in order to determine reliability and validity requirements from the survey. Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) was conducted to determine the underlying structure among the SMP indicators and to obtain the significant indicators. Nine perspectives have been identified with 71 indicators as compared to the initial framework which has 8 perspectives with 78 indicators. The Partial Least Squares - Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) as a Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) was conducted in order to validate the results of EFA. The measurement and structural evaluation results verified the SMP indicators’ reliability and validity. Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) was applied in identifying the cause and effect relationship amongst the SMP measures through a hierarchical structure. Furthermore, AHP through pairwise comparison was also assigned to determine the critical measures by defining the relative important weights of each measure. The AHP results indicated that environmental is the most important factor in evaluating SMP for Malaysian automotive companies, followed by economic and social, respectively. Moreover, AHP also recommended the top five important indicators in evaluating SMP, i.e. total of lubricants consumption, total of greenhouse gas emissions, maintenance program achievement, stakeholder complaints, training hours per employee, and employee complaints. In the end, this research has also established a measurement guideline for measuring SMP which consists of three main procedures. A Microsoft Excel-based tool for SMP measurement was also developed to assist organizational efforts and reduce time. The results of this study are expected to lead to better understanding and provide new insight in developing a SMP measurement system which benefits both researchers and practitioners. Finally, this work is of most interest to the public and private sectors which need to incorporate sustainability issues into their corporate objectives and to assess its implementation. Future researchers are suggested to build a SMP measurement system through a real case study.