Towards sustainable digital maintenance services

Abstract

Every asset or piece of equipment needs maintenance to operate smoothly during its lifespan. Maintenance services have evolved from repairing faults, planning, and managing assets to representing a vital strategic business element. Digitalization, data, and tools are reshaping the service industry to be more effective and easier to serve. The impact of digitalization is immense. It tends to simplify maintenance complexities and empower activities for practical implications over traditional approaches. Sustainability is currently trending in the service industry, and there is immense concern about ensuring that maintenance practices are sustainable. Maintenance services should impact all sustainability dimensions positively.

This study aims to explore diverse maintenance types and their possible effects on different sustainability dimensions; develop a sustainable digital maintenance (SDM) service model to understand how digitalization enhances sustainable maintenance practices and explore its benefits, challenges, and key functionalities; understand users’ perceptions of the adoption of SDM services in maintenance industries; and explore the implications of SDM to understand how it handles maintenance complexities and enhances the effectiveness and feasibility of the applied maintenance service.

This research has four phases. Phase I is conceptual-analytical research, namely a systematic literature review that develops a conceptual background on sustainability, digitalization, and maintenance services. It provides a foundation for the SDM model. Phase II is artifact-building research that develops the SDM service model. Phase III is artifact-evaluating research, where the developed SDM model is evaluated through case studies. Through a survey, the research tries to understand maintenance users’ perspectives on adoption and usage. Finally, phase IV is theory-creating research where maintenance complexities are studied with an implication of SDM in overcoming those complexities to facilitate 24/7 maintenance support. It validates the SDM implication with brief case studies on the topic.

Sustainability, digitalization, and maintenance service together form an effective maintenance practice that completely shifts traditional maintenance. There is a genuine need for sustainable and digital maintenance, as well as for its enormous benefits. Digitalization enhances maintenance service with technological advances. On the other hand, the sustainability focus makes the maintenance practice humane, beneficial in the right way, and viable for the environment and for long-term use. Even though maintenance users are not yet ready for complete transformation towards SDM, they believe SDM is the way forward. Like its benefits, the implications of SDM are immense. It positively impacts all sustainability dimensions, focusing on economic, environmental, and social sustainability. The guidance to enterprises adopting SDM aids the industry in addressing important steps before implementing the SDM service and avoids common mistakes. The guidelines for addressing maintenance complexities help understand ways to overcome bottlenecks disabling maintenance service delivery.