Maintenance Maturity Assessment: a Method and First Empirical Results in Manufacturing Industry

The purpose of this paper is to propose a maturity assessment method developed in order to measure the state of maintenance practices in a company. The method is based on the assessment of the capabilities of a maintenance department as to managerial, organizational and technological issues. By using this method, it is possible to classify companies into five maturity levels and to analyse the level reached by a company for the main features and critical points of operations. Eventually, a company can make a benchmark with best companies at a given maturity level. The method has been used in a test sample of thirty-two companies in the Northern Italy.