Traditionally, maintenance, with its multifaceted activities, resources, measurement,
and management, has been important to manufacturing organizations. However, in recent
years, the need to manage the different facets of maintenance more effectively has gained
added importance due to changing operational technologies, and the changing organizational
role of maintenance. In today’s open system manufacturing organizations, maintenance has a
broader perspective. In such organizations, the scope of maintenance has shifted from a
narrowly-defined operational perspective, to an organizational strategic perspective. Some
authors attribute this shift to the utilization of more advanced technologies (Swanson, 1997),
increased emphasis on safety, and new environmental legislations (Cooke, 2003). In such
operational environment, the role of the maintenance manager is critical. As such,