An Efficient Failure-Based Maintenance Decision Support System for Smalland Medium Industries - Efficient Decision Support Systems: Practice and Challenges from Current to Future - page 195

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An Efficient Failure-Based
Maintenance Decision Support
System for Smalland
Medium Industries
M. A. Burhanuddin 1 , Sami M. Halawani 2 and A.R. Ahmad 2
1 Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka,
2 King Abdulaziz University Rabigh
1 Malaysia
2 Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
1. lntroduction
Small and Medium Industries (SMI) are the key contributors to economic growth in
developing countries. SMI contributes in generating employment and engage in small and
medium-scale manufacturing lines to generate profit and employment.
In fact, the largest portion of manufacturing firms fall into SMI categories and the SMI
businesses are the backbone of the large-scale industry (Shamsuddin et al. (2004)). However,
Junaidah (2007) reported that SMIs lacking appropriate decision making. According to her,
SMI do not have a good system to evaluate the overall system of machines, contractors
performance and their business's principles. Therefore, maintenance decision support
system (DSS) is essential to ensure maintainability and reliability of equipments in
industries. Poor machinery maintenance management will result in capacity loss, poor
product quality and customer dissatisfaction. These downturns usually occur depending on
the efficiency of the reliability programs executed by the organization.
This chapter reveals on the important DSS models i.e. Decision Making Grid (DMG) to be
embedded with computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) to aid
maintenance strategies for the machines as an adoption of technology management in SMI.
Next this chapter demonstrates on how DMG model can be used as a decision support
module in Failure-based Maintenance (FBM).
2. Brief description of the maintenance issues in SMI
Shamsuddin et al. (2004) conducted a survey to study FBM issues faced by SMI. They have
listed issues related to equipment maintenance, as follows:
i. Lack of human resources, both in terms of number and skill or expertise;
ii. Emphasis on short-term gains and lack of long-term plans;
iii. Lack of state-of-the-art modern technology;
iv. Lack of understanding about the role of technology;