Report on Maintenance Management Strategies for Marks & Spencer (M&S)

This report examines maintenance management strategies within the context of Marks & Spencer (M&S), a British multinational retailer. The literature review explores the importance of maintenance management as a profit-generating tool, highlighting its role in reducing breakdowns and enhancing productivity. The report discusses various maintenance strategies, including reactive, preventive, predictive, and reliability-centered maintenance, and their potential impact on M&S's profitability and operational efficiency. It emphasizes the need for M&S to adapt its maintenance approach to its corporate structure and leverage modern measurement techniques. The report also covers the history of maintenance management, evolving from reactive to preventive methodologies, and the emergence of predictive maintenance. Furthermore, it analyzes emerging trends like additive manufacturing, the Internet of Things, and supply chain collaboration in industrial maintenance. The conclusion summarizes the key findings, emphasizing the importance of effective maintenance management for maximizing profitability and adapting to a dynamic business environment.

Maintenance
Management

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
Literature Review.............................................................................................................................1
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6
Books&Journals..........................................................................................................................6
Online..........................................................................................................................................6

INTRODUCTION
Maintenance management refers to a systematic approach of planning, organising and
monitoring maintenance activities on continual basis in order to maximise profitability of a
business organisation. In this present report, the chosen organisation here is Marks & Spencer
which is a British multinational retailer operating its business activities at an global level. It is
founded by Michael Marks and Thomas Spencer in 1884 and it headquarter is situated in
Westminster, Londonn. In this report, literature review on maintenance management has been
discussed.
Literature Review
Maintenance management is a strategic tool, which help a business organisation in
producing quality products at low cost. It also help business organisation in reducing breakdowns
or failures arises while operating business operations. According to the view point of Professor
Ravi Kumar Goyal (2012) “Business organisations adopt maintenance management as a profit
generating business element” as it help business entities in monitoring their operational activities
effectively and efficiently. This leads in improving their productivity in a business market, which
eventually leads in maximising their profitability. In this regard, it is important for the chosen
organisation Marks & Spencer to formulate effective maintenance management approach in
order to enhance their overall performance in a dynamic business environment. It is also
necessary for the chosen organisation to manage their operational activities through modern
measurement and signal processing. Along with the benefits there are also some negative impact
of maintenance management on profitability of a business organisation. The companies faces
many breakdowns or failures in their operational activities because of failure to replace worn out
parts in their equipments. This leads in decreasing their profitability in a competitive business
environment. The main motive behind maintenance management approach is to maintain product
quality but it is difficult for the chosen organisation Marks & Spencer to maintain quality of their
products.
In this regard, it is recommended to the chosen organisation Marks & Spencer to modify
its maintenance management approach in accordance with their corporate structure. This will
leads them in overcoming failures arises through maintenance management and also helps them
in enhancing their overall business growth and development. There are four types of
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maintenance management strategies i.e. breakdown maintenance, preventive maintenance,
predictive maintenance, reliability centred maintenance. So, the chosen organisation have to
choose best suitable strategies in order to conduct their operational activities in an appropriate
manner.
Maintenance management is an effective approach that enhances profitability of a
business organisation and it is also cost efficient. In this regard, it is necessary for managers of
Marks and Spencer to explore every opportunity in order to conduct their operational activities
effectively. This will help them in achieving competitive advantage, which eventually leads in
improving their overall performance. The term 'maintenance' refers to keep equipments up to
date, which will help business organisation in improving their productivity (Stengel, 2014).
In context to industrial maintenance, there are two major objectives i.e. high availability
of productive equipments and other is to include equipments with low cost maintenance in their
production process. This will help business organisations in conducting their operational
activities without breakdowns or failures in their equipments.
History of Maintenance Management
The concept of maintenance management up to second world war is only to fix
equipment when it breaks (Schultmann, 2014). At that time, maintenance management was fully
based on reactive maintenance. In reactive maintenance methodology, business organisation use
their productive equipment until it breaks. In this regard, it is important for manufacturer of
productive equipment to ensure its life. In this regard, reactive maintenance methodology will be
cost effective for the chosen organisation Marks & Spencer as there will no maintenance cost on
equipments.
After second world war, the next maintenance methodology came into existence that is
preventive maintenance. In preventive maintenance methodology, productive equipments are
maintained properly in order to increase their desired life, which will help chosen organisation in
improving its overall performance. It is the most effective maintenance methodology as
compared to reactive maintenance, as it increase life of equipments and also saves cost of
maintenance.
As per the point of view of Moubray's (2014), the third generation of maintenance
management focuses on equipment availability, equipment reliability, greater safety, longer
equipment life, better product quality and longer equipment life. The maintenance management
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approach will help the chosen organisation in ensuring safety of their productive equipments. It
also help a business organisation in increasing life cycle of their equipments and also in
manufacturing best in quality products to their potential customers.
According to the point of view of Bhadbury (2014), maintenance management also
depends upon organisational structure. In this regard, it is important for the chosen organisation
Marks & Spencer to balance between plant availability and resources utilisation. This will help
them in retaining their productivity for a longer duration.
In this regard, there are two types of maintenance management i.e. unplanned and
planned. In unplanned maintenance includes reactive and breakdown maintenance. On the other
hand, planned maintenance is a proactive strategy, which includes predictive maintenance
methodology. In this regard, it is important for Marks & Spencer to choose planned maintenance
management approach in order to maximise its profitability.
“Maintenance management promotes proactive and positive organisational change”
According to the view point of Jorge (2011), maintenance management help business
organisations in conducting their operational activities by utilising productive equipments. This
will help improve overall organisational efficiency and effectiveness, which leads in bringing
positive organisational change. In this regard, it is important for the chosen organisation Marks
& Spencer to utilise maintenance performance measurement in order to improve different aspects
of maintenance management. This will help a business entity in utilising organisational resources
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effectively and efficiently, which eventually leads in sustaining their productivity for a longer
duration in a competitive business environment.
As per the view point of Rankin (2000), human resource aspect of business organisation
also plays a crucial role in bringing positive organisational change. In this regard, it is essential
for human resource department of Marks & Spencer to address the issue in their production
department. This will help them in effectively monitoring their operational activities, which
eventually leads in bringing positive change in a business organisation.
In this regard, it is also important for a business organisation to implement effective
maintenance information system in order to develop effective maintenance management
programme. Maintenance information system is suitable system for chosen organisation Marks
& Spencer, which allows its maintenance managers to gather effective data in order to improve
maintenance decision making process (Gomes, 2011).
According to the view point of John (2017), emerging trends in maintenance
management will leads in reshaping industrial maintenance. Maintenance management plays a
vital role in optimum utilisation of company's resources, which leads in maximising its
profitability in a business environment. There are few significant emerging trends, which are
discussed below as:
(a) Additive manufacturing in maintenance: According to the research study by PWC ,
almost 60% of industrial manufacturing uses additive manufacturing approach in order to operate
their operational activities effectively. Additive manufacturing approach refers to use 3D printers
rather that normal printers, which help business organisations in gaining competitive advantage
in a business environment.
(b) Internet of things: In this context, it is important for maintenance to collect data in
order to help business organisation regarding monitoring of their productive equipments. In this
regard, this will help the chosen organisation Marks & Spencer in deriving maintenance insights
and knowledge, which will help them in bringing positive organisational change. The process of
data collection has changed from manual task to wireless sensor network or IOT in order to
collect equipment data.
(c) Supply chain collaboration: The next major trend which help in increasing growth of
industrial maintenance. As per the point of view of Ramanathan (2014), digitisation of
maintenance industry is already having tremendous impact on supply chain operations. In this
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regard, it will help the chosen organisation Marks & Spencer in collecting digital information
from multiple devices, which leads in manufacturing products in a specific time period.
So, from the above mentioned scenario, emerging trends in industry maintenance will
help business entities in enhancing their overall production process, which eventually leads in
increasing competitiveness of a business organisation.
CONCLUSION
From the above mentioned report, it has been concluded that maintenance management
help business organisation in producing best in quality products at low cost. In addition to this, it
also help business entities in monitoring their operational activities effectively. There are also
various categories of maintenance management, which should be undertaken by business entities
in order to formulate effective maintenance management plan. Along with this, emerging trends
in maintenance industry help business organisations in maximising their profitability in a
dynamic business environment.
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REFERENCES
Books&Journals
Lin and et. al., 2014. Developing mobile 2D barcode/RFID-based maintenance management
system. Automation in construction. 37. pp.110-121.
Torres-Machí and et. al., 2014. An iterative approach for the optimization of pavement
maintenance management at the network level. The Scientific World Journal. 2014.
Volk, R., Stengel, J. and Schultmann, F., 2014. Building Information Modeling (BIM) for
existing buildings—Literature review and future needs. Automation in construction. 38.
pp.109-127.
Bhadbury, B. and Shenoy, D., 2014. Maintenance Resource Management: Adapting Materials
Requirements Planning MRP. CRC Press.
Ramanathan, U. and Gunasekaran, A., 2014. Supply chain collaboration: Impact of success in
long-term partnerships. International Journal of Production Economics. 147. pp.252-
259.
Online
Emerging trends in maintenance industry. 2019. [Online]. Available Through : <[Online].
Available Through : <https://www.solufy.com/blog/5-transformational-trends-
reshaping-industrial-maintenance>.
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