The nature of alignment/fit between business strategy and maintenance strategy in industries in South Africa

Abstract

Maintenance has traditionally been viewed as an unavoidable part of the manufacturing function. It is often identified as an opportunity to wantonly reduce costs, whenever the need to reduce manufacturing cost arises. Its potential to contribute to an organisation’s competitive advantage and business sustainability, has not received significant attention, and consequently formulation and execution of maintenance strategies have been poor, inconsistent or unfocused. Alignment of business strategy and maintenance strategy should help an organization to achieve or improve upon its business performance. Likewise, maintenance performance measures should be linked to an organization’s strategy, in order to provide useful information for making effective decisions. This fit or alignment, can only be achieved when maintenance is viewed as a critical business function, integrated with other business functions in support of business strategy. The impact of alignment between maintenance strategy and business strategy - on business strategy - is studied empirically in this thesis. The results confirm that alignment between maintenance and business strategy is strongly positively correlated with business performance. Copyright