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Output from the Irish Dairy Industry has grown rapidly since the abolition of quotas in 2015, with processors investing heavily in capacity expansion to deal with the extra milk volumes. Further capacity gains may be achieved by extending the processing season into the winter, a key enabler for which being the reduction of duration of the winter maintenance overhaul period. This paper aims to investigate if Lean Six Sigma tools and techniques can be used to enhance operational maintenance performance, thereby releasing additional processing capacity.

Combining the Six-Sigma Define, Measure, Analyse, Improve, Control (DMAIC) methodology and the structured approach of Turnaround Maintenance (TAM) widely used in process industries creates a novel hybrid model that promises substantial improvement in maintenance overhaul execution. This paper presents a case study applying the DMAIC/TAM model to Ireland’s largest dairy processing site to optimise the annual maintenance shutdown. The objective was to deliver a 30% reduction in the duration of the overhaul, enabling an extension of the processing season.

Application of the DMAIC/TAM hybrid resulted in process enhancements, employee engagement and a clear roadmap for the operations team. Project goals were delivered, and original objectives exceeded, resulting in €8.9m additional value to the business and a reduction of 36% in the duration of the overhaul.

The results demonstrate that the model provides a structure that promotes systematic working and a continuous improvement focus that can have substantial benefits for wider industry. Opportunities for further model refinement were identified and will enhance performance in subsequent overhauls.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first time that the structure and tools of DMAIC and TAM have been combined into a hybrid methodology and applied in an Irish industrial setting.

Major maintenance projects are often regarded as maintenance activities regardless of the projects' complexity and scale. Consequently, very scarce research attention has hitherto been paid to the critical skills required when undertaking these projects. More specifically, the body of relevant knowledge is deprived of a study focusing on maintenance projects within the energy sector. In view of this shortcoming, this research aims to examine the critical project management (PM) skills required to deliver major maintenance projects within the energy sector.

Based on a quantitative research strategy, this study addressed the knowledge gap through a cross-sectional survey of professionals involved in the delivery of major maintenance projects in the United Kingdom's (UK) energy sector. Data obtained were analyzed via descriptive (e.g. frequencies, mean and standard deviation [SD]) and inferential statistical analyses (One sample t-test and exploratory factor analysis (EFA)).

Out of the 45 PM skills identified in the literature and examined by the respondents, the results obtained from the One sample t-test (based on p (1-tailed) = 0.05) showed that 37 were considered to be at least “important,” accounting for 80.4% of all the skills identified. EFA revealed a clustering of the PM skills items into seven components: “skills related to work scheduling and coordination”; “communication, risk, safety and stakeholder management skills”; “quality assurance skills”; “people management skills”; “skills related to forecasting scope and duration of outage”; “implementation of processes and time management skills” and “technical/engineering skills and experience pertaining to the outage and local site knowledge.”

This study has identified and contributed to the limited state-of-the-art skills project managers must possess to manage major maintenance projects in the energy sector successfully. The findings would be useful to organizations within the energy sector in ensuring that the organizations have suitable personnel in place to deliver major maintenance projects on the organizations' assets.

This study describes how maintenance capability should be created during the design and construction phases of construction projects. Purpose of the abstract to define the elements for creating the maintenance capability and the process to be used in construction life cycle projects for buildings.

An inductive and qualitative research method was used to construct the proposed process based on the literature and 18 interviews in two large construction companies.

The results indicate that the maintenance phase is usually overlooked during the design and construction phases, and capabilities are not systematically built. In particular, processes are lacking in data management, causing severe problems in maintenance.

This study presents a process including key requirements and activities for creating maintenance capability in conjunction with the design and construction phases, which is novel to the literature. The validated process can be adapted based on the needs of the construction company.

This study investigates the integration of Industry 4.0 (I4.0) technologies with condition-based maintenance (CBM) in upstream oil and gas (O&G) operations, focussing on developing countries like Nigeria. The research identifies barriers to this integration and suggests solutions, intending to provide practical insights for improving operational efficiency in the O&G sector.

The study commenced with an exhaustive review of extant literature to identify existing barriers to I4.0 implementation and contextualise the study. Subsequent to this foundational step, primary data are gathered through the administration of carefully constructed questionnaires targeted at professionals specialised in maintenance within the upstream O&G sector. A semi-structured interview was also conducted to elicit more nuanced, contextual insights from these professionals. Analytically, the collected data were subjected to descriptive statistical methods for summarisation and interpretation with a measurement model to define the relationships between observed variables and latent construct. Moreover, the Relative Importance Index was utilised to systematically prioritise and rank the key barriers to I4.0 integration to CBM within the upstream O&G upstream sector.

The most ranked obstacles in integrating I4.0 technologies to the CBM strategy in the O&G industry are lack of budget and finance, limited engineering and technological resources, lack of support from executives and leaders of the organisations and lack of competence. Even though the journey of digitalisation has commenced in the O&G industry, there are limited studies in this area.

The study serves as both an academic cornerstone and a practical guide for the operational integration of I4.0 technologies within Nigeria's O&G upstream sector. Specifically, it provides an exhaustive analysis of the obstacles impeding effective incorporation into CBM practices. Additionally, the study contributes actionable insights for industry stakeholders to enhance overall performance and achieve key performance indices (KPIs).

Although the quality of health-care infrastructure and equipment influences patient’s overall health-care experience, health-care infrastructure and equipment are not always managed and maintained with the attention required. This is due mainly to the complexity of health-care infrastructure and equipment and shortage of maintenance budget. This study aims to determine if patient’s satisfaction of core health-care business is mediated by the quality of health-care infrastructure and equipment.

This cross-sectional study comprises 622 adult patients at the Physician OPD and Polyclinic of Komfo Anokye Teaching hospital, Tamale Teaching hospital and Cape Coast Teaching hospital in Ghana. Structural equation model Smart PLS was used to analyse the data.

The study results showed that the quality of health-care infrastructure and equipment has a positive significant influence (mediation) on the relationship between health-care delivery and patient’s satisfaction as well as the relationship between adequacy of health-care resources and patient’s satisfaction. However, it was shown not to have a positive significant influence (mediation) on the relationship between quality of health-care personnel and patients’ satisfaction as well as health-care administrative process and patient’s satisfaction.

First, the study findings are centred on cross-sectional data, which capture the opinion of the patients at a specific time period instead of over a period of time. Consequently, in future, though difficult to achieve, a longitudinal study can be piloted to provide more insight. Second, the data was collected from only one country (Ghana); thus, the ability to generalise the results may be a challenge.

The implication of this study is that there is the need to prudently maintain hospital infrastructure and equipment in good working condition as it has a positive effect on patients’ satisfaction of their overall health-care experience.

Most studies have concentrated on patient’s health-care experience. This study extends the knowledge of patient’s health-care experience by determining the mediating role of quality of health-care infrastructure and equipment on the relationship between patient’s satisfaction and core health-care business. There are limited studies of such nature in Ghana. Therefore, this study will provide invaluable empirical data for the health-care sector of a developing African country.

This paper aims to identify the different system approach using Building Information Modelling (BIM) technology that is equipped with decision making processes. Maintenance planning and management are integral components of the construction sector, serving the broader purpose of post-construction activities and processes. However, as Precast Concrete (PC) construction projects increase in scale and complexity, the interconnections among these activities and processes become apparent, leading to planning and performance management challenges. These challenges specifically affect the monitoring of façade components for corrective and preventive maintenance actions.

The concept of maintenance planning for façades, along with the main features of information and communication technology tools and techniques using building information modeling technology, is grounded in the analysis of numerous literature reviews in PC building scenarios.

This research focuses on an integrated system designed to analyze information and support decision-making in maintenance planning for PC buildings. It is based on robust data collection regarding concrete façades' failures and causes. The system aims to provide appropriate planning decisions and minimize the risk of façade failures throughout the building's lifetime.

The study concludes that implementing a research framework to develop such a system can significantly enhance the effectiveness of maintenance planning for façade design, construction and maintenance operations.

This paper extends the authors’ previous research work investigating resilience for municipal infrastructure from an asset management perspective. Therefore, this paper aims to formulate a pavement resilience index while incorporating asset management and the associated resilience indicators from the authors’ previous research work.

This paper introduces a set of holistic-based key indicators that reflect municipal infrastructure resiliency. Thenceforth, the indicators were integrated using the weighted sum mean method to form the proposed resilience index. Resilience indicators weights were determined using principal components analysis (PCA) via IBM SPSS®. The developed framework for the PCA was built based on an optimization model output to generate the required weights for the desired resilience index. The output optimization data were adjusted using the standardization method before performing PCA.

This paper offers a mathematical approach to generating a resilience index for municipal infrastructure. The statistical tests conducted throughout the study showed a high significance level. Therefore, using PCA was proper for the resilience indicators data. The proposed framework is beneficial for asset management experts, where introducing the proposed index will provide ease of use to decision-makers regarding pavement network maintenance planning.

The resilience indicators used need to be updated beyond what is mentioned in this paper to include asset redundancy and structural asset capacity. Using clustering as a validation tool is an excellent opportunity for other researchers to examine the resilience index for each pavement corridor individually pertaining to the resulting clusters.

This paper provides a unique example of integrating resilience and asset management concepts and serves as a vital step toward a comprehensive integration approach between the two concepts. The used PCA framework offers dynamic resilience indicators weights and, therefore, a dynamic resilience index. Resiliency is a dynamic feature for infrastructure systems. It differs during their life cycle with the change in maintenance and rehabilitation plans, systems retrofit and the occurring disruptive events throughout their life cycle. Therefore, the PCA technique was the preferred method used where it is data-based oriented and eliminates the subjectivity while driving indicators weights.

This paper aims to examine the performance efficiency of 56 real estate assets within the rental sector in the UAE to evaluate the relative operation efficiency in relation to revenue generation.

The data envelopment analysis (DEA) approach was used to measure the relative operational efficiency of the studied assets in relation to the revenue performance. This method could produce a more informed and balanced approach to performance measurement.

The outcomes show that scores of efficiencies ranging from 7% to 99% in some of the models. The results showed that on average buildings are 75% relatively less efficient in maintenance, in term of revenue generation, than the benchmark set. Likewise, on average, the inefficient buildings are 60% relatively less efficient in insurance. Result also shows that 95% of the building assets in the sample are by and large operating at decreasing returns to scale. This implies that managers need to considerably reduce the operational resources (input) to improve the levels of revenue.

This study recommends that the FM operational variables that were found to inefficiently contribute to the revenue should be re-examined to test the validity of the findings. This is necessary before generalising or interpolating the results that are presented in this study.

The information obtained about operational performance can help FM managers to understand which improvements in the productivity of inefficient FM resources are required, providing insight into how to reduce operating costs and increase revenue.

This paper adds value in using new FM operational parameters to evaluate the efficiency of the performance of built assets.

The purpose of this paper was to understand the difficulties related to asset management observed by experts in Brazilian organizations in light of the requirements outlined in the ISO 55001:2014 standard.

A survey was performed with asset management experts. The collected data were analyzed using frequency analysis, hierarchical cluster analysis and fuzzy technique for order preference by similarity to deal solution (TOPSIS).

Based on data analysis, the most critical difficulties observed were related to managing and controlling the impact of changes in the company that affect asset management objectives; to the committing to and supporting the asset management system by the top management of the organization; to manage the processes for dealing with risks and opportunities for the asset management system and plans, and correcting failures in asset performance; and to plan and conduct actions in an integrated manner to identify and minimize adverse impacts associated with the asset management system, and afterwards verifying their effectiveness.

The findings of this study have important theoretical and practical contributions, since they indicate the most critical points observed in asset management in Brazil, which can be used as a source for future research and by professionals to prioritize difficulties in future planning and develop action plans to overcome them. The step-by-step methodological approach presented in this study provides professionals and researchers with a replicable method of identifying potential asset management difficulties in a given specific reality.

Design cost overrun is one of the prominent factor that can impact the sustainable delivery of the project. It can be encountered due to a lack of information flow, design variation, etc. thereby impacting the project budget, waste generation and schedule. An overarching impact of this is witnessed in the sustainability dimensions of the project, mainly in terms of economic and environmental aspects. This work, therefore, aims to assess the implications of a technological process, in the form of building information modelling (BIM), that can smoothen the design process and mitigate the risks, thus impacting the sustainability of the project holistically.

The identified design risks in construction projects from the literature were initially analysed using a fuzzy inference system (FIS). This was followed by the focus group discussion with the project experts to understand the role of BIM in mitigating the project risks and, in turn, fulfilling the sustainability dimensions.

The FIS-based risk assessment found seven risks under the intolerable category for which the BIM functionalities associated with the common data environment (CDE), data storage and exchange and improved project visualization were studied as mitigation approaches. The obtained benefits were then subsequently corroborated with the achievement of three sustainability dimensions.

The conducted study strengthens the argument for the adoption of technological tools in the construction industry as they can serve multifaceted advantages. This has been shown through the use of BIM in risk mitigation, which inherently impacts project sustainability holistically.

The impact of BIM on all three dimensions of sustainability, i.e. social, economic and environmental, through its use in the mitigation of critical risks was one of the important findings. It presented a different picture as opposed to other studies that have mainly been dominated by the use of BIM to achieve environmental sustainability.