Author: Ing. Jan Stoker MSc. MEng. 

Introduction 

Click to enlarge

The European standard EN 17007 offers a comprehensive framework to categorize maintenance processes into three distinct families: Management, Realization, and Support processes. These categories define the scope, structure, and sequence of actions required to maintain assets effectively. This article will explore these maintenance processes in depth and integrate the Asset Management Lemniscate and Asset Management Bow Tie models, which provide additional layers of understanding in asset lifecycle management and risk mitigation.

1. The Maintenance Process Framework

1.1 Management Processes

The management process serves as the strategic backbone of the maintenance framework. It encompasses activities that align maintenance actions with organizational goals, ensuring coherence and direction across all levels of operation. Key functions within the management process include:

• Strategy Formulation: Setting long-term goals for asset performance and aligning them with corporate objectives.
• Policy Development: Defining maintenance policies that dictate resource allocation, compliance, and operational procedures.
• Organizational Design: Structuring roles, responsibilities, and hierarchies to manage maintenance effectively.
• Continuous Improvement: Driving initiatives that focus on enhancing processes and outcomes through regular feedback and performance analysis.

Incorporating the Asset Management Lemniscate, the management process can be seen as the decision-making loop that continuously evaluates and redefines asset strategies based on lifecycle data. The Lemniscate model illustrates the dynamic interaction between strategic asset management and operational activities, ensuring that maintenance decisions remain relevant as assets evolve.

1.2 Realization Processes

The realization process is where strategic intentions are translated into tangible actions. It focuses on the execution of maintenance tasks, both preventive and corrective, that directly affect asset performance. These tasks ensure that assets maintain their functionality and reliability over time. Key components of realization processes include:

• Preventive Maintenance (PRV): Actions taken to avoid potential failures by anticipating wear, fatigue, or other degradation mechanisms.
• Corrective Maintenance (COR): Restorative actions aimed at repairing or restoring the functionality of assets after a failure has occurred.
• Improvement Actions (IMP): Continuous efforts to enhance the intrinsic reliability and maintainability of assets.

The Asset Management Bow Tie model becomes especially relevant in realization processes as it highlights the dual roles of prevention and mitigation in managing risks. Preventive maintenance acts as the defensive line, aiming to avoid failures altogether, while corrective maintenance serves as the mitigative action to reduce the impact of failures that do occur. This bifurcation helps organizations clearly define and manage the risks associated with asset failures.

1.3 Support Processes

Support processes are essential for providing the resources, infrastructure, and information required to execute both management and realization processes. They ensure that all operational and strategic goals can be met efficiently by addressing the logistical and administrative needs of maintenance operations. These processes include:

• Resource Provisioning (RES): Ensuring the availability of internal and external human resources, spare parts, tools, and equipment.
• Risk Management (HSE): Managing the health, safety, and environmental risks associated with maintenance tasks.
• Budgeting (BUD): Allocating and managing financial resources for maintenance activities, ensuring that the necessary funds are available for both routine and emergency tasks.
• Historical Data Management (DTA): Recording and analyzing maintenance histories to inform future decisions and optimize processes.
• Process Optimization (OPT): Continuously refining maintenance workflows and activities to improve efficiency and reduce costs.

Support processes align with the Asset Management Lemniscate by providing the necessary resources and data that feed back into the strategic decision-making cycle. Additionally, the support processes contribute to risk mitigation efforts, as described in the Asset Management Bow Tie, by ensuring that resources are in place to handle potential failures efficiently and safely.

2. Integration of Maintenance with Asset management Models

2.1 The Asset Management Lemniscate

The Asset Management Lemniscate model provides a visual representation of the continuous vertical and horizontal loop, better known as the vertical and horizontal Line of Sight,  between asset strategy and operational execution. Maintenance processes, especially the management and realization processes, are deeply integrated into this loop. As assets progress through their lifecycle, data gathered from maintenance actions feeds back into the strategic decision-making process, influencing future policies, resource allocations, and improvement initiatives.

The Lemniscate emphasizes the importance of a dynamic, iterative approach to asset management. Maintenance, therefore, is not a static or isolated activity but a key contributor to the ongoing evaluation and adjustment of asset strategies. This ensures that assets remain aligned with organizational goals throughout their lifecycle, from design and acquisition to operation, modernization, and eventual decommissioning.

2.1 The Asset Management Bow-Tie

Click to enlarge

The support processes, particularly in the context of risk management, resource provisioning, and safety measures, ensure that all preventive and mitigative actions are adequately supported.

3. The Industry 5.0 context: Human-Centric, Sustainable and resilient Maintenance

Industry 5.0 is characterized by a shift toward a more integrated and forward-thinking approach to industrial operations, with a focus on three core pillars: human-centricity, sustainability, and resilience. In this context, maintenance processes must adapt to support these goals, ensuring that assets not only operate efficiently but also contribute to the long-term viability and adaptability of the organization.

3.1 Human-Centric Maintenance

The human-centric pillar of Industry 5.0 emphasizes the collaboration between humans and technology, leveraging the strengths of both to create more intelligent and adaptive systems. Maintenance, traditionally viewed as a largely technical domain, must evolve to prioritize human input and engagement alongside automation and digitalization.

• Skilled Workforce: In Industry 5.0, the role of maintenance professionals becomes more strategic, requiring advanced skills to interact with intelligent systems, such as AI-driven predictive maintenance tools. The management process must focus on developing and nurturing these skills, ensuring that the workforce can effectively manage both physical and digital assets.
• Health and Safety: A key aspect of human-centric maintenance is the prioritization of worker safety and well-being. The support processes, particularly those related to risk management (HSE), must be enhanced to mitigate hazards in increasingly complex environments. AI-driven monitoring systems and collaborative robots (cobots) will play a critical role in reducing risks while allowing workers to focus on higher-level tasks.

Industry 5.0 sees human workers not as replaceable entities but as essential contributors to the maintenance process, offering creativity, adaptability, and problem-solving abilities that complement automated systems.

3.2 Sustainable Maintenance

Sustainability is a central theme in Industry 5.0, with an increasing focus on minimizing environmental impact while maintaining operational efficiency. In the realm of maintenance, this translates to the development of processes that extend asset life, reduce resource consumption, and mitigate waste.

• Extended Asset Life: Preventive and predictive maintenance, core aspects of the realization process, contribute directly to sustainability by ensuring that assets function optimally for longer periods. By avoiding unplanned downtime and extending the life of machinery and equipment, organizations can reduce the need for new materials and energy-intensive repairs or replacements.
• Energy and Resource Efficiency: Support processes like resource management (SPP and RES) must prioritize energy efficiency and the responsible use of materials. By optimizing resource consumption, maintenance can align with the broader goals of reducing carbon footprints and supporting circular economies.

Sustainable maintenance practices are integral to the longevity of both assets and the organization, ensuring that maintenance actions support environmental objectives and promote responsible stewardship of physical resources.

3.3 Resilient Maintenance

Resilience is the third foundational element of Industry 5.0, emphasizing the ability of organizations to anticipate, absorb, and recover from disruptions. In an increasingly unpredictable global environment, resilient maintenance processes are essential for safeguarding asset performance in the face of external shocks, whether they be technological, economic, or environmental.

• Anticipation of Disruptions: Resilient maintenance involves not just reactive responses but also proactive strategies to anticipate potential disruptions. This includes the integration of predictive analytics into the management process, where data-driven insights are used to foresee failures and adjust maintenance strategies accordingly. For example, the use of IoT sensors and AI can provide early warnings of potential breakdowns, allowing organizations to address issues before they escalate.
• Rapid Recovery and Adaptability: Resilience in the realization process focuses on minimizing downtime and restoring functionality swiftly after a disruption. By employing modular systems, spare part availability, and flexible resource deployment, maintenance teams can quickly recover from unexpected failures, maintaining operational continuity.
• Building Redundancy and Flexibility: Support processes like infrastructure management (IST) and spare parts provisioning (SPP) play a critical role in resilience by ensuring that organizations have the necessary backup systems and parts in place to handle emergencies. Moreover, resilience requires the continual improvement of processes (OPT), where lessons learned from past disruptions are incorporated into future maintenance plans.

In the context of Industry 5.0, resilience extends beyond traditional risk management. It requires a robust and adaptable maintenance framework that not only handles current challenges but also evolves to meet future uncertainties. By building resilience into maintenance practices, organizations can protect their assets and ensure long-term operational stability even in volatile environments.

4. Wrap Up

As Industry 5.0 reshapes the industrial landscape, maintenance processes must evolve to meet the demands of a more complex, interconnected, and dynamic world. The integration of human-centric, sustainable, and resilient approaches into the maintenance framework ensures that organizations can achieve not only operational efficiency but also long-term adaptability and environmental responsibility.

The structured framework provided by EN 17007, when viewed through the lenses of the Asset Management Lemniscate and Asset Management Bow Tie models, provides a comprehensive strategy for achieving these goals. By emphasizing the continuous interaction between asset strategy and operations, while managing risks and sustainability objectives, maintenance becomes more than a set of technical tasks. It becomes a strategic function that drives organizational success in the Industry 5.0 era, where human ingenuity, technological innovation, and adaptability converge.

Through the integration of management, realization, and support processes, maintenance becomes a key enabler of the human-centric, sustainable, and resilient principles that define Industry 5.0. This holistic approach ensures that maintenance not only maintains assets but also builds the foundation for future growth and sustainability in an increasingly complex industrial environment.

Tags: Newsletter 1