Maintenance management in nanotech-environment: The challenges ahead

The recently introduced high-tech based systems in our technological world induced a much-revolutionised kind of industrial maintenance concept. However, the task became relatively manageable owing to the fast evolution of the tools like computerised maintenance management system (CMMS). So far as the nanotechnology-based developments are concerned, the maintenance tasks associated with the newer technologies would pose, perhaps altogether some new kind of challenges to the future maintenance engineers due to the very nature of the size and shape of the devices and systems to be handled. Present paper made an attempt to explore how the presently ongoing maintenance management activities might get affected under the impact of the nanotechnological developments of tomorrow. The classical approach elements are discussed, and how these elements are likely to get affected are highlighted. The paper concludes with the challenges that lie ahead for the tomorrow's designers of the maintenance management system befitting to handle the nanotechnology based systems and devices. Copyright © 2009, Inderscience Publishers.