Is Sustainable Maintenance A Support- Or Standalone Function? A Definition

Sustainability is getting more and more attention in society, industry, and research. Companies are increasingly focusing on sustainable practices to meet different requirements. Industrial maintenance, which tends to be considered sustainable, is now more frequently examined in research for its actual sustainability, and various approaches to the design of maintenance are being presented. In this context, the term sustainable maintenance is not uniformly defined. There are different underlying assumptions about the term sustainability within the maintenance function itself, whether it is a support-function to enable sustainable manufacturing or a standalone function to improve sustainability in manufacturing companies by itself. For this reason, this study defines the term Sustainable Maintenance based on previous publications. For this purpose, a systematic literature review of 46 publications identified as relevant to the topic is conducted, and then a definition is derived via the Genus Proximum et Differentia Specifica by Aristotle through the distinction of sustainable maintenance from traditional maintenance.