Organizational dimensions of e-maintenance: a multi-contextual perspective

A key objective for e-maintenance efforts is to align maintenance processes with business-and operational processes in order to reach organizational objectives. In the context of the process-and manufacturing industry a key objective for firms is to avoid downtime and to make sure all critical production equipment is up and running. To this end, e-maintenance has become increasingly important for the process- and manufacturing industry. Successful e-maintenance is realized by the organizational use of advanced information technology-solutions which aims at moving maintenance work from being primarily reactive (e.g. to react and respond to equipment breakdowns) to predictive (e.g. to predict when equipment are in need of maintenance before it breaks down). Building on a collaborative project with industrial organizations in the pulp and paper and the mining industry this paper explores organizational opportunities and challenges associated with the design and implementation of IT-based services for remote diagnostics of industrial equipment. We observe opportunities and challenges related to organizational innovation and learning. The paper introduces a multi-contextual perspective to better understand the opportunities and challenges associated with organizational learning and innovation. We argue that in order for e-maintenance services to be successful it must not only build on leading-edge technological solutions but also be built on an explicit model for how the maintenance work is organized and how e-maintenance efforts are aligned with overall organizational objectives.