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Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to develop a preventive maintenance (PM) model that encounters the problems of traditional methods of conducting PM within high component/machine variety environments. Design/methodology/approach -A new platform to conduct planning of the PM actions by using clustering based on the Group Technology concept to create PM virtual cells of equipment/machines is introduced. A real case study at Arab Potash Company was used to illustrate the model. The component/machine variety that requires PM at the considered company is in thousands of items. Findings -PM for high component/machine environments are not enough addressed in the literature. The concept of clustering and similarity coefficient was used and found very useful to model this situation. Practical implications -The proposed procedure will assist maintenance managers/engineers in too many ways. It will help to optimize the inventory of the spare parts, and to create standard process plan for executing the preventive maintenance operation. Originality/value -This paper presents a new procedure to implement preventive maintenance in high component/machine environments using clustering technique concept. Models that address this concept are rare and very limited in the literature.

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