Purpose The purpose of this paper is to identify what is currently valued in maintenance services. The study first conceptualizes the value construct through an examination of its elements, including both financial and non-financial elements, and second provides insight into its actors’ (i.e. customer companies, service providers, equipment providers) attitudes toward value creation. Design/methodology/approach The study uses data collected from maintenance service professionals by an online survey. First an explorative factor analysis is conducted to examine the value construct. After this cluster analysis is conducted to define the actors. Findings The empirical findings suggest seven main elements that capture maintenance service value: relationship synergies, reliability of the service partner, development, availability, service solutions and problem solving ability, environment, health, safety and quality, and adaptability to suit different situations. Further analysis reveals that the actors can be divided into three main strategy types: basic, quality- and collaboration-oriented partners. Originality/value In previous studies the comprehensive nature of maintenance service value has received less attention, and the literature has focused on the technical and financial aspects. This paper provides a new conceptualization of the value creating elements, including also non-financial elements, and offers an integrated measure for the actors to identify the comprehensive value construct around maintenance services. In addition, the findings show that the actors in the field still have varying strategies when considering value creation. Communication and mutual understanding of the value creating elements are important so that right services are carried out and developed with the right partners.

Abstract:To maximize the total value in a maintenance business relationship it is important to know what the partner values. The value of industrial maintenance service can be considered to consist of value elements, and the perceived total value for the customer and service provider is the sum of these value elements. The specific objectives of this paper are to verify the most important value elements for the maintenance service customer and provider and also to recognize where the value elements differ, by using the non-parametric tests Wilcoxon and Mann-Whitney U. The data has been collected by an online survey sent to 345 maintenance service professionals in Finland. In the survey, four different types of value elements were considered: the customer's high critical and Author low critical items and the service provider's core and support service. The most valued elements by the respondents were reliability, safety at work, environmental safety, and operator knowledge.

No abstract

No abstract