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Acquisition decisions for capital assets have a titanic impact on the operational costs of capital-intensive organizations. After the acquisition process, the cost of ownership is tied to the design characteristics of the assets, which dictate how they are operated and maintained. This reflects the importance of the prominent role of maintenance in the asset acquisition process, creating an optimal balance between suppliers, owners and maintainers. To provide this balance, the maintenance organization can use supportability analysis to asses design and measure its impact on the support organization. The analysis will highlight the design attributes of an asset that create critical demand for support resources. The resources will be necessary in order to sustain operational capability. In this work, we review existing literature for the purchasing of capital assets and supportability analysis methods. To understand the drivers of demand for support resources we conducted field studies of asset downtime using examples of trains that operate within The Netherlands. We further motivate research and provide our research agenda.

The Dutch gas distribution grid faces several changes in the near future. Among others, the share of green gas will grow, the interaction with the electricity distribution grid and local heat grids will increase, and the grid will transform from a mono-gas system to a multi-gas system. The gas distribution grid is likely to be expanded with novel components, e.g. blending stations, gas storage sites, and gas compressor stations. Furthermore, these changes require the currently passive gas distribution grid to become a smart gas grid that monitors and controls the gas pressure, gas flow, and gas quality. Therefore, the distribution service operators need to make investments in the gas distribution grid. When looking at for example the introduction of green gas, a decision tree on the optimal green gas supply configuration can be identified. Decisions in this respect consider, among others, the location of several process steps (perform the process step locally at a small scale or centrally at a larger scale) and the addition of components like a gas storage site or a compressor station. Due to the multitude of development options for the gas distribution grid and the fact that the best solution is largely dependent on the local situation and performance criteria (e.g. CO2 emission minimization or cost minimization), a tool is required that can generate situation specific solutions. Each solution generated by the tool should have its own advantages and disadvantages. Generating multiple options and showing the advantage and disadvantage of them provides the distribution service operators insight in the available options and eases the decision making on investments of the gas distribution grid.

Citation informationCite this article as: Mapping challenges and methodologies for providing PSS -a thematic and descriptive analysis,