An integrated approach to decision support for maintenance management: a case study for machine tools

This paper presents a case study of maintenance management applied to the field of the machine tools. This market hasn't a very large scale and is characterized by high differentiated products with a deep impact of innovation and technology on the solutions. Maintenance has become a key factor for the machine tools business, giving competition advantage both to the achine manufacturer and the user. The first will be able to provide a life long maintenance service, at competitive prices, the other will have the benefits for the reduction of the costs of the breakdowns and of the maintenance contracts. The result of the work carried out by the authors is an integrated maintenance decision support system; it aims to predict the breakdowns measuring key parameters of the machine behaviour and to support the service provider to interpret the data in order to plan the optimal (technical and economical) maintenance action.