Within this harsh economic landscape, maintenance has been viewed as a cost center, not a profit center, which has made it an easy target when downsizing takes place. Rather than providing justification to keep valuable employees, most maintenance managers simply have complied with top management edicts for meeting workforce reduction quotas. As a result, many companies are experiencing the effects of smaller maintenance staffs. Often, these companies are not able to achieve profitable production levels or keep their equipment maintained to reach its full life expectancy. Despite the popular perception that maintenance is simply a cost center, it is not.
Maintenance is, in fact, a profit center that generates production capacity.
As such, it requires an attitude of professional excellence and promotion of its corporate value. Maintenance managers have had difficulty collecting information that documents their true contributions and presenting that information in a way that proves their department's value to top executives. One reason is, to date, maintenance departments have been able to quantify only their costs, not their contributions to profitability. Other common problems in maintenance are the focus on today and not planning for tomorrow. To be successful, however, companies must not only focus resources on improving current systems but also on installing technologies for the future.