Deriving Maintenance Strategies for Cooperative Alliances - A Value Chain Approach

Partnering with other companies or even with competitors, to tackle emerging maintenance challenges, can be a source of sustainable competitive advantage. This is the outcome of two expert interviews based on the derived decision-helping framework proposed by this diploma thesis. Three dimensions making up a maintenance strategy are introduced: maintenance technique, maintenance organisation and maintenance reach. Suggesting that the decision about maintenance strategy is made by applying the Analytical Hierarchy Process, this framework builds upon customer value drivers, industry value drivers, capabilities and stakeholder expectations to ensure sustainable competitive advantage for cooperative alliances.