Developing methods for measuring social, economic, and environmental impacts of maintenance activities for physical assets

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In accordance with sustainable development principles, companies are incorporating the triple bottom line (TBL) of sustainability- profit, people, and planet- into their strategic and action plans. Asset managers can play a significant role in creating a sustainable environment, by mitigating the negative impacts of physical assets on the TBL. This requires quantifying the impacts and measuring the contribution of maintenance activities.In this project, we aim to develop an asset sustainability dashboard that quantifies the economic, environmental, and social impacts of an equipment. It measures the impact of maintenance interventions on the TBL and provides a mechanism to improve a facility's overall sustainability performance. A number of statistical and decision analysis techniques will be used to derive the relationship between maintenance actions and sustainability indicators and to design an overall sustainability score for a system or a group of systems operating in a facility. The project will be conducted in two phases. First, the link between good maintenance, sustainability, and consequently the circular economy will be established using two activities: 1) a systematicreview of the scientific literature; and 2) a survey analysis among practitioners. This phase proves the positive impact of maintenance on sustainability indicators and reveals the potential contribution of preventive maintenance activities in financial, environmental, and social impacts. The sustainability indicators that are influenced by maintenance practices are also finalized in this phase. Second, a sustainability monitoring dashboard will be built to measure the relationship between the targeted indicators and information about the equipment, including preventive maintenance frequencies and its efficiency, corrective maintenance efficiency, failure records, and equipment age. Based on the quantified relationship, the current/future performance in all the targeted indicators will be measured/projected.