Incorporating Multidimensional Risk Evaluation in Sustainable Maintenance for Operational Performance

Abstract

PurposeSustainability in operations management is a rapidly growing concern for organizations, and it needs to be embraced by all processes to increase productivity and operational performance. Under these operations, maintenance activities have significant environmental, social and economic consequences for organizations; therefore, sustainable maintenance is a significant concept for organizations. Due to the nature of maintenance activities, multiple risks are associated with them. It is crucial to systematically define and evaluate these risks to achieve more sustainable practices and improved operational performance. From this perspective, this study aims to define risks associated with sustainable maintenance, evaluate them to gain a deeper understanding and provide recommendations for enhancing operational performance.Design/methodology/approachFuzzy synthetic evaluation is employed for multidimensional risk evaluation, which systematically analyses these risks using the level of severity (LS), likelihood of occurrence (LO) and detectability (D) as parameters. In total, seven main risks and 35 sub-risks are presented in this study.FindingsThe results showed that risks related to employee attitudes and managerial and organizational issues dominate sustainable maintenance, revealing the importance of the human factor in sustainable maintenance. Furthermore, all risks are ranked based on the study's findings, and implications are presented about these results.Originality/valueAlthough interest in sustainable maintenance is proliferating in the operations management field, and risks in maintenance have been studied by different authors, none of these studies have integrated risk evaluation with sustainable maintenance by providing specified risks that combine the concepts of sustainability risks and maintenance risks. The primary contribution of this study lies in combining these concepts to provide a multidimensional risk evaluation that enhances operational performance. The results of this research are expected to provide valuable insights into sustainable maintenance operations from a risk evaluation perspective, and the suggestions provided in the study will be beneficial for improving operational performance.