Investigating the Impact of Procurement Practices on Maintenance: A Case Study of Future Global Resources.

Abstract

The nature of maintenance activities has changed over time as businesses have become more concerned with maintaining equipment in order to reduce costs associated with breakdowns. A number of practices including predictive and preventive maintenance have been adopted to increase productivity but more research is still needed and one of the areas in is procurement. This study aims to investigate the impact of procurement practices on maintenance in Future Global Resources. While the methods used by different businesses to procure may differ based on their procurement policies and financial capacity, there are some common practices. The departments involved in this study were selected using purposive sampling method. Data was collected from 52 respondents from the maintenance and procurement department using convenience sampling approach. This research also uses a quantitative methodology to investigate the impact of procurement practices on maintenance activities. The main conclusions of this study show that implementing best practices in procurement such as assessing suppliers, enforcing quality control, and educating and retraining of staff improves the availability of high-quality spare parts, increases the availability of equipment and lowers the cost of downtime. This study adds to our understanding of the interdependence between procurement and maintenance activities and the necessity of increased departmental collaboration.