Decision Making in Physical Asset Repair/Replacement: A Literature Review

Abstract

In modern world, almost all the organisations use physical assets such as buildings, vehicles, equipment and machinery, etc. to carry out their business operations. These assets consume a considerable amount of money during their life cycle and therefore, physical asset management has become an important aspect which affects the profitability of any organisation. All assets deteriorate over time and failures of assets will raise the need for maintenance. Proper maintenance can extend the life time of a physical asset. However, at the end of useful life time, organisations have to replace them with suitable new ones. Replacement of an asset requires enormous investments and therefore mostly, they try to extend life time of assets through repair and maintenance. However, in some situations organizations decide to replace assets even when they are in a good condition. As per previous researchers, many assets in the industry are older than the life they were originally designed for and in many cases, failure to replace them have led to high energy consumption, high maintenance costs and increased risk of accidents and calamities. On the other hand, organizations have experienced negative impacts due to unnecessary replacement of physical assets. Hence, making a decision between these two contradictory options presents a big challenge for asset owners. Decision making in physical asset repair/replacement involves selecting a logical choice and determining the option, which is the best for the particular situation. Knowing how to decide which option is best for organization’s operations and when assets should be replaced will help to control downtime and unexpected costs. Though asset maintenance has received an increasing attention, there is a lack of a comprehensive research in the area of asset replacement. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to review the literature on physical asset repair/replacement decision making practices. A comprehensive literature review identified the reasons for replacement of assets and the factors that trigger physical asset repair/replacement decision making process. The literature findings will be used to evaluate the current practice of physical asset repair/replacement decision making in Sri Lanka, in the next phase of study.

Keywords: Physical Asset Replacement, Physical Asset Repair, Decision Making