An Enterprise Architecture Based Method for Quantified Analysis of IT System Impact on Maintenance Management

This paper presents a method for quantified analysis of the impact ICT systems have on maintenance management. The method is based on Enterprise Architecture (EA) which is a model based tool enabling holistic management of an enterprise?s ICT system portfolio and its relation and support to the business. A domain where the relation between ICT systems and business processes is crucial for cost efficient operation is maintenance of asset intensive geographically distributed processes, such as distribution of electric power. Power utilities invest many monetary resources in maintenance, a large proportion of these investments being related to development and integration of ICT systems. Thus, there is a need for the power utilities to understand how the products of these investments influence the performance of the maintenance process. The degree of efficiency of these investments runs a risk of being low unless there is a clear understanding of how specific ICT system solutions affects the maintenance activities. The suggested method combines EA with the Maintenance Scorecard and introduces Extended Influence Diagrams (EIDs) to enable a quantitative analysis of how cause and effect between ICT systems and the performance of maintenance processes are related to each other. The method provides management support for rationale decisions concerning ICT systemsi?œ support of the domain of maintenance management. The paper is concluded with an example of how the method can be applied to a typical maintenance process within an electric power utility