Outsourcing maintenance using PBMC

Abstract

When it comes down to building or maintaining civil infrastructure commissioned by a governmental body, a lot has changed during the last couple of years. The government made a turn from all determining body, to a cooperative partner and later even to an organization that’s outsourcing most of the construction and maintenance work to second and third parties. Changing the working methodology requires a change in the contracting strategy. Nowadays, the contract of choice for maintenance used by governmental and semi-governmental organizations is the performance-based maintenance contract (PBMC). There are many risks and important factors that influence the outcome of the use of PBMC in a negative way. Organizations that use them seem to overlook those negative influences and just focus on the potential cost savings. This results to a contract that hasn’t really been updated since it was first introduced. This leaves a situation where the effectiveness of the contract form is less than optimal; the contract does not deliver its full potential and the writers of the contract have no standardized way to approach the PBMC. The goal of thesis is to therefore find a structured way that can assist the contract design teams in making informed decision when drafting a PBMC. In order to find that structured way, the ingredients that would make up the structure had to be found. To achieve that, a literature study was performed in which all the criteria that would influence the outcome of a PBMC where gathered and categorized into five main decision criteria: predictability, plannability, measurability, responsibility and criticality. Next up, the parameters of the PBMC had to be found. These parameters would enable the user of the method to change the way an object would be outsourced based on the five main decision criteria. The parameters that where found are: size/scope, contribution of the contractor and the performance requirements. In order to provide the user with sensible information about a certain object to base their decisions on about the way of outsourcing, a trustworthy and function information gathering tool/method was needed. Within the area of reliability centered maintenance (RCM), the failure mode, effects and criticality analysis (FMECA) method was found to be very useful to gather the required information to base these decisions on. Another method that was found to be useful was the risk allocation matrix by Brommet. This method was created to give the user insight in possible outsourcing and payment solutions for DBFM contracts, but a redesign of the original matrix proved just as useful in making suggestions about outsourcing and payment methods for PBMC. All this information led to the creation of the decision-support method. This method, which contains 7 steps, was created to help contract design teams in making their initial decision about the way a certain object should be outsourced. The first step is designed to find the necessary information and prepare the risk allocation matrix to make it usable for this specific case. Steps 2 to 7 are designed to give a step by step answer on how to interpret each parameter and to reach a decision on how to outsource a certain part of an object. These steps are repeated for every single part of the object until a suggested outsourcing decision is made for every single part. The decision-support method is tested twice on a real case. During these case studies improvements were made to the initial model. Eventually the method is presented during an expert meeting within Rijkswaterstaat and another set of improvements was implemented. It can be concluded that the method can be successful in helping the contract design team is making a PBMC. Both by using the entire method of utilizing parts of it during the contract design process. The method helps the user to think of more options and assists in weighing these different options against each other. Although, the methods needs further testing and can definitely be improved. The potential of a method like this was definitely recognized during the expert meeting. The last part of the thesis is therefore dedicated to the limitations of the method at this time and the future research and improvements that can be made.