System support for maintenance of production equipment and advanced test environment : Proposal for Saab’s Maintenance Operation

Abstract: In today’s industry, where manufacturing is fast and efficient, uptime for manufacturing machines plays a key role for companies to stay relevant with their competitors. Although manufacturing equipment today is very advanced and sometimes automated, they may still run into problems and wear out. By maintaining and servicing the equipment well, one can avoid unexpected equipment failure and unnecessary downtime. Keeping track and documenting maintenance can play a crucial role in how efficiently a manufacturer can produce their product. Maintenance management software exists on the market today, but they are large and expensive. As Saab, a manufacturer of highly advanced military technology, does not have a well-established system for managing their maintenance, there is a need for an evaluation and development of a customised option. In this thesis, the maintenance needs for Saab’s operations were analysed, and options for developing maintenance software that fits these needs were investigated. The result was a web application hosted on a Python-based web server, which uses MongoDB as a database to store data in an object-oriented manner, allowing flexibility within the system. The application is not fully developed but provides an overall picture of how a smaller software could serve the same purpose as the larger ones. After evaluating the developed application alongside the existing maintenance software, it is concluded that with further development, the application could serve the same function and be a competitive contender alongside the larger software. However, the safer and more reliable option for Saab would be to instead implement one of the existing software solutions.