New, global and extended markets are forcing companies to process and manage increasingly differentiated products with shorter life cycles, low volumes and reduced customer delivery times. In today's global marketplace production systems need to be able to deliver products on time, maintain market credibility and introduce new products and services faster than competitors. As a result, a new production paradigm of a production system has been developed and a supporting management decision-making approach simultaneously incorporating design, management, and control of the production system is necessary so that this challenge can be effectively and efficiency met.

"Maintenance Engineering and its Applications in Production Systems" meets this need by introducing an original and integrated idea of maintenance: maintenance for productivity. The volume starts with the introduction and discussion of a new conceptual framework based on productivity, quality, and safety supported by maintenance. Subsequent chapters illustrate the most relevant models and methods to plan, organise, implement and control the whole maintenance process (reliability evaluation models and prediction, maintenance strategies and policies, spare parts management, computer maintenance management software - CMMS, and total productive maintenance - TPM, etc.). Several examples of problems supported by solutions, and real applications to help and test the reader's comprehension are included.

"Maintenance Engineering and its Applications in Production Systems" will certainly be valuable to engineering students, doctoral and post-doctoral students and also to maintenance practitioners, as well as managers of industrial and service companies.