A level of service framework for service-centric asset management planning

The purpose is to develop and implement a systematic approach to define the level of service (LoS) consistently and efficiently. The framework will assist professionals to make decisions based on service performance and transform to a service-centric decision-making paradigm in the domain of asset management. A three-step approach is used to develop the framework. A comprehensive literature review is conducted (Step 1), which is followed by a discussion with experts (Step 2). Based on the desktop review and field discovery, the framework is developed and implemented (Step 3). The framework represents key components in four phases. The first phase identifies the potential service customers. The second phase defines the customer values and LoS measures at three levels: organisation, customer and technical. Implementation is done in the third phase, whereas monitoring and evaluation as part of continuous improvement are accomplished in the fourth phase. The challenges of this research work are categorised as follows. Strategic challenges focus on the awareness and alignment of strategic goals. Informational and financial challenges discuss non-availability of related information and cost-effectiveness of data collection, respectively. Human challenges discuss the availability of adequate human resources with an adequate skill set. Others discuss the non-availability of defined processes and procedures. Theoretically, the framework represents key performance management concepts to develop an integrated approach to define the acceptable LoS effectively. Practically, professionals can use the framework to define the LoS consistently and efficiently. Existing guides and frameworks represent a set of performance management concepts; however, these do not specify an integrated approach to define, align and integrate the LoS or performance goals. The proposed framework is developed to fill this gap.