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The purpose is to describe new business opportunities within the Swedish railway industry and to support the development of business models that corresponds with the needs and requirements of Industry 4.0, here denoted as Service Management 4.0.

The study is an in-depth and descriptive case study of the Swedish railway system with specific focus on a railway vehicle maintainer. Public reports, statistics, internal documents, interviews and dialogues forms the basis for the empirical findings.

The article describes the complex business environment of the deregulated Swedish railway industry. Main findings are in the form of identified business opportunities and new business model propositions for one of the key actors, a vehicle maintainer.

The article provides valuable understanding of business strategy development within complex business environments and how maintenance related business models could be developed for reaching Service Management 4.0.

The purpose of this article is to promote an innovative approach to education development projects by the application of business modelling tools and methods.

The proposed method is based on tools and methods from the business modelling area, such as stakeholder mapping, SWOT analysis, business modelling canvas and scenario analysis. The applicability of the approach is illustrated by a case study conducted on an engineering programme, where qualitative and quantitative data were gathered through interviews, surveys and workshops.

Utilising business modelling tools for development projects in higher education gives several benefits: (1) knowledge-informed decision making; the methods require good understanding of the current situation as well as possible strategies to be applied, that is data gathering is necessary before decision making; (2) structured decision making by applying a step-by-step approach for the development project; (3) including different stakeholder's perspectives in order to gain a holistic understanding and avoid sub optimisation.

The approach promotes innovation and action driven development rather than a bureaucratic and metric based improvement process. Tools and models from the business area have previously been applied for educational development. However, a holistic business modelling approach for educational development has not yet been applied.

The aim with this paper is to describe current IT practices within maintenance in Swedish industry, and to outline the future possible developments.

The study is performed as a web‐based questionnaire survey consisting of 71 participants. A systems perspective is applied for capturing the most relevant aspects of IT utilisation.

The IT practices are characterised by high use of business‐specific IT solutions, low use of company‐wide IT solutions, low IT intensity and the client‐server architecture is dominating. The purchase decision and ownership of IT is to high extent tied to the maintenance function. Moreover, IT systems are apprehended as beneficial and connected to real needs. The findings imply a decentralised IT governance form and a mainly vertical (functional) IT support.

The socio‐technical approach suggested in this paper helps us to identify which areas to study, and also shows the tight interrelationship between different factors, layers and systems.

The study results could be used for benchmarking purposes or to highlight state‐of‐the‐art of IT utilisation in maintenance, and thereby set the topic on the corporate agenda.

Studies describing IT utilisation within maintenance in the form of case studies and surveys exist, but they mainly focus on one aspect. This study approached the problem from a socio‐technical perspective, covering several aspects connected to IT utilisation.

IT investments in maintenance are of strategic importance, but it is hard to fit the IT systems to the business demands. One possible reason could be inadequate planning and execution of the procurement. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the IT procurement process within maintenance, and its impact on the quality of the maintenance process.

The study is performed as a web‐based questionnaire survey addressing maintenance managers in Swedish industry followed by five additional interviews.

The decision to purchase IT is, to high extent, a maintenance internal matter and the purchases are often run in project form involving several working areas and the decision making is commonly based on the purchaser's own experience. The involvement of future users is frequent. Maintenance IT investments are seen as connected to real needs and beneficial for the maintenance.

Highlighting the current practices within procurement helps practitioners to understand the process and thereby better prepare the purchasing of technology.

Systematic methods for the procurement of IT are used to a low extent, which implies a need for practical and easy tools within the area. In addition, the economic importance of IT investments should be further studied and tools for assessing the impact of the procurement should be developed.

Papers dealing with maintenance IT procurement are scarce and do not cover the full procurement process, and no empirical studies within the area have been found.

Maintenance management information technology (MMIT) systems have existed for some 40 years. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the advancement of these systems and compares the development of MMIT with other corporate information technology (IT) systems.

This paper is a literature study of 97 scientific papers within the topic of MMIT in the period 1988 to 2003. Additional readings have been made in books covering MMIT.

The paper finds that the focus of MMIT has changed in several aspects during the 40 years that have been investigated; from technology to use; from maintenance function to maintenance as an integrated part of the business; from supporting reactive maintenance to proactive maintenance; and from operative to strategic maintenance considerations. Advancements in MMIT have in general followed the development of corporate IT.

Further studies to cover application‐specific development, for instance the use of decision support systems within maintenance management and to cover literature after 2003, are of interest.

Knowledge about the development of MMIT adds to the understanding of today's computer applications for maintenance management, which is crucial for every maintenance manager using or purchasing MMIT. The findings could be used as a means to identify the future trends of MMIT, as well as possibilities and problems with the new technology, tools, techniques and methods.

Papers dealing with the development of maintenance management IT are scarce and this paper represents the first full review of MMIT so far.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to help build up a relevant database for mapping technical and financial effectiveness of production in order to make cost‐effective maintenance decisions. Design/methodology/approach – A theoretical model is developed based on past research and experience adopting a holistic systems approach on the production. A case study, which includes databases of two maintenance‐used software programs, verifies the potential of applying the model. Findings – The main result achieved is a model for identifying relevant data required for accurate problem tracing and localisation within maintenance and production processes using a top down approach. The main conclusions are integration of IT and data resources within the enterprise is needed for developing a holistic view of the production process and a well‐formulated and documented procedure of data identification will ensure that the data can be traced back to root sources and in this way we can support the work of continuous cost‐effective improvement by eliminating root causes of problems at an early stage. Research limitations/implications – Further model verification by industrial case studies would be of interest. Practical implications – The holistic approach and the model presented are applicable especially in capital intensive industries, where maintenance budget is not negligible and the amount of data to process is large. By structuring the data need and data identification process relevant performance measures will be monitored and advanced maintenance concepts can be applied. Originality/value – By applying the proposed model in industry, the data identification process itself and not the data contents is necessary to be standardised and structured. It shifts the focus of the quality aspect from just data level to both data and data collection level. The performance measures will therefore not be chosen depending on what the IT applications can provide in first hand, but upon what is needed for cost‐effective mapping, analysis, following up and assessment of maintenance performance.