Handling maintenance priorities using multi criteria decision making

This paper presents an analysing strategy for prioritising a power company's different types of maintenance projects. Qualitative criteria, such as for instance safety for personnel and effect on the environment, together with the economic figures, form the decision framework. The handling of qualitative criteria is assisted using the AHP (analytic hierarchy process) method to structure the decision criteria and to obtain the relative weighting between different criteria. The analysing strategy is demonstrated by using case studies from maintenance decisions in hydropower plants.