Knowledge management on asset management for end-of-life product

Many end of life products, which require manual or semi-manual processes, have been relocated from developed countries (such as Japan and Korea), to developing countries (such as Thailand) due to a considerable-high labor cost. Upon the production relocation, the parent company needs to transfer the experience in operation and maintenance process to new local workers in its child factory. Therefore, asset management is proposed at all product, process and people aspects to improve reliability of the old asset as well as to minimize maintenance cost. Since the old product and its old process are both nearly at its end of life, it needs new maintenance modes to extend the life as long as the product that still exists in the market. This paper reports the research carried out in Thailand in a Korean relocated electronic factory. The proper modes of maintenance selection are presented, and the results clearly show that a significant improvement of reliability, as well as a saving of the maintenance cost, can be made after the maintenance transformation.