Repair Service (also known as maintenance) is an ongoing activity to maintain an asset or equipment in an operational condition. It involves functional checks, servicing, repairing or replacing of necessary devices, equipment, machinery, building infrastructure, and supporting utilities in industrial, business, and residential installations.
It is a cost-effective practice to keep assets in an operational state and prevent further deterioration. It is also necessary to assess and plan ongoing maintenance requirements.
The technical meaning of maintenance involves functional checks, servicing, repairing or replacement of necessary devices, equipment, machinery, building facilities, and supporting utilities in industrial, business, residential, and transport installations.
Performing repairs and maintenance on equipment, vehicles, or other items can reduce the amount of spare parts required for future operations, as well as the amount of labor needed to repair and maintain an item. This can improve productivity and efficiency, and minimize waste.
These activities are designed to prevent equipment and vehicle failure, repair or replace a damaged component, restore a product back to working order, or address a safety or environmental issue. These activities may be used before an asset or device becomes fully damaged and unable to be repaired, or at the end of its “useful life.”
In the context of repair, there are three main drivers influencing consumers’ repair intentions: the first one is related to environmental protection; the second driver concerns economic considerations, and the third is social acceptance. In this study we aim to explore these drivers and the impact of their joint consideration on repair intentions.
For analysing the impact of these drivers on different repair intentions we use structural equation modelling. The five model variations are shown in Table 4.
RIa: Repair is environmentally friendly
RIb: Repair is economically sensible
RIc: Repair is socially acceptable
The results of our analysis show that both repair intentions are influenced by the drivers related to environmental protection, social acceptance and economic considerations. However, the drivers related to environmental protection are more powerful and significantly influence both RIa and RIb.
Moreover, the research findings support repair service providers to design repair services better and to enhance their trustworthiness. In addition, the identification of further aspects which influence a person’s repair intention – like past repair behaviour or perceived repair difficulty – helps to identify barriers and to develop targeted solutions.
It is important to remember that the decision whether to repair or not depends on many factors, including the type of the broken product. The importance of identifying the underlying reasons for not repairing can be enhanced by the use of qualitative research methods.
The repair service sector is an important part of the economy in Graz and serves a wide range of industries. It is a complex industry, where repair and maintenance of industrial machinery, equipment, and other products takes place.
