Quality assurance of performance-based maintenance partnerships

Dutch housing associations develop new procurement methods for maintenance of their housing stock, namely performance-based partnership forms. Partnership forms promise the optimal use of know-how of parties involved. For contractors a performance-based approach means major changes in working processes, methods and need for information. A vital change is that within the performance-based approach, the contractor acts as a maintenanceengineering consultant to the client. This entails new activities, such as providing advice on maintenance strategies, the production of maintenance scenarios, performance measurements and the conduct of customer satisfaction surveys. These activities demand a different type of knowledge and expertise on the part of the contractor. The paper investigates the needed competences of contractors for maintenance-engineering consultancy in performance-based maintenance partnerships. The introduction of the quality mark VGO KEUR in the Netherlands is a first step in quality assurance of contractors working in a performance-based manner.