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Traditionally, research within maintenance has been viewed from an operations research and maintenance optimization perspective, based on the mathematical theory of reliability. Utilizing an analytical approach with mostly quantitative methods, renewal theory, reliability tests, failure rate estimates, fatigue life in materials, and so on, have been researched and analyzed [1, 2]. However, Dekker [3], for instance, points out that there are, in many areas, complaints about the gap between theory and practice. Thus, in order to help companies realizing a more efficient maintenance execution and benefit from the performed research, other research perspectives might be important as well.

This paper argues for the need of having an applied systems approach when performing research on maintenance design and development. The purpose of having such a research approach is to bridge some of the gap between theory and practice when it comes to development of new innovative philosophies/methodologies/techniques and the implementation of these in industrial contexts. The paper is divided in a Section on introduction and a background to the issue, a Section on the need for research on holistic maintenance, and end with a Section of discussion, presenting some ideas on how to perform research on holistic maintenance and an introduction to the research group on 'Maintenance Development' at Mälardalen University, Sweden.