Strategy of the Excellence Master Thesis AWARD in Maintenance

The European Federation of National Maintenance Societies (EFNMS) took a decision to revive and present the bi-annual “EFNMS Excellence Award for Master Thesis in Maintenance and closely related topics” for the students from the EFNMS member countries from 2010. The EFNMS  Excellence Award for the Masters Thesis is presented at the EUROMAINTENANCE CONFERENCE every alternate year.

Salvetti Foundation will be sponsoring the MASTERS THESIS AWARD (MTA) from 2012, in addition to EUROMAINTENANCE INCENTIVE AWARD.

PURPOSE

The purpose of this excellence award is to

• promote,
• encourage and
• motivate 

the Theoretical and Applied research and applications of research outcomes in the areas of Maintenance Engineering and Management amongst the students of the European Universities and Institutes.

PROCESS

During the 13th meeting of the General Assembly of EFNMS, the Board of Directors and the general assembly took the decision to stimulate and revive the Best Masters Thesis Award (MTA) to be awarded during the EUROMAINTENANCE 2010 Conference.

Luelå University of Technology, Sweden, has been assigned the task to revive the MTA process and to start with, Professor Uday Kumar, Chairman Scientific committee, UTEK, Sweden is to undertake this assignment for the first two awards.

The chairman will be supported by active involvement of at least one University Teacher/Researcher from each member country (preferably young academics/researchers), as national coordinator (who will also be a member of the jury) and an active panel of jury consisting of 25-30 in numbers representing academia and industries if possible” to judge the quality of the nominated Theses.

The academia nominated as coordinator will act as nodal point for all communication in this regard and will also contact Universities and Research Institutes for encouraging them to submit theses for evaluation.

BACKGROUND

The idea of an EFNMS Master Thesis Competition in the field of Maintenance was launched from Sweden in 1998 and the proposed Competition Program was accepted by EFNMS Board in 1999. Sweden has been the coordinator for the Masters Thesis award and Prof. Hans Ahlmann, has been the Chairman of the Award committee.

The first EFNMS Master Thesis Award was issued at the EUROMAINTENANCE 2000 in Gothenburg, Sweden for the first time to the two students from Norwegian University of Science and Technology. Five Masters Theses were received from; Finland, Slovenia, Sweden, Portugal, Norway. For the EUROMAINTENANCE 2002, Helsinki, Finland; Six Masters Theses were received from; England, Spain, Sweden, Portugal and Holland (2). The winner was: Mark Edelenbosch, from the Institute of Science and Technology in Utrecht, The Netherlands.

During EUROMAINTENANCE 2004, Mikael Hägerby and Mikael Johansson were awarded with Best Maters thesis award in the field of Maintenance and Reliability for the year 2002/2003 at Barcelona, 13th of May, 2004. Two masters theses received.

During EUROMAINTENANCE 2006; as only one master’s thesis was received; the award was postponed. For EUROMAINTENANCE 2008, two masters’ theses were received and the winner was Hakan Borgstrom from Lund University, Sweden. During EUROMAINTENANCE 2010, 10 theses were received and the thesis from Spain by Juan Francisco Gomez Fernandez, was declared as the WINNER and the certificate was awarded on 14 May 2010, at Verona, Italy.