CIE42 Proceedings, 16-18 July 2012, Cape Town, South Africa © 2012 CIE & SAIIE 191-1 A LEAN MAINTENANCE SUPPLY CHAIN FRAMEWORK FOR ROLLING STOCK MAINTENANCE: A CASE STUDY Tinashe G Tendayi 1* and Prof CJ Fourie 2 1 Department of Industrial Engineering University of Stellenbosch, South Africa 16873890@sun.ac.za 2 Department of Industrial Engineering University of Stellenbosch, South Africa cjf@sun.ac.za ABSTRACT In order for the benefits of Lean Maintenance to be realised to their full potential, there is need for the supporting structures of the Maintenance organisation to be streamlined through a lean Maintenance Supply Chain (MSC). Unfortunately, most of the existing research focuses on supply chains in manufacturing oriented industries and does not give much attention to service oriented functions like maintenance, and much less in an area like rolling stock maintenance. In this article, the development of a lean MSC framework is investigated for use in a rolling stock maintenance environment with a case study at the Salt River depot of Metrorail in South Africa. The research involves carrying out a critical literature review of lean thinking and its application in the MSC with a view of identifying appropriate benchmarks comprising organisational objectives and key performance indicators. A study of the existing supply chain strategies at Salt River is then conducted with the aim of comparing them to the theoretical benchmarks obtained from literature. Based on the findings, a general framework is recommended that will assist the organisation to move towards a lean MSC. * Corresponding Author