The development of a preventive maintenance concept for new systems is challenging, since there usually is a large amount of uncertainty in the expected failure behavior of the new system. In this study we create a framework to support decision making in the development of a maintenance concept for new systems. The steps in the maintenance concept development that are covered in this thesis are: identifying the maintenance objectives, identification of the failure behavior of the system, selecting the maintenance policies and optimizing the maintenance thresholds. We created a decision diagram to aid in assigning the components to the maintenance policies condition-based maintenance (CBM), usage-based maintenance (UBM), failure-based maintenance (FBM), failure finding task, or mandatory redesign. Furthermore, we develop a multi-objective model to optimize the system based on both average cost per year and average downtime per year. In a case study the framework for the development of a maintenance concept is applied to high tech equipment used in the agricultural environment. The case study shows considerable cost- and downtime-savings potential by using the framework.