Elevating Maintenance and Reliability Practices The Financial Business Case: Part 3

Elevating Maintenance and Reliability Practices The Financial Business Case: Part 3

Of course there are many studies that prove planned work is significantly less expensive than unplanned work. In addition, a work mix more heavily weighted toward PdM will drive costs down, as the following chart summarizing one study shows:



In addition, a well-planned work order provides ample time for an experienced and skilled craftsperson to perform a precision repair that should result in more reliable operation once the machine is restored to service. A second lesson learned from the top performers is that a holistic approach to changing practices, recognizing that the benefits cannot be unlocked by attacking individual components of the entire strategy, must be employed. If only the Maintenance people are involved in the process, it won’t drive results. The entire organization must be involved to unlock the benefits. And, all aspects of the strategy must be addressed simultaneously. You cannot piecemeal your way to prosperity. For example, planning and scheduling cannot improve if we don’t fix the work identification system. We can’t identify work objectively and early (before collateral and catastrophic damage occurs) without extensive use of PdM and condition monitoring. “Results” work orders will never be slotted into the schedule unless the operators understand and trust the technology. This is just a small example of how every aspect of the strategy acts as a link in the chain. If any link is missing, or broken, the entire strength of the chain is compromised.

A third, and perhaps critical lesson we take from the success stories, is that the culture change required to accomplish success is recognized early as a significant impediment to success, and the top performers incorporated all kinds of tools and methods to address culture change, including awareness training, consistent measurement systems, alignment of performance to rewards, etc. In fact, the top performers believe that the most challenging part of their journey was the “softer side” of the problem. If we think in terms of people, process and technology (which many companies do today), not surprisingly it is the people aspect that is the most challenging. Despite our intuition that this is true, most companies fail to dedicate the proper amount of attention and resources to this aspect. Many companies complain that their CMMS system has not delivered the promised results, but the CMMS alone cannot deliver reliability. Concentrating primarily on the process and technology does not result in sustainable higher performance.

So the key catch phrases for top performers include:

• More predictive and less preventive


• PdM used broadly and applied deeply into the asset base


• Objective and early work identification


• Planning & Scheduling the PM/PdM Results


• Integrated, holistic approach – you can’t piecemeal your way to prosperity


• Culture change is more than half the battle

Performance Yet to Achieve:

Despite the success stories that should guide us with their consistent practices, even the successful companies that have achieved great results have done so in individual plants or business units. None of the case studies for success have demonstrated uniform elevation of these practices enterprise-wide, at every single plant. In addition, the success that is evident is still somewhat (if not highly) dependent on influential leaders without whom the performance is not sustainable. In other words, in some of these companies, the changes have yet to be institutionalized for sustainable performance and continuous improvement. This of course takes time, resources and perseverance, and it should be pointed out that some of the companies recognize this and are actively addressing it.

If we are looking for a parallel to guide us in institutionalized and sustainable change across the entire enterprise, we need look no further than the area of safety. Those of us who are old enough can remember a day when safety was a responsibility of a limited number of people in a department. Today, safety is knitted into the fabric of every industrial company, and it is everyone’s responsibility. It is part of the way we do business. Safe working practices are enabling other business performance improvements that would not be possible otherwise. It is worth referring here to the chart below showing the remarkably direct correlation that has been established between Injury Rate and Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE), presented some time ago by Ron Moore of The RM Group, Inc.



I have been preaching for quite a few years that reliability needs to become knitted into the fabric of our companies much like safety has. Why do I believe this? Every corporate improvement initiative, whether it is related to Lean Manufacturing, TPM, Six Sigma, Quality Circles, Supply Chain Optimization, Market Share Increase, Cost-of-Goods Reduction, Value-added Services, Increase in Sales, Asset Utilization Leverage – no matter what it is - it is my belief that success in these initiatives is either directly or indirectly enabled and enhanced by the reliability, stability and dependability of our physical assets. My contention is that there are incremental benefits related to all of these programs that are “locked” without addressing a fundamental foundational aspect of our business – namely rendering our physical assets reliable – and doing so efficiently. Could the injury rates at the companies that show direct correlation have gone down to those levels without reliable assets? I say no. With particular regard to Lean, we have seen or heard of cases where significant lean principals were applied in manufacturing plants only to uncover previously hidden reliability issues. With all of the flexibility and wasted movements removed from the plant, unreliable or unstable assets result in larger production penalties because there is no flexibility to adjust and react. So I argue that business performance can actually degrade if Lean is implemented in the absence of establishing a reliable and stable asset base. In any event, if this foundation is in place, I believe that incremental benefits for the corporation can be un-locked, and the performance of the company, in whatever part of the business the “C” suite is focused on, will improve.

Gladly, the people in the executive suites of our industrial companies are beginning to understand this – partly because they have witnessed dramatic business performance improvements in the early adopter companies. The CEO of Chevron Corporation, Mr. Dave O’Reilly, said in a recent letter to employees that “Reliability, like safety, is a critical element of operational excellence and requires our constant attention.” The Vice President of Operations at Anheuser Busch, Michael Harding, said in a recent public speech to the Society of Maintenance and Reliability Professionals, that “As goes Maintenance, so goes the business”. There are more examples of executives focusing on maintenance and reliability. If you want to develop a financial business case in your company, find out what initiative the CEO is concerned with, and I guarantee you that reliable assets will materially contribute to the results of that initiative – either directly or indirectly. This environment of increased awareness and understanding bodes well for a significant elevation of maintenance and reliability business practices.

Nonetheless, some obvious impediments stand in the way of uniform, enterprise-wide performance, including:

• Lack of Executive Initiating Sponsorship


• Lack of Executive Sustaining Sponsorship


• Lack of Defined Standards


• Lack of Consistent Basis for Measurement


• No Ties Between Performance and Compensation


• Lack of Systems to Efficiently Leverage Work Done at One Plant to Other Plants

There are others as well but these are major ones. Perhaps a good way to express what we believe is necessary within a large corporation to elevate practices uniformly across the entire enterprise, is to use the chart below. This chart shows a wide variation of maintenance spend across a fleet of plants in a typical corporation (shown by the blue curve). The goal in our view is to reduce the variation in your corporation (shown by the green curve). This would mean that there is less variation in performance from plant to plant, and, presumably, the level of performance is elevated beyond what it could be by simply attacking the opportunity plant-by-plant.



It should be noted that we know of no company in existence today that has achieved uniform elevated levels of reliability performance across the entire enterprise – fleet-wide. Several companies are vying for the notoriety, but more importantly, the business performance that will come if this is achieved.

Elevating Maintenance and Reliability Practices The Financial Business Case: Part 2

Elevating Maintenance and Reliability Practices The Financial Business Case: Part 2

Of note in the top performers is the depth into the asset population to which these multiple PdM technologies are applied. For example:

• From 63% to 95% of rotating machines (depending on the industry) are included in a robust vibration analysis program – not just the critical equipment!


• 91% to 100% of electrical equipment is included in a robust thermography program (incidentally, 58% to 79% of mechanical equipment is also included in the thermography program at top performers, particularly smaller motors and gearboxes in packaging and similar operations)


• Lubrication analysis and contamination control practices are extensive and comprehensive


• Use of Motor Circuit/Current Evaluation (MCE) technology for drivers is extensive


• Extensive use of ultrasonics (airborne and contact) and various nondestructive testing (NDT) technologies for piping and pressurized assets is also present at top performers


• And again, only 20% to 25% of the equipment population in a top performing plant is covered by traditional, time-based, invasive PM

This last bullet is worth emphasizing a bit. After World War II, it was believed in general industry (despite knowledge to the contrary in the aerospace and airline industries and some branches of the United States military) that most equipment behaved in a time-based predictable pattern – that-is, that the probability of failure was relatively low and constant until a so-called “wear-out” zone was reached, at which time rapid and exponential increase in failure probability occurred. Traditional time-based Preventive Maintenance was designed to intervene into the equipment right before the wear-out zone was reached. See the diagram below taken from RCMII by John Mobray:



In reality, a precious small percentage of equipment actually behaves in this fashion. In fact, as the following diagram below (again taken from RCMII by John Mobray) shows, there are many failure patterns of machinery behavior, and only about 11% of the equipment in a typical industrial plant has a time-based predictable “wear-out” zone:



Note the phenomenon of infant mortality, depicted above by the initial high probability of failure upon commissioning an asset into service. About 72% of equipment in a typical industrial plant (this of course varies by industry) experiences infant mortality, while, again, only about 11% has a time-based predictable wear-out pattern. By relying predominantly on PM as a maintenance strategy for most of our assets, we are potentially adding value on a small percentage of equipment, and potentially introducing infant mortality on a high percentage of our assets – unnecessarily – doing more harm than good. I remember coming out of engineering school in the mid-1970’s and arriving at a nuclear power plant full of vigor with great ideas, and being confronted by a school of thought that held “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. At the time, I thought these folks were unaware of the science of machinery behavior. It turns out that I was the one that was uninformed. They knew intuitively and based on their experience that machine failure was very likely shortly after doing work on that machine. They may not have known the engineering behind the experience, but they were right.

We are not saying that we shouldn’t do anything to our machines until they fail. We are saying that while most of our machines do not have the time-based predictable wear-out pattern, failure is predictable on a large percentage of our equipment using predictive maintenance and condition monitoring. Eliminating the unnecessary PMs and introducing PdM enhances our ability to proactively manage our assets to be more reliable, and reduces the cost of maintenance at the same time!

At the top performers, these PdM technologies are the primary work identification system. These PdM technologies are actually driving about 80% of the daily work. Again, the performance characteristics at top performers are remarkably similar regardless of industry. Here are some highlights of top-quartile work-flow:

• Over 50% of the daily work order hours are related to the PdM program
  
  • 15% Collecting and Analyzing Condition Information
  
  
  • 35% Performing PdM “Results” Corrective Work (PdMr)
  
  
• About 30% of the daily work order hours are related to the PM program
  
  • 15% Collecting and Analyzing Condition/Operating Parameters
  
  
  • 15% Performing PM “Results” Corrective Work (PMr)
  
  
  • Less than 20% of the daily work orders were initiated via a traditional work request from equipment operators

Keep in mind that the use of the PdM technologies objectively identifies corrective work based on real science and real data, and the early and objective identification of machine faults, if acted upon properly, should avoid catastrophic failure and collateral damage, meaning that the repairs that are made are typically less extensive, using less labor and less parts. This all drives costs down.

Traditional work identification based largely on the “five-senses” of the equipment operators provides inadequate time to effectively plan corrective work, which handicaps schedule compliance, which undermines the credibility of and trust in maintenance on the part of the operators, and so on. The domino effect is clearly present here if the root cause of the problem – work identification - is not addressed. A top-quartile objective work identification system, based on comprehensive PdM, allows the Planners to plan the “PMr” and “PdMr” Corrective work orders. By virtue of early and objective machine fault identification, these work orders can be effectively planned because we have ample time. Once planned these work orders can be advanced to a ready-to schedule status – feeding a more effective scheduling process. This in turn allows wrench-time f the maintenance workers to approach (and in some cases exceed) 50% (note that the average wrench-time in the United States industrial plant is about 28%). This also eventually will allow the equipment operators to trust the schedule and actually prepare the work-site and the equipment for the scheduled repair.

Elevating Maintenance and Reliability Practices The Financial Business Case: Part 1

Elevating Maintenance and Reliability Practices The Financial Business Case: Part 1

Introduction:

In this inaugural issue of Uptime Magazine, it is my distinct pleasure to write this feature article that will attempt to put the technical and engineering aspects of maintenance and reliability into business terms – essentially into the context of a financial business case that is hopefully interesting and natural for the readers of this magazine and for the most senior-level executives in industrial corporations world-wide. Hopefully, this article will help you to make the translation and adjust your language, strategy and tactics to communicate to top executives and people not directly involved in maintenance, the tremendous business value associated with elevating maintenance and reliability practices in your company. In this article, I will discuss:

• The current state of maintenance and reliability, the level of awareness among business executives of financial business performance that can be achieved with top level reliability practices, and “what good looks like” in the few successful companies which have reached top quartile performance and enjoyed significant benefits


• Performance yet to achieve - even by the top performers


• Statistics showing the potential benefits in United States industrial companies and how that might extrapolate out to companies world-wide


• What the business case might be at your corporation

Current State, Awareness & What Good Looks Like:

As recently as five years ago, I think it is fair to say, there was very little awareness at the corporate executive suite level of the contribution to financial and business performance improvements that can come from improved levels of physical asset reliability. In addition, I think it is fair to say, five years ago we did not enjoy an accepted consensus among industry experts about what good maintenance and reliability practices look like. If we asked what are the characteristics exhibited by top performers who have increased operational performance of their physical assets - while reducing the overall cost of production (including reducing the cost of maintenance), we were likely to get varying answers depending on who was asked. In fact, as recently as five years ago, there were no true success stories in this arena. There were some spotty, incremental achievements, but no enterprise-wide success stories.

Today, although there are only a handful of companies that have, in fact, seriously elevated their maintenance and reliability practices, and improved business performance as a result, those few companies provide ample data that paints a very consistent picture of what good looks like and what results can be expected. Companies like Rohm and Haas, Allied Signal/Honeywell, Dofasco Steel, and, more recently, Cargill Corporation, among a few others, have made dramatic shifts in their physical asset management strategies that have driven significant financial results in many parts of their businesses. Several lessons should be taken from these success stories.

First, the characteristics exhibited by these “Early Adopters” are remarkably consistent regardless of the industry in which they operate. These characteristics generally but clearly show:

• Annual maintenance spend below 2-3% of Replacement Asset Value (RAV)


• Significant use of a variety of Predictive Maintenance (PdM) and condition monitoring technologies on the majority of the candidate equipment population


• LESS time-based, invasive preventive maintenance (PM) – less than 25% of the equipment population in a top performer is covered by time-based invasive PM

Balanced Criticality Ranking

Balanced Criticality Ranking

As we all know, in the world of maintenance and reliability, there are hundreds of things vying for attention. How do we decide where to expend our valuable resources? It doesn't matter if we're talking about money, people, time, effort, materials or contract help; we want to focus on the equipment that is most critical and valuable to our operation, but which equipment is that? The answer to that question comes in the form of using a quantifiable and objective criticality ranking process.

The objective of performing a criticality ranking on you asset base is to determine which assets are most important to the overall operation. Traditional ranking or priority codes often differentiates equipment by using an "A-B-C" or "Hi-Med-Low" type of ranking. The problem with this ranking is that it is often done by one person and is very subjective and often no more than an educated opinion of one person. How many of us have these types of codes in our systems? How many of us never actually use the coding for any type of decision making?

Let's look at it another way. If you were to evaluate your equipment using the A-B-C method above would you get the same answer if you asked the Maintenance Manager and the Operations Manager to rank a piece of equipment? How about if you asked the Safety Department? The Environmental Manager? How about the Quality Control Manager? With this method there is a good chance you will have differing opinions and if you extrapolate this across all of your equipment then you can see that you may get conflicting priorities.

Our Maintenance Tip is utilizing a ranking process that is objective and quantitative and incorporates ranking criteria for all of the primary function and areas of concern. We usually use the five functional areas of Maintenance, Production, Safety, Environmental and Quality. We then utilize a cross-functional team to develop subjective weighted criteria based on business requirements for each of these functional areas. An example of the weighted criteria for the "Maintenance" Functional Area would be:

• Down Time Impact - What is the potential downtime impact if this equipment fails
  None 0 pts Minutes 125 pts Hours 150 pts
  Shift 200 pts
  Multiple Shifts 250 pts
  Days 400 pts



• Repair Costs - What is the typical (average) cost to repair a failure on this equipment
  None 0 pts
  10,000 300 pts



• Spare Parts Availability
  In line Spares 0 pts
  Spares In Stock 50 pts
  Spares lead time 3 days or less 150 pts
  Spares lead time > 3 days 300 pts



• Affected Down Time Area - How much of the plant may be affected by failure
  None 0 pts
  Component Only 50 pts
  Line 150 pts
  Department 250 pts
  Plant 500 pts

Similar criteria for all of the functional areas would also need to be developed. Using this type of set up the equipment with the highest point ranking is the most critical.

It is important to note that the criteria and the weighting will be different from plant to plant and industry to industry due to business issues. This is why it is important that the weighting and criteria be developed with representation and agreement from all areas of the plant. The key to an effective criticality ranking is to correctly configure the Criticality Ranking Tool (CRT) to incorporate all perspectives of the equipment. Set-up includes determining the ranking criteria for each area and also properly weighting the criteria to accurately reflect the criteria's relative importance to the organization. If the criteria are measurable and the whole organization agrees with them then a smaller team of knowledgeable personnel can actually rank each piece of equipment.

A spreadsheet or database can be set up to manage the information or you can purchase software for this purpose.

The completed ranking can then be used to determine which equipment gets attention first, how the maintenance strategy gets developed and what type of maintenance is performed. The overall ranking can even be loaded into the CMMS and be used to help prioritize work orders.

Maintenance Management 201: Part 3

Maintenance Management 201: Part 3

• A good Predictive Maintenance program will allow you to sleep at night.
  The Maintenance Manager position can either be very frustrating or very rewarding. Frustrating in that breakdowns can occur at any time, and (in strict compliance with Murphy’s Law) invariably at night or on weekends when the equipment is needed most and when your family is depending on you to be with them and not at the plant. Rewarding in that there is a proven answer to those breakdowns if you have the foresight to implement a sound Predictive Maintenance program.
  
  The key to maximizing your free time is to know the condition of your equipment. PdM technologies enable you to identify potential defects within equipment, usually while the equipment is still in operation. Often, some of these problems may be caught early enough that the condition can be corrected before the equipment suffers damage. With the right training, feedback, and experience, PdM technicians will also be able to give you a prognosis of the equipment’s remaining life which will allow you to take care of the problem on your terms and your schedule instead of at Mr. Murphy’s whim.
  
  Not every potential failure is detectable, but the vast majority are with the right technologies employed – and new technologies are being developed every day. PdM is not “magic”; it’s hard science. The warning signals are real if we are perceptive enough to listen. Applying the right technology to the right equipment and potential failure mode will give you the ability to determine equipment health and increase your confidence that you can make plans with your family that won’t be interrupted.



• Costs cannot be permanently reduced without making work go away.
  We live in a global economy. Most North American industries compete with companies in countries that have significant business advantages, such as lower taxes, lower labor costs, or government subsidies. There is tremendous pressure to cut costs to keep market share, and maintenance costs are typically a big target. In fact, it’s really easy to cut maintenance spending – just lay off maintenance crafts people and decide not to do routine maintenance. You’ll be a hero – for a little while. Sooner or later, neglect will come back to haunt you.
  
  The only true way to permanently reduce maintenance costs is to permanently eliminate work. There are several ways to do this. Make sure the basics of cleaning, lubrication, and contamination control are in place. Implement a precision maintenance program to make equipment last longer (point 5). Use PdM to reduce the scope of repairs by correcting incipient problems before failure (point 9). Avoid unnecessary “open and inspect” intrusive maintenance that usually causes problems due to contamination and reassembly errors. Ensure that the craftspeople have sufficient skills and procedures (point 4) to do the job right the first time. Carefully assess all work requests from the field to determine if it truly adds value and should be done – otherwise, reject it.
  
  Deferring maintenance spending is a short-term fix that has long-term implications. If you have not changed the “system” (see point 6) by any of the above techniques, expect the costs to rise six to twelve months in the future – and they will keep rising. Sustainable maintenance cost reduction is a result of doing the right things to make the work go away, not because of some misguided attempt to stop spending money.

Maintenance Management 201: Part 2

Maintenance Management 201: Part 2

• Precision, precision, precision!
  Reliability is inherently a function of design. All we can do from a Maintenance perspective is preserve that inherent reliability. All too often, significant potential equipment life is lost because crafts people did not pay the appropriate attention to detail in repair or installation. For example, studies conducted by Barringer and Associates2 have found that if we have as much as 1/8” of piping misalignment in a standard ANSI end-suction centrifugal pump, we will lose as much as 45% of it’s inherent life!
  
  To be an effective Maintenance Manager, you should insist that all work is done to the appropriate level of precision. Tools required to achieve this precision, such as dial indicators, calipers, torque wrenches, laser alignment devices, and the like should be available to all crafts persons. The tools should be included in the calibration program and each crafts person should be effectively trained in their use. Validation of precision work should be routinely performed through a post-maintenance testing program such as taking baseline vibration readings or operational performance tests. Regular audits of repair work should be conducted both to verify that the work is done correctly as well to illustrate the importance that you place on precision.
  
  Another factor that bears mentioning along this line is to insist that crafts persons must be provided with sufficient time to achieve the level of precision required. There will always be significant pressure to complete a field repair quickly, but rushing through a repair is detrimental to precision. Considering the example above, if a standard pump has a Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF) of 7 years, and investment of 8 hours to correct a piping strain problem can potentially result in an added life of over 3 years. Remember the old adage. “There’s never enough time to do it right, but plenty of time to do it over”! Don’t rob your crafts people of their desire for quality workmanship.



• The system wins every time.
  The late Dr. W. Edwards Deming made the point that everyone works within a system. Most people want to do a good job. Often, they cannot do so due to constraints of the system. In point 5 above, if the “system” does not allow them time to use precision methods, we will not get a precise result. If our materials management “system” does not ensure we will have the materials required to do the work, we will experience delays. If our work management “system” does not include documenting work details after the job is done, we won’t have accurate equipment history. Good people performing in a poor system will produce poor results; average people performing in a good system will produce good results.
  
  No organization can afford to be stagnant. There is always room for improvement, and it is a key responsibility of a leader to continuously drive improvements. Remember the saying, “If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten.” If we want to make improvements, we’ll have to change the system – but these changes usually cost money.
  
  Since we operate within a larger financial “system”, we need to be proactive in obtaining funding for necessary improvements. One of the best ways to do this is to have a three to five year master plan that is updated on an annual basis. This will allow us to get our improvement ideas into the budget cycle, which will greatly increase the chance of funding. It will also increase senior management’s confidence in your ability to manage the department in a proactive fashion.



• Always question policies that don’t seem to make sense
  Although this may seem like an invitation to make a “career limiting move”, it is not – it is really an extension of point 6. Many “systems” that we work within do not exist by design; they have evolved over the years. The organization may have put a policy in place that was needed to address a problem many years ago, but the problem no longer exists. We sometimes find ourselves bound by those policies that needlessly stifle organizational growth.
  
  A common example of this point is the decision to select some craftspeople for training in predictive maintenance technologies. A policy may be in place that such positions have to be awarded on the basis of seniority only, and when the position is bid, a craftsman who is only a year or two from retirement has bid on it and has the greatest seniority. Does it make sense to award the job to that person and provide a year’s worth of training, only to have him/her retire just when he/she becomes competent?
  
  The world around us is constantly changing, and sometimes our rules and policies need to change in order to keep pace. If we do not recognize this and make the necessary changes, it is tantamount to being “stupid on purpose”. We need to take an objective look at our rules, policies and practices, and modify those that don’t make sense. Although this may be difficult to do in some organizational environments, you should still raise the issue. After all if you don’t question an outdated policy, then who will?



• Advanced tools will not provide full benefit unless the foundational processes are sound.
  Many organizations devote significant resources to implement the latest “three-letter acronym” tools before they are ready, and are surprised when they do not achieve the planned results. Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) cannot yield anticipated cost savings because the organization cannot implement the new tasks. Predictive maintenance (PdM) finds equipment problems in the early stage of degradation, but the workforce is consumed with “fix it now” emergent work and cannot make repairs before failure occurs. Autonomous maintenance, one of the pillars of Total Productive Maintenance (TPM), falls flat because the maintenance workforce is overloaded and cannot respond to the problems that operators detect. A “Just in Time” (JIT) parts ordering process cannot function until a there is low demand for emergency parts and a good inventory control system is in place.
  
  Much like building a house, the foundation must be completed before the walls go up or the building will not stand. Foundational elements for Maintenance include a complete set of “master data” and sound processes to control the work that gets done. Master data includes a complete list of all plant equipment that is ranked according to criticality and a thorough spare parts catalog of both stocked and non-stock spare parts. Work control processes include a well-conceived Work Order system (including effective Planning and Scheduling), a sound process for conducting basic maintenance (including a good lubrication program), and a fully functional inventory control system. These foundational elements will allow you to get control of both the work that has to be done and the condition of the equipment, enabling the advanced concepts to achieve their potential.

Maintenance Management 201: Part 1

Maintenance Management 201: Part 1

Introduction:

This is a continuation of a discussion of fundamental “lessons” that new Maintenance Managers need to know in order to effectively manage an industrial maintenance operation in a proactive fashion. The first set was discussed in “Maintenance Management 101”, presented as an iPresentation on ReliabilityWeb.com and published in “Uptime” magazine in October, 2007. As with Maintenance Management 101, some readers may find this information to be elementary – but experience shows that few organizations have fully implemented the concepts.

• You have the right to manage.
  Managers in many organizations feel “handcuffed” by bargaining unit agreements, past practices, traditions, and Human Resources policies in their attempts to manage personnel. They feel powerless to address poor performance on the part of employees for fear that any decision they make will be overturned. The lament “They won’t let me” is often heard.
  
  This does not have to be the case. No union contract or HR rule will prevent you from setting clear expectations for all personnel within your department and following up to make sure those expectations are delivered. When people fall below expectations, the reason should be identified. (If the reason for failure to comply is due to the “system”, please refer to point 6.) If the reason is within the employee’s control, determine if it is a skill problem or a performance problem. If a skill problem, it is your job to provide the necessary training. If a performance problem, it should be documented with a clear explanation of the consequences of failure to comply in the future.
  
  Another point is that authority is given on the basis of your position, but respect of the workforce, peers, and management must be earned. It is earned through fair and consistent treatment of individuals on your team. If employees lack the resources to meet expectations, it is up to you to provide them. If employees do not have the skills to do the job, it is up to you to provide training or reassign them to a position where they can be successful (more on this in point 2). You will lose respect if you fail to take action to address poor performance.




• The right people will help you be successful.
  Management of people is clearly a different job than that of an individual contributor. Your performance is no longer solely due to your efforts; it is dependent on the performance of your subordinates. It follows, then, that your success depends on having capable individuals in every role on your team.
  
  In the book Good to Great, Jim Collins describes one of the key attributes of great companies as having “the right people on the bus”. This attribute applies to smaller organizations as well. Some people are simply not capable of performing some tasks well because they do not have the innate talent to do so. As a manager, you will be tempted to devote a lot of time attempting to “correct” performance that is ultimately not correctable. When you do this, you are not helping the remainder of your team – you should be devoting your efforts to helping your good people produce at peak capacity.
  
  Clearly, keeping someone in a position where they are a poor fit benefits no one. If you have an individual that continually produces substandard results, the other team members will spend their time compensating for the results of the poor performer. They will become frustrated and their performance will ultimately slip as well. Your organization will not produce superior results if you are continually compensating for someone who is not pulling their weight. The kindest thing to do in this case is to find a position – within the company or outside of it – where that substandard performer can excel. They will experience greater job satisfaction and your team will be more productive.



• Field supervision of the craft workforce is critical.
  Maintenance work is different from most other jobs in that it constantly varies - craftspeople are doing a different task every day. One day they are rebuilding a pump, the next they are replacing piping, and aligning a compressor after that. It’s rare to find a craftsperson that performs the same job day in and day out. Even with a good planning process, they still may encounter obstacles in the field that may cause delays, mistakes, or wasted effort. Crafts need the support of supervisors to make sure they have what they need to do quality work and to make sure any barriers to good performance are eliminated.
  
  The most important job of supervision is to develop their team of human resources. They should identify skill development needs and create opportunities for their subordinates to practice new skills. First line supervision is also the point at which management decisions are turned into action. Supervisors need to enforce policies and procedures as well as ensure that standard work processes are followed.
  
  Most supervisors are saddled with extraneous duties that keep them tied to their desks or attending meetings. If they are not allowed to spend adequate time in the field, they will not be able to provide the level of support needed to maximize the quality and quantity of work or to nurture the development in their people. The Maintenance Manager is responsible to make sure that the first line supervisors have at least 50% to 60% of their day devoted to field supervision of the craft resources.



• You have to have procedures for performing maintenance.
  When one considers the wide variety of equipment encountered in the average industrial facility and the variety of tasks performed on that equipment, it is surprising to realize that, in most organizations, few procedures exist for maintenance and repair. Most organizations depend on “skill of the craft”, memory, or (even worse) an “educated guess” to determine the technical details required, such as clearances, torque values, tolerances, belt tensions, and the like.
  
  Studies have shown that a high percentage of “infant mortality” failures occur in the absence of detailed written procedures1. Equipment does not perform to standard or experiences a failure soon after startup. These can only be due to mistakes and errors made during maintenance or repair. These errors are not the craftsperson’s fault; failing to provide the necessary resources to enable quality work to be done is the fault of management. Even the most talented craftsperson does not have an infallible memory!
  
  Ideally, maintenance procedures should be developed by the Planning function. In creating these procedures, it is natural to want to avoid inserting too much detail to avoid “insulting” the craftsperson’s intelligence. Rest assured that it is not an insult to make technical specification details available, nor is it an insult to spell out the proper steps to complete the job in the most expeditious fashion. In fact, the vast majority of crafts people would appreciate having the information available to do the job right the first time!