3 Reasons Why Operations Does Not Support Maintenance and Reliability

One of the most common things maintenance folks say is that operations does not support maintenance and reliability. It sounds like this:
"If it weren't for operations we would be reliable"
"They think their job is to break it and then it is our job to fix it... and fast"
"They will not let us have the equipment for PM and they wonder why it breaks down"
Want to know what operations has to say? Here are three quotes and a set of underlining causes:
1. Operations says: "Every time I give them the equipment for PM downtime it runs worse on start up than it did at shutdown"
Reason: Maintenance overly relies on invasive PMs that induce infant mortality instead of using Condition Based Maintenance (CBM) which is performed while the equipment is running and does not induce failures. If maintenance could get fifteen percent of there labor dedicated to CBM and then fifteen percent dedicated to PM then the balance would be better and the number of maintenance induced failures would drop. One example is eliminating the PM where you open a gearboxes up for a gear inspection and transitioning them to CBM inspections which can accomplish the same task without the potential for reassembly errors or foreign contamination in the gear box.
2. Operations says: "Maintenance never sticks to the schedule. They ask for 8 hours and take 16" Maintenance creates a schedule with work that is only marginally planned and then overruns the outage timeline because the estimates are completely inaccurate. If you don't take the time to break the job down into estimable task or steps then it becomes very hard to produce and accurate schedule. The way this sounds in the field is "Oh that job, it will take about a half shift for two guys"
3. Operations says: "This equipment runs better if I can just keep it running and keep maintenance out of it."
Maintenance does not practice precision maintenance therefor as work is completed defects are induced and equipment fails prematurely. One example is the installation of a bearing on a shaft with a hammer and chisel instead of a bearing heater and impact fitting tools.

The point here is that if we as maintenance and reliability professionals start by addressing our issues it becomes much easier to ask operations to address theirs. Or to say it another way:
If you wanna make the world a better place
take a look at yourself, and then make a change
MJ

Looking Back for the Keys to Sustainability

From time to time I get to go back and visit plants and facilities that were clients of mine from years ago. This week happens to be one of those weeks. I find it so exciting to go back and see what they have held on to, what they have improved, and where they have slipped back and why. Interestingly I see different things in each site. Some sites progress with continued focus on reliability, others moving  into other initiatives like lean or six sigma and build off of their reliability results further building success and a third group lose focus and slides back toward the old norm and the reactive philosophies of the past. These sites have many reasons why they slip back including leadership changes, union issues, retirements, sudden changes in the market place.
The question for today’s blog is how do we lock it in? How do we sustain the cultural change that has been or is being completed?
The plants that have the most success have done these four things.
First they have moved past a champion model. Reliability for them is more than just one person’s vision. They do not have one single leader for the initiative that either charismatically leads the pack or forces compliance within the site. They have many folks who see the benefits of reliability and evangelize it consistently. Nearly all implementations start as a champion model with a key leader but the sustainable ones work this down into the organization and develop and army of like-minded drivers that demonstrate that reliability is the new way we do business.
Second, they communicated broadly as they implemented with a plan, consistent activity, and increasing site involvement. These groups start by going through a risk analysis of the transformational change. They look to understand what might go wrong and what they can do to mitigate that risk. They communicate at every stage of the process and the message and media changes based on the risk and the needs of the impacted. They focus on situational leadership and provide the individuals with what they need to help them progress through the change and then sustain.  In short they plan their communication and they work the plan increasing involvement and pushing toward the tipping point and increased likelihood of sustainability.
Third, they have a clear goal, vision, and business case and they reject things that go against that vision.  If the vision changes then that is fine but they work hard to communicate the changes. They evaluate all initiatives site wide and include only the ones that support the goals. Of those they select they sequence them in a way that supports and allows them to build. This means they may do a part of one initiative with the required resources and then complete a section of another selected improvement strategy knowing that they will build on each other and help improve overall site performance. If they take this approach then they build a system unique to them that can be developed without overloading the resources and provides for stable continuous improvement.
Fourth, they use metrics effectively. They don’t focus on every metric all the time they focus on the metrics that drive the behaviors that they need to change at that moment. Once the behavior is changed and becomes the new norm then they move their focus to other metrics and other behaviors.
There are other factors that come into play but these are some key success factors that seem to be present for success and sustainability.

ReliabilityNow.com: What Can We Learn From Santa’s Very Reliable Workshop.

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Data Collectors or Dust Collectors: Three Ways to Knock the Dust Off

We all love shiny new reliability toys, right?
Well I am spending the week in the middle of a conference center full of beautiful shiny new condition monitoring/ predictive maintenance tools in Bahrain at the Maintcon conference. I know that the IMC-2012 International Maintenance Conference is kicking off as you read this in Florida as well. So, literally thousands of people will be in a sea of shiny new equipment this week. They will check out the newest in touch screen technology, they will ogle at the cool wireless features and they may even lust after the robustness of these new super industrialized models.
But let me share a dirty secret, many of them are not looking at data collectors they are actually looking at future dust collectors.
While sitting around with many of the leaders of the companies that provide these incredible technologies they have all lamented with sad eyes about the cool tools that have never made it into regular use in some facilities. One vendor said it makes him want to cry when he sees "his equipment setting on the top shelf with a layer of dust on it." They are proud of their work and they want to see it used to improve facilities reliability. Below are some of the actual excuses mumbled by maintenance folks in facilities globally for why there is dust on their technology:

• "No time to get trained on the unit" Training issue
• "No one does anything when I identify a fault" Communication, Process, and Training Issue
• "No budget left for training class" Training Issue
• "To busy fighting fires" Process issue
• "The other maintenance guys don't trust the technology" Training issue
• "Operations will not give me the down time" Process issue
• "The old way was easier" Training issue
• "I can't get the time to mount the sensors" Process and Priority issue
• "I didn't order it. I wanted the other one." hmmmm.... Attitude issue? OK, how about change management issue

So what can we do? Here are three thoughts that might help you avoid your own set of dust collectors.
First, don't buy technology if you don't have the basic business processes in place. Good technology with bad processes just makes bad things happen faster. Think about how you are going to use the technology. How will you plan and then schedule the resolutions of the findings? If you can not plan and schedule the repairs then you are merely refining your run to failure strategy and continuing to make repairs at 5 times the cost.
Second, package the training into the purchase price of the unit and issue one purchase order. Don't try to "buy it in bits" Get it all at once or wait until you can. You will want to capitalize on the fact that it is new to get folks to engage in the training and apply the technology in the field. Of course you should train your users to operate it but don't forget to create awareness training for those that will be affected like your craftsmen who will make the repairs based on the technology and your planners who will use the findings to plan the work.
Third, plan the time to set it up right. Develop your equipment list, routes, and alarms right from the start. Going back after the fact is gruesome and frustrating and working in a bad database just makes an analyst mad.
What things have you done at your site to prevent your data collectors from becoming dust collectors?
Please feel free to share below.

Have a great week