Understanding And Complying With ISO 55001: Part 1 in a 3 Part Series

Context of the Organization (Part one of three) by Darrin Wikoff

Asset Management provides assurance that assets will fulfill their required purpose relative to the stated value defined by the business’ stakeholders.  Therefore, asset management can be defined as the coordinated activity of an organization to protect, optimize or realize value from assets during the period of accountability. Methods of assuring value include:
-    Balancing cost,
-    Controlling risk, and
-    Monitoring performance of both assets and the asset management system.

The first set of asset management system requirements communicated by ISO 55001 deals with the manner in which Asset Managers have defined the “stated value” of assets and the relationship of the system architecture to other decision making, governance and management systems utilized by the business’ stakeholders. These requirements are defined in Section 4 – Context of the Organization.
Demonstrate that your organization has considered internal and external risk factors that have the potential to influence business outcomes when determining the objectives of your asset management system.  Internal risk refers to gaps in internal processes, and external risk refers to political, economic, regulatory or other factors beyond the local organization's control.
Demonstrate that your organization has identified both the stakeholder and their requirements when determining asset management objectives, and provide evidence that the stakeholder is integrated in decision making processes.  Stakeholders may be external to the organization, including government agencies, shareholders and customers.
Demonstrate that the identification of "Assets" within the asset management system is consistent with the Asset Management Policy and other management systems, if applicable. “Assets” exist within an organization to provide value to the organization and its stakeholders. Assets, by this definition are:
-    Any item that has a potential value within an organization,
-    Any item that has an actual value to an organization,
-    A group of items that has a potential or actual value, regardless of the individual item value (e.g. Asset System),
-    A group of items that have a common characteristic that translates into value, regardless of the individual item value (e.g. Asset Type).

Value is defined by the organization that has accountability for the asset during a specific period within the asset life cycle. Value can be:
-    Tangible or intangible,
-    Financial or non-financial,
-    Equity or liability (gains or losses), and
-    Risk or benefit.

Both value and the period of asset accountability may change throughout the asset life cycle, which begins at asset creation and ends when the asset no longer has value to any single organization.
Document within the Strategic Asset Management Plan those assets that are or will be governed by the asset management system, and the rational for determining applicability and scope relative to stakeholder expectations.  Demonstrate the link between asset management decisions and other management systems, if applicable.

Six Steps for Learning New Passions

I don't know about you but I find that I really enjoy learning new things and therefor I put myself in situations to do it a lot. Based on that, I have collected a few points from my experiences and placed them carefully in this blog for safe keeping. You may find them interesting to consider both when teaching and when learning new things.
First, watch the passionate and become them... They have put in the time and also their passion can be contagious. If you want to to truly excel at the new activity you need their passion so spend time with them. My advice: Don't try to learn from those that are not excited about what they teach.
Second , break it down into little steps and goals that build into the excellence you seek. You can't come out of the gate playing Beethoven's 5th, first you must play Chopsticks. The small simple steps create the feeling of progress and lessen the overwhelming nature of your end goal.
Third, if you have found the passion, built the little steps and goals into your learning plan then you are ready to apply what Malcom Gladwell calls the "10,000 Hour Rule" in his book Outliers. But... if you did not catch the passion from the passionate then this part can be trying if not insurmountable. Mr Gladwell shares that to truly excel at an item of interest you will need to practice the task for 10,000 hours. Direct application of the learning is key. This is my struggle as there is never quite enough hours in the day for all the application practice that needs to happen.
Fourth, your learning plan needs the element of time. You have to devote and schedule the time so that it becomes part of your daily ritual. If not, the urgent distractions will always displace your new passion especially as you find yourself  in the valley of frustration mentioned in this blog on behavior change through master planning. The learning plan and the master plan are quite similar and the points mentioned there transfer nicely.
Fifth, you have to keep the passionate surrounding you as coaches and mentors. you will face challenges and road blocks and you will need a fresh shot of their channeled enthusiasm and knowledge if you want to get unstuck. Besides most journeys are best with friends.
The sixth item that has helped me to learn new things is simple repetition. I create reminder cards and stickers and put them where I see them everyday. I also use learning aid to keep me fresh on task that I don't do as often. The act of creating this learning aids that shoes the basic steps and details required adds as much value as seeing them repeatedly posted around your world.
In closing I want to again point to the importance of passion in learning. My believe is that education without passion is fake and of limited value.
My hope is that these thoughts help you as you prepare to follow your passion and that you enjoy the journey it provides!

4 Simple Steps to Start Creating a Learning Culture in Your Organization

Is training a drudgery endured once or twice a year or is it a part of daily life enjoyed by all? Many companies and sites are missing the boat by not having a culture of continuous learning. One where new knowledge is constantly entering the "collective" and finding its way into use. If you can create this culture then you will keep your organization competitive while improving morale according to multiple recently studies.
Here are five easy ways to start your site on a pathway to lifelong education.
1. Trade publications offer a lot of great examples of other organizations success and best practices for no cost other than the time to read. If you are in the manufacturing and asset management world your site should be getting magazines like Plant Engineering, Plant Services, Solutions, Uptime, and others. It is not enough to just sign up for a free subscription. Set up magazine swaps and route around articles that you think are particularly relevant to the site. Have different people present a quick overview of one article per week in your morning meeting. Make the transfer of knowledge an important part of your traditional report out meetings.
2. Websites and blogs like ReliabilityNow.com can also supplement your magazine articles. If your organization is more comfortable with online resources than print you can increase your learning with tools like Twitter and LinkedIn as they serve up a lot of great content as well. Be aware however that forwarding a link in an email can sometimes lower the chances it will be consumed by your target audience. After all they did not just receive that email, it came with 38 others. Because of that you may want to share verbally as well as possibly print it in order to get the attention of your group. This really depends on the culture your site has developed.
3. Videos and YouTube are exploding with information, industry specific newscast, and how to videos. If you have not done so just take a look at this search on YouTube for Asset Management. These videos can be used to kick off meetings, they can be looped in break rooms or just sent as a link. There are also videos on demand like the ones we host here that can provide general awareness or a refresher of content right when you need it and when it matters to you most. 
4. Books are the last category and while very old school the classic book club approach can really help the organization grow by holding students accountable to read and then discuss with the group. The discussion really improves retention of the material and understanding. If you can tie the content to something that is happening in the facility, increasing the relevance, then it will be a slam dunk.
I have used all of these in organizations at one time or another and it is pretty exciting to see the organization brighten as it embraces lifelong learning.

Are You Forgetting Your Hard Earned Lessons? Could it cost you the war with your competitors?

This video shows what would have to be called a best practice in the world of archery, and for that matter war, that was forgotten and lost over time. Lars Andersen has rediscovered the technique through careful study and practice.  An archer with this skill set, as you will see, could devastate the competition and possibly change the outcome of both battles and wars. Take a look and then think about what practices your company has discovered through the years at the floor level and else where that have been lost due to turnover of employees, poor documentation, poor processes and lack of focus. With the departure of the baby boomer generation we are facing the equivalent of a mass exodus of skilled archers. Time is of the essence to capture their skills and knowledge and create training plans to leverage this knowledge to enlighten future employees. It would be great to capture it from the people but you might also need to go after it else where.
Key areas that might contain existing knowledge could be:

• Technical knowledge could be contained in your drawings, plans, purchasing records, maintenance craftsman's little black books and Computerized Maintenance Management System

• Operational process knowledge could be contained in log books, data historians, recipes, operators little black books

• Business processes knowledge might be found in those dusty manual up on the shelf in your office or old "as is and to be" documents scattered here and there on servers and shelves.

Once you have the knowledge it is useless if you can not find a way to transfer it. It would be like finding the picture of the archer and putting it in your desk drawer. The power is the conversion of history to application through training and communication.
You might choose to use e-learning, face to face training, video, coaching, simulations, project based application, and blended approaches that focus on the learning objectives that are taken away from your best practice documentation. We suggest you look at what you are doing today, what you would like to do different in the future and then determine what skills, knowledge and abilities that you need to communicate to facilitate the cultural change that you are looking for. Through this process you can keep the archers shooting fast and strait and win the war with the competition.