Maintenance Technology April 2017 - 8

UPTIME

Think of the
not the responsibility of the pit crew
(let's call it the "maintenance crew") to
determine how many tires to change. The
crew chief (let's call him or her the "maintenance manager") reviews previous tireperformance data, compared with vehicle
handling, as reported by the driver, and
determines the tire-changing tasks to be
completed during each pit stop.
After all, the goal of a race is not only
flawless work execution (efficiency) by
the pit crew, but also performance of
pit stops in a manner that ensures the
business goal of winning the race is a top
priority (effectiveness).
All too often, we focus primarily on
measuring and improving maintenance
efficiency, including, among other things,
preventive-maintenance (PM)-schedule
compliance, mean time to repair, actual
hours/planned hours, planning variance,
and preventive/predictive-maintenance
(PM/PdM) yield. While activities (or
actions) associated with these measurements and improvements lead to excellent maintenance practices, they must be
balanced with maintenance effectiveness.
Aligning maintenance functions with
business goals assures maintenance
effectiveness. Maintenance actions then
contribute to the goals of the business.

Line of sight
I've discussed asset-management
standards and the importance of aligning
an organization's work processes with
their goals in numerous Maintenance
Technology columns over the years.
Both the PAS-55:2008 Asset Management Specification and ISO55000:
2014 Asset Management Standard
refer to the importance of aligning
asset-management practices to the goals
of the business. PAS-55 referred to this
alignment as a "line of sight" designed to
assure the effectiveness of such practices.
Let's use the chart on p. 6 to drill down
through a typical line of sight, from the
upper-most purposes of an enterprise, all
the way to work execution on the plant
floor. Since business terminology varies
widely, here are my clarifications and
some examples for this diagram:

MAINTENANCE TECHNOLOGY

maintenance
function as a 'team
sport' involving
multiple 'players' in
asset life cycles.
■
■
■
■
■
■
■

■
■
■
■
■

Business Opportunity (our market/
customers/requirements)
Shareholder/Owner Expectations
(return on the investment)
Organization's Mission-Vision (who
we are and where we want to be)
Strategic Themes, Policy Statements
(guiding principles)
Strategic Business Plan (what and why)
Business Goals (what we want to
accomplish)
Key Performance Indicators
(measuring what is critical: financial,
customer, process, people, and/or
regulatory)
Objectives/Strategic Initiatives (what
and how)
Organizational Structures (our
divisions/cost centers/departments/
shifts/crews)
Job Roles & Responsibilities,
Job Requirements (who, what,
where, when)
Work Processes, Methods, Procedures,
Systems (how work should/shall be
performed)
Work Execution (performance
management-how well).

Top-down/bottom-up
There are two ways to approach line-ofsight alignment. Most organizations view
it from a top-down perspective to define
their respective business models and
what they should measure to determine
whether they're on a successful path.
Their KPIs (key performance indicators)
often provide necessary measures of
success.
From a bottom-up perspective,
we see Work Execution reflecting the
fundamental actions required to meet the
Business Goals as measured by the KPIs.

The two paths (top-down and bottomup) meet in the middle-aligned toward
the same KPIs.
Connecting and aligning Work Execution to the KPIs are some of the most
critical links in the process. The KPIs
can be made actionable by linking to the
appropriate Equipment Utilization Losses
(see Uptime, March 2017).
Specific Objectives or Initiatives are
determined from the KPIs; Organizational Structures are defined; specific
Job Roles & Responsibilities (in various
departments) are defined; and Work
Processes are developed to define how
work is to be performed. All of this leads
to the flawless Work Execution that's
necessary to achieve the Business Goals
(as in the pit crew example).

Seeking alignment
Aligning the work culture (an organization's behaviors) with a line of sight to the
organization's business goals begins by
communicating the Business Opportunity and how the organization needs
to pull in the same direction to take full
advantage of it.
Linking maintenance to business
goals is only one of many alignments that
must exist in successful enterprises. Thus,
we must remember that a maintenance
department alone cannot effectively
maintain equipment and facilities.
More and more, we're learning that the
maintenance function is a team sport that
requires multiple disciplines (players)
brought in at different stages in the life
cycle of a physical asset.
Paying attention to maintenancework processes and efficiency are good
things to measure. It's when we align the
outcomes of those processes and efficiencies with business goals that maintenance
truly becomes effective in a business
model. MT

Bob Williamson, CMRP, CPMM,
and member of the Institute of Asset
Management, is in his fourth decade
of focusing on the "people side" of
world-class maintenance and reliability.
Contact him at RobertMW2@cs.com.
APRIL 2017

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Maintenance Technology April 2017