Up Time Magazine - February/March 2009 - (Page 46) reliability upload Continuing The Journey Following the Path to Reliability Excellence by R. Keith Mobley, CMRP, MBB I n the first article (Aug/Sept 2008) in this series, we briefly discussed the first step in a successful journey to Reliability Excellence, e.g. a thorough assessment of your current state. Before we move on, we should assure that we all understand and agree on the meaning of a thorough assessment. of the other gadgets touted as the solution to poor performance and nothing will change. Unless and until you have a properly trained workforce that is motivated and empowered to effectively use the systems, nothing can change. Culture change, e.g. replacing bad practices or habits with effective work practices, is the true key to consistent, sustainable high performance. It’s not the gadgets, it the way they are used that is important. If one looks at high performance plants, many use outdated technology that is overcome by a highly motivated and involved workforce. People make the difference. Our master plan for the reliability excellence journey must recognize this critical fact, and assure that we create a future state environment that will empower our workforce to make us successful. Always remember that people will always find change inherently threatening or uncomfortable. As a result, people at all levels of the company will throw obstacles in the way of organizational change. The best remedy involves offering strong management support to the teams, and providing adequate training to allow workers to change jobs with ease. Once the cross-functional teams begin redesigning work processes, you will face a whole new round of hurdles. “Why do you want to change what we’ve been doing for 10 years?” asks one worker. He answers his own question, “Just because we’ve done it for 10 years doesn’t make it right.” This barrier is a little more difficult to surmount. Part of the solution involves strong leadership and changing the company culture from accepting business-as-usual to expecting continuous improvement. Front line supervisors, perhaps more than the hourly workforce, will feel highly threatened by change, especially when facing the prospect of self-directed work teams. “When a manager or supervisor resists empowering the workers, it becomes almost impossible to get it done,” asserts a team facilitator. Managers and supervisors have a great deal invested in maintaining the status quo. Often, they owe their positions of power and authority to their ability to excel within the very organizational model that self-directed work teams aim to overthrow -- traditional corporate february/march 2009 To be effective, the status assessment must quantitatively identify all of the strengths and limiting factors that define the current operating condition of the plant or plants that are candidates for transformation. It must also be comprehensive and include all functions that directly or indirectly influence the performance of the company. Avoid the natural tendency to focus on one area, such as maintenance, and ignore others that are perceived to be working effectively or that are not considered an influence on performance. For example, few consider the impact that the sales function has on plant performance, but if one looked logically at the plant the real impact of sales becomes painfully clear. Sales or more specifically the mix of orders that they input into the plant’s backlog, is the tail that wags the dog. If the sales department loads the plant with standard products, reasonable lots sizes and realistic delivery commitments, the production departments can effectively schedule and still allot adequate time for maintenance. On the other hand, when the incoming backlog consists of non-standard products, small lots sizes and rush delivery commitments, production and all other plant functions are forced into a reactive mode. Effective asset utilization, production efficiency and time for maintenance go out the window and everyone scrambles to meet customer requirements. The Master Plan With a good status assessment in our hands, we can move to the next step in our journey. We need to develop a plan, or roadmap, that will guide us through the transformation from our current state to a future state that will build on our strengths and eliminate our weaknesses. Developing a master, or project plan, sounds simple—just open Microsoft Projects and start listing tasks that are needed to eliminate deficiencies. Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. Successful plans will include processes for the following: Culture Change Simply creating new policies, job descriptions or purchasing new tools and equipment will achieve little value. One can purchase state-of-the-art production systems, multi-million dollar computer systems and all 46
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