Maintenance Technology July 2015 - (Page 38)

DON'T PROCRASTINATE...INNOVATE Ken Bannister CMRP, MLE Contributing Editor Maintain to the Weakest Link, Part 2: Weakness as Opportunity T he first installment of this two-part column (MT, May, 2015) explored weakness as a desired state. To recap, manufacturers leverage this type of weakness in equipment's consumable-wear items by building in adjustability that helps ensure the reliability and integrity of an asset's critical-and typically most expensive-component systems. In this concluding installment, we explore undesirable weak links related to issues of organizational culture (including knowledge and training) that affect the way operations and maintenance personnel behave in various situations. These behaviors can seriously affect a machine's ability to perform efficiently and reliably. To expose and eliminate weak links that adversely affect their assetmanagement efforts, organizations must first own up to them. Weakness as an undesired state In his best-selling book Good to Great (2001, HarperCollins, New York), author Jim Collins describes a world-class organization as one that has consistently beaten the stock market by an average of seven times, for 15 consecutive years or more. He also identifies the three hallmarks of greatness responsible for converting corporate cultural weakness into strength-evident in all 10 companies highlighted in the book-as relational understanding, communication, and measurement. Collins' premise is applicable to the field of asset management: Those who seek to improve the effectiveness of a maintenance organization must identify and address weak links in its culture and team dynamics, along with weak links in 38 | MAINTENANCE TECHNOLOGY the maintenance system and overall approach to managing assets. Working with countless operations over the course of my career, one of the most frequently used excuses for poor maintenance practices and/or unplanned downtime events that I've encountered has been, "We've always done it that way!" When a plant-maintenance professional offers this explanation, it's a good bet his/her site has seldom-if ever-seriously addressed best-practice assetmanagement strategies, processes, and procedures (perhaps for decades). This reflects an undesirable state of weakness in that effective solutions from the past may have become inadequate or detrimental in the years since. Imagine personnel attempting to maintain plant-equipment assets "the way we've always done it," despite the site having added new shifts to run new production lines automated by new intelligent machinery systems capable of manufacturing new types of products for new and expanded markets at higher speeds than the facility's old equipment ever could. It's easy to pick out the weakness in this hypothetical, but not so far-fetched, example. Some of today's operations, to varying degrees, are trying to run in a similar vein. Eliminate the weakest links The first step in eliminating weak links involves establishing and understanding the asset-management role within your organization and building relationships between the asset-management group (or maintenance department) and internal and external stakeholders. Doing so puts the assetmanagement group in a position of strength that allows it to: ■ manage by common objectives, which can be used to set up service-level agreements with stakeholders ■ measure and track activities for effectiveness. This step is achieved by conducting an assetmanagement or maintenance-operation effectiveness review (MOER) using a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) approach to JULY 2015

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Maintenance Technology July 2015

Forward Observations
Uptime
For On The Floor
News
Drive Strategy With Performance Metrics
Train, Audit Electrical Workers
Carbon-Neutral Drives Molding Company
Troubleshoot Hot Hydraulics
Lubrication Strategies
Don't Procrastinate, Innovate
Products
Marketplace
Ad Index

Maintenance Technology July 2015