Maintenance Technology July 2017 - 16

VOICE FROM THE FIELD

remains constant with the ultimate
goal of aligning all best practices
across sites, even though at this
point, each site is at different points
in the journey.
Remembering that every individual is unique and each culture
represents some variation of the
path that is taken, the father of two
teen-agers approaches management
like raising children. "You need to
be fair, but everyone may not be
motivated by the same things," he
explained. "Different people react to
different motivation and discipline.
It's important to understand different
people's hot buttons-the good ones
and the bad ones."
Regularly visiting multiple sites
creates many challenges. "It can be
difficult, because some people view
global resources like seagulls-they
swoop in and then leave you a big
to do list," Bitely explained. "You just
can't do that. I've learned to roll up
my sleeves and lead by example. I first
show them how to do it, then explain
why we do it, and try to show the value
that it creates for us. We
are the global resources that are
leveraged to the sites assisting their
growth and value creation. We are
breaking through that barrier; our
mission is to provide technology and
be collaborative."

Early experience
Bitely's approach to implementing
change is the result of a long and
diverse career that includes experience in the pharmaceutical, biotech,
chemical, mining, and pulp and paper
industries.
After graduating from the State
Univ. of New York-Canton, Bitely
worked at a small paper mill in upstate
New York as a process- and qualitycontrol engineer. "It was a goodole-boy operation where we just did
whatever it took-and sometimes that
meant fixing things a million times," he
said. "This experience got me started
down the path of doing things right the

16 |

MAINTENANCE TECHNOLOGY

Ron's Top 5 Tips for
Effective Reliability
1. Acquire good
troubleshooting skills.
2. The smallest details make
the biggest differences. The
big stuff will hit us upside the
head. It's the little stuff we
may miss.
3. Seek others. Don't work in a
vacuum.
4. Continuously educate yourself.
Read blogs. Subscribe to
Linkedin. Read forums.
Attend conferences. It should
be an evolution of learning
everyday.
5. Use emotional intelligence.

first time. I wasn't officially in the field
of maintenance and reliability yet, but
I was indirectly."
It didn't take long for him to understand how this method of doing things
over and over could quickly increase
costs and consume resources.
He later spent time in electrical
construction, and then spent 16 years
working for major pharmaceutical
companies. "This is where I really
began to understand what it looked
like to have good engineering practices
and the importance of getting things
right," he said. "Working in pharmaceuticals can really create a fear in
everyone's mind about FDA recalls, so
you learn to double- and triple-check
things. This is where I really got a good
education in using engineering best
practices. It was an overall discipline.
The longer I was there, the more I
learned. I began to understand the
importance of having a process. There
is a rhyme and a reason for why you
do things. I also learned a lot about
risk mitigation."
He then gained more diverse experience working as a reliability leader at
Georgia Pacific, Atlanta. "Working in a

variety of industries has helped
me learn how to approach
things, and has helped in
my ability to coach and
mentor people because
the experience is so
broad," he continued.
For KRATON, Bitely
influences the local teams
to maintain all of the manufacturing equipment and also
promote reliability within the
operations, safety, and quality
units for the global facilities.
"Reliability touches everything,"
he said.

Best practices
For consistency across all
sites, KRATON uses SAP for
its CMMS. The company also
incorporates the use of many
maintenance and reliability tools
within every site, for example, vibration analysis and monitoring, infrared,
ultrasound, and other technologies for
best predictive practices.
Strong leadership and incentive
programs are also used. In every practice, Bitely encourages his early lessons
of doing things right the first time.
With various cultures and languages,
there are many sensitivities that come
into play when incorporating these
best-practice processes across sites.
"How you address someone could
be fine in one place and completely
offensive somewhere else," he said.
While, ultimately, the target is the
same, actually defining the "North
Star" at each site becomes critical.
For centuries, explorers have used
the North Star as a beacon of travel
throughout the world. Therefore,
the universal analogy translates well
globally.

Special programs
KRATON creates, develops, and
manufactures renewable chemicals
and specialty polymers for a variety
of products in a variety of industries.
Bitely is working on a program to
JULY 2017

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