Make a searching and fearless assessment of my present condition.
5. Identify and acknowledge the defects in my system.
6. Get help to develop a path forward.
7. Use data to gain management support and obtain a corporate sponsor.
8. Organize for success with roles and responsibilities for implementation.
9. Communicate the vision with all employees.
10. Establish measures and post for all to see.
11. Drive continual improvement.
12. Network to share problems and solutions.
Maintenance excellence is the missing link to being competitive in the world market today. Change occurs one step at a time, and you each can make a difference. Remember that your people hear and incorporate only what they understand. Ask for help when you need it to make the changes that you desire. Working together, we can all be successful. Build pride from your successes.
In the next chapter, we will look at specific steps to help you get started on your “cure to the maintenance insanity” at your location.
With the variety of company cultures represented by the maintenance industry, one size cannot fit everyone’s needs when overcoming the years of insanity and bad habits. An implementation transition is desirable to establish standard maintenance and reliability practices to achieve the desired business results for you and your customers. Years of experience have been incorporated into this book for your use to impact work processes and methods, common performance measures, preventive/predictive programs, cost control, reliability implementations, budget development, and continual improvement project processes. Helpful files and tools are available for your use at www.maintenanceinsanity.com to get you started on your improvement adventure. You must coordinate the maintenance management at your sites to optimize resource utilization, improve equipment reliability, and optimize maintenance effectiveness through shared technology and practices. You can gain insight from internal and external consultants to obtain a different perspective if you are “too close to the trees to see the forest.” Just getting someone from outside your groups can be eye-opening to identify and help you understand if you are in an insanity loop but may not even know it.
Using your limited implementation resources at your site, together we will drive a common strategy to take costs out of your systems, to improve labor effectiveness through better utilization of maintenance and operations personnel sharing tasks and knowledge, to eliminate low-value-adding functions, and to drive learning through networking with other facilities. As shown in Figure 4.1, sometimes you have to cut through all the red tape and make a change to get a change. It all starts with a new mindset. Believe that you can do it and you can.
FIGURE 4.1 The new mindset
The following transition process has been successful in implementing change and regaining sanity for everyone involved (self-evaluation with internal help or external professionals):
1. Visit the site to develop relationships and to assess their present status.
a. Capture the present organization and structure to identify strengths, weaknesses, and needs. Document roles and responsibilities of all key people. Recognize small site differences that will impact the implementation path forward.
b. Conduct an assessment as a starting reference point. Online tools and example and model assessments are included at www.maintenancein-sanity.com for your use. Collect historical data to evaluate the status of planning, shift coverage, PM/predictive programs, operator involvement with maintenance (some operators think that they are mechanics now), and other assessment categories.
c. Do an equipment criticality assessment to establish common site work priorities and use as a future reliability reference document.
d. If doing an internal evaluation, evaluate what an external consultant could offer to add value and speed of implementation.
e. Prioritize the rollout schedule based on need versus benefit with available resources.
2. Determine the minimum resources required to meet approved implementation commitments. (We successfully used two-person teams for implementation support in many applications.)
a. Provide experience and vision through the resources that you assign. They are to be the role models for work processes and work methods and create your credibility. They are the agents to show, tell, explain why, and change your present cultures.
b. Define and communicate the roles of the implementation team members and the roles for the required site resources (single voice for operations and maintenance planner).
c. Hold an initial workshop to get like-minded and to develop the following:
d. Do a site-wide kickoff (town hall meeting) to initiate communications and sharing after getting approval and buy-in from the site management team.
3. The project manager and site implementation team help make culture changes in the organization, structure, work methods, and approach to problem solving:
a. Form
