Hi all,
Thank you for following me here on this blog. My future posts will be on my LinkedIn Profile here:
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All the very best, Bjarni
Working Together or in Silos
In the asset management world measuring performance through the right KPI’s is important, focusing on the results of the asset management processes and adjusting regularly to the trends seen on the dashboards is vital to continuous improvements.
However it is not enough just to focus on the KPI’s, one always needs to be aware of what is behind the KPI’s, what behaviours KPI’s are driving and what is the ultimate goal for the business as a whole.
Example:
A batch production process breaks down, it is a small component that is relatively easy to change, just takes a few hours to do. However, the spare part is not available in stock and it will take 2 weeks to get that spare part. Luckily, they have two exactly the same types of processes side by side and the production batch cycles allow for the part to be taken from one manufacturing process and installing it on the other process while the batch preparation is done. Thus not affecting the production and delivery of the product is without any production losses noticeable.
So the Maintenance Supervisor adapts to this situation and had a Maintenance Technician perform the switch regularly keeping the production, as well as the customer, happy because production went as planned.
However when focusing on the maintenance KPI parameters this results in an increased Break Down Maintenance over the 2 week period, as they needed to move the part from one process to the next in line with the batch production cycles. This also resulted in non-compliance to part of the PM program, as the maintenance technician did not have the time to do all the planned PM’s because of the added Break Down Maintenance. It can also be assumed that because the PM’s where not done that could result in further unforeseen breakdowns.
The Maintenance Manager comes to the Maintenance Supervisor not happy with his decision, because he monitored the KPI’s and could see that the Maintenance KPI’s, noticeably the break down KPI and PM compliance KPI where not trending in the correct direction.
After weighing the options and understanding the story behind the KPI’s development the Maintenance Manager agreed that out of a bad situation the Maintenance Supervisor selected the best possible path.
Conclusion:
If everyone is focused on a single dominating goal, it is less challenging to adjust to situations as described in the example here above, as long as we understand the underlying attributes that affect the KPI’s developments.
However in a silo situation where there might be tension between the silo’s (e.g. production vs. maintenance). In that case the example might have developed in a different way, i.e. half the production down for 2 weeks because of a failure where the spare part cannot be delivered for 2 weeks, the maintenance KPI’s would suffer a bit (one break down) but the production KPI’s would suffer even more.
Food for thought:
Is there a clear understanding in your organization for the why’s of the decisions that are made, i.e. are there clear governing goals?
Do you sometimes sacrifice your goals for the greater governing goals? And are you recognized for that?
I welcome your feedback and discussions below this Blog post.
A while back I posted a poll with a few possible options as answers to this question and in this blog I will publish the results and some thoughts as well on this.
Participation was 161 votes and the result was as shown in this picture here below:
Poll result on the question: What do you think is the most important aspect of Asset Management?
The answers in other (10.65%) were as follows:
There were also some comments made on the poll’s web site as follows:
There was one extra comment made directly under the poll at this blog site: https://bjarniis.wordpress.com/2013/10/27/would-you-like-to-answer-this-quick-poll-please
Above you have now seen all the raw data from the poll and comment´s made to date. I would like to leave the interpretation mostly to you, my dear reader, as I know the people who read this blog are quite intelligent people working in the great field of Asset Management.
As we can soon see in the emerging ISO5500x series of standards Asset Management is a very iterative management system and as with most systems as soon as one element of the management system is taken out the whole system will not be as effective in delivering the results that are desired.
I can say that the results overall do not surprise me for one and I would like to encourage you all to comment and discuss the results in the comments section here below.
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 2,500 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 4 years to get that many views.
Watching this video from www.TED.com where Simon Sinek is talking about the power of “Why” made me think a bit about why do I do what I do. Here are my conclusions.
For me, it would be because of the multiple complexities of my job. I love tackling them and experiencing the positive results as well as learning from the less positive results.
For me, Asset Management is the greatest field of working possible to be in, I have a real passion for it. I am lucky enough to have worked in this field with many great people throughout my career. Learning every step of the way more and more, realizing that there is seldomly only one correct way to go in any given situation. This is where the complexities of Asset Management come into play; there are so many aspects to consider that it is almost impossible that there is always only one correct way to go. The Asset Management world is rarely only White OR Black, we seem to live in constant changing levels of grey. In addition, this is a great place to be if you enjoy constant challenges like me.
So why do I do the things I do is because I love being challenged, and working in Asset Management ensures that I am constantly challenged!
I now challenge you to take a moment out of your time and look at the video from Simon Sinek, after you have watched it think about why you do what you do and hopefully continue to have a great passion for it.
Thank you for reading my blog. I do try to post here regularly, however I am also very lucky to have a lot of work to do and a lot to enjoy at home so therefore I have little free time to blog. Thank you for understanding and please leave your comment.
In an asset intensive environment an integral part of Reliability is Safety, in other words when reliability increases so does the safety.
It is always a pleasure to see that when reliability initiatives are starting to have a positive effect on equipment, people and processes the safety Key Performance Indicators (“KPI’s”) go up as well. But why does this happen and which is coming first? Is it the safety or reliability? I say reliability comes first then safety, people become more comfortable and positive in their respective roles because the processes are under more reliable control and safety is one of the positive side effects of reliability.
Let’s take a look at the illustrated scenario below:
In a Reactive Maintenance environment:
In a Planned Maintenance environment:
In a Pro-active Maintenance environment:
As can be seen above the development of Reliability and Safety have a strong correlation. Focusing on increased Reliability will promote the right behaviours and result in better safety KPI’s. In addition to all these great benefits to the organisation it will also have a positive impact on the productivity and therefore profitability, which is always a good added benefit to any initiative.
There I am sharing, presenting in a Maintenance Conference in Qatar.
Reading a great article from Ron Moore got me thinking about why sharing is so important in Asset Management, Maintenance and Reliability. Not only is it important, it is also a very powerful tool to improve beyond our wildest dreams. One man’s failure can be the next man’s success story.
Sharing experiences, going to different companies, viewing how various industries approach maintenance, going to conferences to learn from many presenters and also making new contacts from other companies that one day might hold the answer you are looking for: all this is the power of sharing and we could name even more.
In Iceland I was a part of a great group of people who founded the Icelandic Maintenance Association back in 2009. Since then some great achievements have been made in Iceland, the most notable being that companies are regularly visiting each other and hosting meetings where they discuss the challenges they face and the approach that they use in solving these challenges as well as what has worked and what has not.
This is obviously a big investment for these companies, however it is paying back very quickly both in knowledge and personal relationships where people are ready, able and willing to help out in times of need.
One of the many keys to success in Asset Management, Maintenance and Reliability is sharing your knowledge to enhance other people’s knowledge and your own. I have learned through my many years in this area that I get the most when I talk and teach, it sounds reverse, and it is, but true.
I feel truly blessed and lucky that I chose a profession that I am passionate about, or as Confucius said: “Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.”I would like to challenge you all to share what you know, get into contact with people in your profession and build relationships that one day might make the difference you are looking for.
Of course you are welcome to connect with me and it will be my pleasure to share my knowledge with you to improve your business.
The road to success in using information systems is a difficult one to navigate. When an implementation of a system is started some assumptions are made about what is needed from the system, how it will help with decision-making, how it will help with execution of maintenance activities and many other factors. The maintenance environment is a complex environment to begin with, then on top of that it is an environment that is constantly presenting itself with new challenges and changing operational conditions. The markets change as well as many other external factors, the knowledge is leaving from the manufacturing environment because of aging workforce as well as more competition for the remaining workforce with knowledge and experience and the list could go on and on.
At the core of information systems is the gathering of data, it needs to be reliable data so that the decisions from that data are based on solid foundation. Without reliable data the decisions made can not be reliable. The way data is collected is extremely important, wherever there is manual input you are introducing an element of risk for mistakes being made. Wherever the data is collected automatically there is an element of failure or calibration error introduced in the collection process. There are also many other factors that are necessary to remain vigilant about.
To answer the question headed in the Blog, today we have the capabilities to store extreme amounts of data in our systems and databases. So too much data is probably not an issue in most cases. Navigating through that data can be challenging but the most important thing about the data should be that it needs to be reliable and accurate! If there is too little done with the data, probably in most cases it is possible to improve how the data is being used. In helping with good quality decision-making it takes time and a lot of thoughts to develop, it is an investment that can be quick to return a profit.
I hope that you have enjoyed the read and if you have any comments or questions please don’t be shy to post them below or contact me directly. Thank you for reading and hopefully sharing.
One of the biggest challenges in condition based maintenance is answering the big question of production managers when you inform them of a detection of a failure mode.
When a PdM technician tells a manager, I can see that we have a problem in this bearing, or something similar, the question that is most often asked is : “When will it fail?” or “How long do I have left”.
Answering this question usually involves the intuition of the Maintenance PdM technician, how well does he know the machine, how well is he familiar to the operational environment, are there new operators on the machine, will there be new operators on the machine, will there be a change in the maintenance procedures affecting the failure mode that was detected by the condition monitoring… and the list could go on and on… and on… and on…
The period from the P-F points on the failure curve are dependent on too many immeasurable variables to be able to say, for example : “You have one month before this bearing will break down!”.
It is often extremely tempting to express an opinion of how long the period will be from P-F on the failure curve, however there must always be a “grain of salt” with it, so that the production “side” is aware that this is not a guaranty at all.
Another point to consider is that once a failure mode is detected almost always there is an element of waste added in the process, more power is needed to do the same. There are leaks, internal or external, that are wasting energy, etc.
The point of all this here above is that as soon as a failure mode is detected steps should be taken to plan a repair of the failure. This is the foundation of precision maintenance.
When analyzing what went wrong, to prevent further failures from the same source, focus should be given to the Installation point, because before the P-F curve we have the I-P period, that is the Installation to Point of failure detection point… but more on that later.
I hope that you have enjoyed to read this post and will leave a comment.
Bjarni Ellert Ísleifsson, CMRP 