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Put the People-Factor Back into Maintenance
In our profession, the profession of maintenance and reliability, we are really good at focusing on what it takes to maintain equipment. We are also really good at developing work processes that define the procedures and methods for getting maintenance and reliability work accomplished properly. The bottom line here: People must be engaged to make equipment reliable using these work processes. Sometimes, we are not so good at that. We must put the people factor back into maintenance to make our businesses competitive and financially successful.

“Made in China”
These three words—“Made in China”—do not have to foreshadow plant closings or downsizing. Rather, they must be embraced as a wake-up call to our industries, our business and our economy. We have a race to win, and our motto is “Beat China!” The sleeping giant has awakened, and we seem to be sitting back, resisting change while our industries are being threatened, ravaged and driven into extinction. Wake up, America!

A Tax on Maintenance
Tax-and-spend initiatives are not new—spending resources that don’t yet exist only to raise taxes to cover the loss. There are numerous, sound historical examples from the 18th century of the downside of these strategies. Today, what is often overlooked are the tax-and-spend strategies that catch many of our maintenance organizations off guard and undermine their best efforts. Beware of the “maintenance tax” and the unintended consequences.

Mastering the Art of Stewardship
People who are closest to the equipment and processes, closest to the facilities and machinery, are the ones who can make or break the competitive position of the business. Quite often, our challenge is to help everyone understand and appreciate that if we don’t do that, if we abuse or ignore equipment problems, then we are potentially opening the door to the competition—here or in a foreign country. Mastering the art of stewardship might not be easy, but it can be well worth the effort, especially considering the alternative. So what is it that makes it so difficult to achieve in today’s workplaces?

Old Dogs, New Tricks
We have a problem that’s been stealthily spreading all over America. On the surface, it is declining employee job-related training. At its core, in part, is the “you can’t teach old dogs new tricks” mentality. Today’s workers are our strength; they produce the goods that generate wealth for our businesses, communities and our nation. The buck starts here. These “Old Dogs” know what they’re doing and how to get things done. Yes, they can be stubborn at times, but when they put their minds to it, they can definitely get the right things done—and done well! But we can—and we must—get better at what we do.

Let’s Not Forget Our Roots
Some 200 years since the ripples of the Industrial Revolution started lapping at our shores. Has our progress hit a plateau? Have we run out of ideas? Have we lost our powerful work ethic and our pride? Has our progress stalled? Let’s reflect on how we built the foundations of the largest manufacturing economy in the world.

Share This with Senior Operations Management
One of the biggest challenges we have in the maintenance arena is being fully valued by our senior leadership. Many don’t know that we are routinely asked to do so much non-maintenance work, which prevents us from doing productive maintenance work. This is not a “poor pitiful me” story but rather serious observations and recommendations based on evidence from hundreds of plant visits, assessments, audits, discussions and improvement initiatives. Ever wonder why many capital-intensive businesses fail to achieve their competitive potential? Read on.

Maintenance is Not a Supplier
In today’s business lexicon, there is much discussion about promoting customer-supplier relationships internally in the work processes. The maintenance department in your facility might be treated as a supplier in the traditional sense by your customers in production, but that kind of organizational thinking is counterproductive and sometimes devastating to the business.Could it be that the traditional customer-supplier model does not work for maintenance and reliability? Read our Five Principles for a Maintenance and Reliability Partnership.

Work Orders: Who’s Got Time for Paperwork?
Sound familiar? Maintenance work orders are often seen as an extra burden to the maintainers as well as those who are requesting the work to start with. “Paperwork. Needless paperwork. That’s all it really is anyway. I just want to call the mechanic and get this work done fast!” But without a work order history, the maintenance organization is at risk and equipment problems will likely get worse.

Training Rule #1: Adults are Not Children
When training comes up in your workplace, do you think back to a horrible experience from school: a nasty teacher, a crowded classroom, boring subjects, studying, and most of all, tests and grades? Training and learning is a must for today's businesses. Both maintenance and operations employees must possess the skills and knowledge to perform meaningful tasks right the first time, every time. So overcoming the roadblocks to workplace training is essential. These roadblocks all but disappear when we understand Training Rule # 1: Adults are not children.

Too Much Information?
Small businesses and highly reactive maintenance organizations can easily fall into the trap of not knowing what action to take because of a lack of reliable information. Or the opposite: a trap of taking swift action with defective information. We are awash in information. Well, not real information, just lots of stuff coming at us faster than we can sort it out. How we access this information and search for answers to help us take the right action can be a growing challenge that must be mastered.

Maintenance Terms We Use
The world of maintenance and reliability is awash with unique words and phrases, and when we encounter the uninitiated, they might think we are speaking a foreign language. When a "raw recruit" enters our mysterious world, imagine the communications gaps, confusion, and errors that could be attributed to the words we use as second nature. And what about decision makers who listen with frustration as we baffle them with a language of our own? "What we've got here is a failure to communicate!" (Article includes crossword puzzle.)

“A Little Neglect May Breed Great Mischief”
Root-cause thinking reveals that we’re only as strong as our weakest link. (This article won the American Society of Business Publication Editors' 2009 Bronze Award.)

Pit Crew Experience Brochure
Our one-of-a-kind hands-on Pit Crew Experience coupled with Lean and TPM provides proven methods for improving teamwork and equipment reliability. Follow this link to download our brochure and registration form.

Pit Crews, Race Teams, & Preventive Maintenance
NASCAR racing has given us many insights into the world of competitive motorsports. It has evolved from moonshiners' souped-up cars and truly "stock" cars off the showroom floors to custom-built high-performing racecars. Race fan or not, each of us can learn much about planned/preventive maintenance execution from the modern-day race teams and their pit crews.

The “Most Competitive Nation” is on the Edge
The United States retained its number one position as the "most competitive economy" in a recently published report. Impressive, but we cannot afford to become complacent with our past and current competitiveness position. Given the faltering economic conditions, escalating global competitiveness, and the growing shortages of skilled maintenance and manufacturing people, we are a nation at risk.

Ten Key Questions
How well is your company doing in maintenance and reliability?

The Perfect Storm Intensifies
The maintenance skills shortage—once a huge sleeping giant of a perfect storm—has now awakened and is intensifying. Are you ready? (This article won the American Society of Business Publication Editors' 2009 Bronze Award.)

Lean at the Wheel: Pit Crews in Action
NASCAR race teams, one of the best examples of team-based maintenance and reliability for modern manufacturing, continue to demonstrate best practices.

Maintenance, Reliability, Profit, & Loss
Lessons to be Learned from the Florida Power Outage

Sustaining Reliability Gains
Sometimes I wonder why so many maintenance and reliability improvement initiatives stop or go dormant in such a short time. Could it be that there is no honestly compelling reason to change? Could it be that everyone who should be leading the change process has not bought into it? Could it be that some are afraid of change… afraid of the unknown or do not want to change at all? Truth is, maybe it’s all of those reasons, and more. So how do we sustain positive changes, innovations in maintenance and reliability in our organizations?

Where is the Reliability Improvement Policy?
Where is your Reliability Policy—the policy that guides improvement of the maintenance and reliability processes and methods? Unfortunately, most capital-intensive businesses do not have a Reliability Policy that serves as a guide for managing capital assets, maintaining, making decisions about and improving the performance and reliability of those assets.

Who’s Got Time to Train Anymore?
Reliability and Maintenance is—and has been—a woefully overlooked career. We need our nation’s best and brightest young minds in reliability and maintenance careers NOW! What are we doing to attract and retain them? What are we doing to train them to maintain the highest levels of equipment performance and reliability? What are we doing to promote pride in workmanship?

Determining Maintenance Staffing Levels is Tricky Business
"What is the formula for determining the optimum maintenance staffing level for our plant?"

Unfortunately, there is no easy answer for choosing the number of maintenance mechanics or technicians as we wrestle with maintenance costs, reliability improvement, and an era of maintenance skills shortages. Here are the big variables that affect maintenance staffing level decisions.

Cheaper is Not Always Better
Whether it is a service or a product, cheaper is not always better. We have all experienced the difference between something that is “cheaply made” and something that is “a lot of value for the money.” So, what is motivating us, our society, our companies, and our organizations to blur the lines between “cheap” and “low cost/high value”? And what are the consequences?

Sometimes, It’s the Little Things
Many of today's businesses have become obsessed with "improvement programs." And many of these programs have come and gone over the decades. All the while, the causes of poor equipment performance and downtime are often overlooked. Many of today's equipment-related losses are preventable using common sense, time, minimal resources, and experienced coaching. Here are a few case examples of how the little things can make a big difference.

I Want America Back!
Remember when our businesses, industries, government, and educational institutions focused on the basics? The very foundation of what made America strong has eroded, and our capital-intensive businesses and industries are at more risk today than ever before. But the analytical tools and technologies available to improve reliability have blossomed. Given these tools and technologies, we should have the most productive, reliable plants and facilities in the world. So where is the gap?

A World without Craftsmen
"Craftsmanship" results when highly trained, skilled, and knowledgeable workers use tools and machinery to perform their work, or trade, with the highest levels of quality and appeal. But this "craftsmanship" and pride in workmanship is nothing new. Let's look at the historical development of a "craftsman" as a lesson for our future.

The Rise and Decline of Auto Manufacturing
U.S. workforce and leadership can do anything they put their mind to, making us the most productive nation in the world. But American automakers should learn a lesson from the history of British auto manufacturing.

Facing Our Own Giants
Maintenance and reliability problems can range from small to huge. But left unchallenged, the entire facility work culture becomes demoralized, frustrated, and berated. Problems grow, and the big ugly threatening “giant” wins. For true and lasting improvement to occur, there must be effective leadership. And without positive action, a leader’s vision for the future is only a dream.

Why Should We Care?
What do these have in common: workplace organization, 5S, housekeeping, tardiness, absenteeism, safety, labor shortages, and equipment maintenance and reliability? For starters, we have seen significant efforts to improve these areas for years. And sometimes, the results of these efforts go dormant, plateau, or stop all together. A long list of short-lived improvements shapes the attitudes on the plant floor. Attitudes sink to new lows. "Why should we care?"

American Manufacturing: We Can Do It!
The United States is the most productive nation in the world, but we are going to lose our lead big time unless we wake up to the fact that our competitive edge is slipping. We are productive for many, many reasons. We can do it, but we have to consciously choose to do things differently. The time for action is now!

The Most Productive Nation
The United States remains the most productive nation in the world, and U.S. manufacturing has remained the most productive in the world since before 1960. Regardless what might be stated in today’s media, regardless of our politicians’ interpretations, regardless of what some think—we are a model of economic stamina. But if we want to remain the most productive nation in the world, we have serious work to do… and we already know how to do it.

What Gets Measured Gets Done
Data, metric, measures, assessments, evaluations, scorecards, progress reports… Why is it that so often we get hung up on metrics and measuring things to the point that we sometimes lose track of measuring what really matters?

2006 SMRP Skills Shortage Presentation
"How to Overcome the Maintenance Skills Shortage" slide-show presentation from the 14th annual SMRP conference held in October 2006

Fundamentally Rethinking Maintenance and Reliability
M&R programs-of-the-month come and go, each being the silver bullet designed to outdate all other practices. Unfortunately, they rarely work and are rarely sustainable. We need to fundamentally re-think our M&R strategies as we approach this “perfect storm” of skills shortages. So where do we start?

World-Class Simplicity...from the 14th Century
Our manufacturing world can be unnecessarily complicated. Complex solutions are often developed to address relatively simple problems. Now is the time to seek world-class simplicity...a principle taught by a 14th century monk.

Total Productive Maintenance: What It Is and What It Is Not
TPM in its truest sense is a powerful yet simple strategy that can yield sustainable results. Unfortunately, TPM in America has been more often misunderstood than understood. Here are some insights into what TPM is, what it is not, and what it takes to tap into its power.

Equipment Reliability: Getting Fast, Focused, Sustainable Results
What is the secret of generating revenue and lowering operating costs fast? Focus, focus, focus! Focus your reliability efforts on the critical few pieces of equipment in your production process flow. Look for the constraints first. This will lead to improved throughput and revenues. If the causes are related to equipment performance and reliability, then follow this simple process.

Integrating TPM with Lean, Existing Systems, and Organizations
This presentation focuses on the confusion about and barriers to Total Productive Maintenance principles, in contrast to existing legacy systems and organization structures, and the transformation to Lean Manufacturing. Robert Williamson describes many different proven success factors and common failure modes of TPM. Confusion about "lean" coupled with a "program-of-the-month" apathy and misconceptions about maintenance and TPM all put up barriers to improving overall equipment effectiveness, the original intent of TPM. Whether you call it TPM, Lean Maintenance, or Lean Equipment Management, new methods must be used to eliminate equipment-related losses (wastes) to reduce cost and improve throughput.

The Mystery of the Lean Toolbox
Many of today’s Lean Manufacturing initiatives describe a Lean Toolbox. There appears to be a whole box full of new tools to help us achieve “Lean.” But most of these tools are not new, and there are some basic tools missing.

Finding the Elephant in Maintenance
In the world of manufacturing and facilities management, we often get called upon to find ways to improve maintenance. Consider these basic steps for sustainable improvements.

Skills Shortages Contribute to Job Loss
Excellent maintenance and reliability skills and knowledge are in peak demand in today’s work environment and labor market, and the demand has been increasing at an alarming rate. The problem is this: Many people working in the maintenance field today are stuck with the same old skill sets they had years ago.

Pay-for-Applied Skills: The Time is Now
Having trouble retaining top-skilled maintenance technicians? Motivating them to master new skills a problem? Is recruiting good employees difficult? Consider a pay-for-applied-skills compensation plan.

The Fuzzy Side of Equipment Reliability
A few observations about the relationship between employee skills and equipment reliability may offer insights for plant and facility managers who are troubled with unreliable equipment and high maintenance costs.

NASCAR: a Model for Equipment Reliability and Teamwork
Explore the winning aspects of NASCAR race teams by looking at six key elements of equipment performance and reliability for manufacturing equipment and facilities maintenance.

Lean Organizations Must Have Reliable Equipment
Many of today’s business leaders interpret “lean” as “downsizing” and make the mistake of reducing headcount. That is not the intent of “lean.” Explore what lean is and what it isn't.

Surviving Changes in Management
Surviving management turnover is a tough challenge for maintenance and reliability improvement initiatives. Explore tips for helping your improvement process endure.

Facing a Famine in the Workforce
Examine steps employers and business leaders can take to stem the problems associated with shortages of skilled people willing and able to take jobs.

Keeping and Developing Skilled Employees: Your Future Depends on It
Finding skilled and knowledgeable maintenance and reliability employees is getting harder and harder. How will we maintain the high levels of equipment and process reliability that our plants and facilities demand?

The 'Perfect Storm' is Bearing Down on US Food Manufacturers
With a pending wave of departing skilled maintenance workers, the U.S. food manufacturing industry, along with many other industries, are in the eye of a "perfect storm." Many are unaware of either its magnitude or its devastating impact.

Using Overall Equipment Effectiveness: the Metric and the Measures
OEE was not designed to make comparisons from machine-to-machine, plant-to-plant, or company-to-company, but it has evolved to these common levels of misuse. What was the original intent of Overall Equipment Effectiveness as a metric and a measure?

E-mail: The Most Used, Least Effective Communication Tools
We have worked with many different types of manufacturing facilities around North America, seeking to improve communications about equipment and process reliability and have discovered why some preventive maintenance programs fail: e-mail.

Breakthrough Strategy for Changing Behaviors
When moving from a reactive maintenance work culture to one that emphasizes equipment and process reliability, we are challenging the maintenance mindsets of many people at all levels in the organization. So how do you go about changing the work culture?

Data, Data, Data …
Turning data into useful information is the key to making critical equipment reliable. NASCAR contenders have found data invaluable in improving their overall performance. How they use data to assure equipment performance and reliability provides a model for manufacturing and maintenance. Here are some insights.

Focus on Results and Change the Culture Along the Way (Part 1)
It’s fairly easy to become enamored with setting up a program to improve performance. It’s also easy to get a small group rallied around a maintenance improvement project. The problem with this “activity-based” approach is that the enthusiasm runs out. The key is to focus on results!

Focus on Results and Change the Culture Along the Way (Part 2)
Can you reduce equipment downtime by more than 50 percent in less than one month? This company did!

Don't Be Misled by O.E.E.
Overall equipment effectiveness has been used as one of the more important maintenance metrics since Total Productive Maintenance came to the U.S. in the late 1980s. But it has also been misused and has caused confusion.

The Tale of an Old Clock and Reliability
A broken clock is right exactly twice each day. But did you ever think about what "right" really means?

Focus on Results and Change the Culture Along the Way (Part 3)
"Here it comes again: another new maintenance program. I wonder how long this one will last?" Have your attempts to improve equipment maintenance and reliability been met with similar reactions? What sets ill-fated attempts apart from the breakthrough improvements that lead to sustainable results and new behaviors?

Warning: Vocational Classes Falling Out of Favor
The decline in technical education is a serious threat to U.S. manufacturing capabilities.

Skills Shortage Stirs Up the Perfect Storm
The lack of basic maintenance skills threatens equipment reliability.

"Should We Cut Maintenance or Training?"
Cuts in these areas can be a prescription for failure!

Lessons from the Busted Knuckle Garage
Would you take your car to mechanics who did not have the right skills? Or where their goal was to fix things fast and cheap? Unfortunately in many plants today, we are doing this very same thing with our most critical equipment.

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