For a variety of reasons, the equipment division or shop may find it difficult to make the necessary improvements because:

• Many equipment managers were promoted from the trades without formal education in management or maintenance systems, therefore, lacking knowledge as to how to improve.
• Many companies are family-owned, and gaining consensus on an improvement focus can be difficult.
• Many companies have numerous long-term employees, who, although loyal, are somewhat resistant to change and complacent in their attitudes toward improvement.
• Few companies actually track any maintenance performance or costs metrics, Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), to allow them to know what is working and what isn't in order to change.
• Equipment management modules from industry enterprise or information management systems are often inadequate for tracking or analyzing.
• We too readily accept poor equipment condition as a result of the construction environment rather than the lack of systems and skills.

Maintenance relies on superior leadership providing direction, focus and support. This almost always means changing the status quo rather than preserving it. This requires ownership to establish a clear mission and vision supportive of the organization's direction and goals. But, to do this, operations must, in turn, accept some responsibility to maintain their equipment. Only senior leadership can make that happen. Leadership, in this case, is not confined to the maintenance or fleet manager. It includes the owners of the enterprise to provide visible and focused support for improving equipment system efficiencies. This means, you, as an owner, have a responsibility to provide leadership to drive change. 

Leadership is also responsible for establishing the policies and expectations that serve to guide maintenance and the organization in supporting maintenance activities. Once policies are developed, they must be deployed, communicated and monitored. Policies are the "law" of the organization, and are therefore, the foundation to what we hold dear and expect. We know that unposted speed limits leave much to interpretation which is why we have those little "policy reminders" posted along the side of the road. That is why we clearly communicate rules and expectations.

To move to World Class status, you must have certain basic systems and practices in place.  Ask your equipment manager or maintenance leader to:

Organize a leadership team or steering council committed to improving maintenance and reliability.

Refine the Preventive Maintenance process and incorporate Predictive Maintenance and Condition-Based Monitoring techniques.

Focus your attention on a formal operator Basic Care system like Total Process Reliability (TPR) or Total Productive Maintenance (TPM).

Place a high degree of emphasis on information management and metrics (KPIs).

Focus on developing a defect elimination culture.

Formalize planning and scheduling to prepare maintenance activity.

Manage inventory control as a science.

Focus on skills training for mechanics and operators.

Develop clear maintenance policies and procedures that standardize the expectations of the organization.

Use Root Cause Failure Analysis (RCFA) to determine causes to failure and develop solutions to prevent a recurrence.

Use spreadsheets or other software to calculate Life Cycle Costs to make better repair/replace decisions.

Use work orders to track and analyze costs and performance.

Be sure to stay the course-strive for continuity, year-after-year.

As an owner, begin the journey to reducing maintenance costs by providing visible leadership asking critical questions and showing support for equipment improvement. If you are unhappy with the returns from your fleet...do something about it!

Preston Ingalls is president/CEO of TBR Strategies LLC, Consultants in Fleet and Plant Equipment Improvement. He can be reached by phone at 919.341.1387 or 919.608.9999, or visit  http://www.tbr-strategies.com/.

Tags: 2006 June Issue, adaptation, change, management,

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