How many companies have had a good, well-flowing reliability program that suddenly (or apparently suddenly) began to derail? What happened? How do you get it back on track? I believe that this may be a common cycle and caused by various events. I am going to focus on two of these events that I feel are more prominent than you may think. The first event will be discussed here. The second event will be addressed in a future post.
Program is too well-established: It is human nature to take routine events and benefits for granted. I look back to an ice storm my hometown had a few years ago. We had 1/2" or more of ice. Trees were broken; power lines were sheared; roads were closed. My house went without power for more than a week. Almost everyone went at least a few days without power. Do you know what happens when there are wide spread power outages? Gas stations are closed. Do know what happens when gas stations are closed? No one can use gas powered generators in the middle of winter! Most people do not think about the loss of gas stations when having a winter preparedness plan. They think about some food and warm clothes and snow shovels. They take for granted that they can easily go to a nearby store and get gas. People were not prepared.
The same thing happens to a well-established PdM Program. You prepare your normal reports. You send them out in the same old fashion. They have the same look. They contain the same type of data. People take you and your results for granted. Just like they do the gas station. As they take your work for granted, you also begin taking your work for granted. Over time, you begin to become lax about sharing smaller 'finds'. They have become routine and commonplace. You assume that most people understand the benefits of the PdM program. Like anything else, though, the routine become forgotten. Everyone is looking for the next big cost savings approach to work.
In the end, you are the voice of your program. You have to 'toot your own horn' and tell people what you are accomplishing. If you don't do it, then who will? You must present information in a method that catches their attention. Do you think an automatic report that has been around for years and merely lists plant issues is going to catch the eye of company managers and leadership? No, it won't. The presentation must be unique, concise, and capture a true benefit of the program. Switch things up a bit. Maybe on one reporting sequence, provide the equipment that are exhibiting signs of failure. On the next sequence, provide a chart of most common failed components. On the following sequence, provide information on corrective maintenance or actions taken that prevented a failure in the first place. An example of that would be something like this....A Lubrication Mechanic is making routine equipment inspections. He notices that a bucket of oil being used for top-ups contains a good deal of water contamination due to a nearby packing leak. He removes the bucket, discards the oil, tightens the packing, and replaces the bucket with new oil. When your program first started, you probably would have written that up and forwarded to the Maintenance and Operations groups. You were excited then. But how about now? Maybe not. Use your reporting as your way of reporting these 'saves'.
The main idea of this topic is to keep your program active. Don't let it become static and the company become complacent. Spice it up. Make reports beneficial, concise, and informative. Every piece of data should tell a story. You have to be the storyteller.
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