In Part I of "Why are we slipping?", I discussed the theory that a plant reliability program begins to slip and fade because it is too well-established and is taken for granted. The program becomes stale and becomes background noise to many people.
In this post, I will discuss a different theory on why a program may begin to slip.
New Management Does Not Know Your Benefit and Successes: For the past 10 years or so, your management team has trusted your data interpretation and equipment performance diagnosis. You didn't need to explain yourself and reasoning each time an event came about. Now, however, you have new people in leadership positions. They don't know your history or experience or hours you have spent diagnosing similar events in the past. All that they know is the plant has a problem they (new management) have never seen before, and they must be able to stand behind any repair decisions made. You feel like a newbie again---having to explain in great detail why you believe the bearing is failing, how you came to that conclusion, and what prevents you from giving an exact timeline on the final failure. It can be frustrating and you begin asking yourself questions. Why don't they trust my interpretation? Do they not realize we have seen similar occurences many times in the past?
It is important to "train" new management members about what you do and why you are good at it. Don't wait until the first big event. You must build and earn their trust before this. Provide regular updates, show examples of common failures and finds on an ongoing basis, maybe even present more complex examples from others in the industry to illustrate that you are always learning and understand your craft. If you can build their trust over a prolonged period, you become a trusted expert.
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