Uptime: Asset Management — When the ‘Line of Sight’ is Broken

Consider this: New equipment was designed and purchased before maintenance and operations had been consulted. Training and documentation for the new equipment had been eliminated in the final stages of the project as a cost-saving measure. Shortly after installation, marketing launched a new product that the plant wasn’t prepared to deliver. And to make the new product, operations pushed the new equipment to do something for which it was not designed.

Would you anticipate problems regarding the operation, maintenance and long-term reliability of this new equipment? Absolutely! To achieve the levels of operational reliability defined by this organization’s own objectives, old habits like those above must change. Message to top management: Your job is to lead the culture change, knock down barriers, model the way and reinforce new behaviors.

Damaged sight lines

In a career spanning hundreds of companies and new-facility and equipment startups, I’ve seen first-hand what happens when well-meaning people focus on the narrow aspects of their job responsibilities and fail to consider the bigger impact of their decisions and actions. The “line of sight” that connects their activities and performance goals to the organization’s overall objectives is often broken. Following are a few examples, each set from a separate organization:

“If it weren’t for the students, we could keep the vending-machine area of the building clean.” (College-Campus Maintenance Superintendent)

“We sent all our mechanics and electricians to the best-of-the-best A-B PLC schools.” (Human Resources Manager)… “Every time one of these guys touches our T-I process controllers, they screw something up. That training was totally ineffective.” (Maintenance Manager)… “Why were they sent to the wrong OEM school for process-controller training?” (Maintenance Engineer)

“The new first-of-its-kind packaging line project was fast tracked and was a real success.” (Corporate Project Engineering)… “As soon as the new packaging line was turned over to us to run all these different products, we had problems: BIG problems. Thankfully we had a very responsive maintenance organization.” (Plant Production Manager)… “Since they installed that new packaging line, maintenance has spent 740 hours in the past three months making it run. The rest of the plant is suffering.” (Plant Maintenance Manager)

“Those new machines are being installed as we’ve planned from the beginning: ready to run next week.” (Project Engineering Manager)… “Look at those new machines. All of them are up against the wall with absolutely no access to the main drive motors. No overhead crane, no forklift access, can’t even reach in there with a boom pole.” (Maintenance Mechanics talking over coffee)… “Production will have to be delayed 30 days because we have to install overhead doors in the wall so maintenance can get to the main drive motors.” (Project Engineering Manager)

“I cancelled the order for the recommended spare parts to keep the project on budget. These machines are NEW. We shouldn’t need parts for another two to three years.” (Chief Financial Officer)… “Our downtime on these new machines is adding up fast. Production delays are huge. We need to fix this!” (Operations VP)… “I know our maintenance budget is out of control. The cost to fly these conveyor motors over here from Japan and these machine parts from Italy is astronomical.” (Maintenance Manager)… “You’ll just have to cut the maintenance budget somewhere else to keep your spending in line.” (Plant Engineering Director)

“We installed this state-of-the-art downtime recording system on Line #7 last year, and we’re getting ready to go plant-wide with it.” (Plant Engineering Manager)… “Our CI Leader is logging all the downtime causes here in this Excel spreadsheet from her notes in discussion with the Line #7 operators.” (Continuous Improvement Manager)… “The new downtime recording system just records the time and duration of downtime at 50 points on Line #7. The operator interface that would allow us to capture the downtime reasons or causes was not included in the project because operations management didn’t want to waste the operators’ time entering maintenance information.” (Continuous Improvement Leader)

“We just hauled this new multi-stage split-case pump up to the deck. The shaft is bent and the oiler is broken. Case may have a crack in it. Had to send it back.” (Offshore Maintenance Mechanic)… “You would think the warehouse on shore would know the pump was being shipped offshore on an 8-hour boat ride.” (Offshore Maintenance Superintendent)… “It costs a lot more to wrap these pumps in plastic and strap them to pallets. And they take up a lot more room on the boats.” (Contracted Warehouse Manager)

“We have saved two cents per sheet of backing paper for our high-volume products. That adds up to a huge cost savings for the company.” (Purchasing Manager)… “Since they started using this new backing paper we have had more machine jams and our scrap rate has gone through the roof. You can see how it’s already curling on the pallet over there.” (Lead Machine Operator)…  “Production is on our backs. Our top maintenance technician has been working non-stop to fix the machine jams that have started recently. He’s stumped!” (Maintenance Manager)

“We don’t do any PMs on this equipment because it’s still under warranty, and the OEM rep is on site to keep an eye on things. Besides, PMs take too much time away from production, and we are so far behind schedule” (Operations Manager)… “The trouble calls have been mounting on this new equipment, and maintenance overtime is through the roof” (Maintenance Supervisor)… “The internals of this precision spindle are corroded beyond belief. It looks like they’re not monitoring the coolant pH.” (OEM Technical Engineer)… “We check the coolant levels and keep it filled weekly.” (Operations Supervisor)

As ridiculous as these stories may sound, they are real-life examples of individual organizational silos in action. Each has specific roles and responsibilities to carry out, budgets to manage and performance goals to achieve. And while each organization may be deemed successful, the misalignment of their actions and decisions contributes to their failure to achieve overall business objectives. The value their equipment brings to the business is diminished.

But the equipment is not the problem. The problem is the lack of an asset-management system promoted by top management—a shared sense of purpose that spans the entire life cycle of the assets through each of the appropriate organizational silos—to assure the value contribution of the equipment. Asset-management activities and an overall asset-management system to improve equipment and facility performance is the next frontier for improving organization competitiveness. Maintaining disconnected organizational silos because of historic habits, traditions, behaviors and egos is a big barrier to performance improvement.

ISO 55000 is the new approach

“Culture eats strategy for breakfast,” a phrase originated by management consultant and author Peter Drucker, says it all: Without a supporting work culture, new strategic initiatives are dead. The culture must be aligned with the strategy to be successful. And organization leadership has the power to shape the culture. Unfortunately, as noted below, the new ISO 55000 Asset Management Standard, issued in January 2014, does not require leadership, culture, motivation and behavior changes, even though these may be necessary:

“An asset-management system is used by the organization to direct, coordinate and control asset-management activities. It can provide improved risk control and gives assurance that the asset-management objectives will be achieved on a consistent basis. However, not all asset-management activities can be formalized through an asset-management system. For example, aspects such as leadership, culture, motivation and behavior, which can have a significant influence on the achievement of asset-management objectives, may be managed by the organization using arrangements outside the asset-management system.”  (ISO 55000: 2.4.3)

Connecting improvement activities and metrics to the objectives of the business, however, and having a clear line of sight from the work that everyone does to those metrics and objectives, is a requirement of ISO 55000 and any other strategic-focused asset-management sys-
tem. ISO 55000 is based on the proven principles of Terotechnology from the 1970s and Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) from the 1980s and 1990s, and on the successful British Standard PAS-55:2008 Asset Management Specification. Each of these is based on sound principles of economic life-cycle equipment performance improvement.

ISO 55000 is designed to assure stakeholders, regulators, insurance underwriters and investors that an organization has a system in place to manage its assets in ways that bring value aligned with that organization’s objectives. The standard’s ISO 55001 component addresses the entire life cycle of the assets, from Design, Engineering, Pro-curement, Installation, Startup, Operation, Maintenance and Restoration to Decommissioning and Disposal.

When the line of sight is broken, an organization meanders in different directions, and silos are reinforced. Someone in an organization’s top management must have a map and a compass and share that map and compass with everyone involved in changing the organization’s approach, habits and culture for asset management as defined in ISO 55000. Having a compelling business case for changing the way things are done and focusing on business objectives are foundational for aligning and changing an organization’s culture.

Let’s begin creating an unbroken line of sight to our respective organizations’ objectives for everything we do with our most critical assets. Let’s do it now.