Maintenance and Reliability Best Practices. Ramesh Gulati
Ishikawa diagram
b. Bathtub curve
c. Pareto chart
d. Reliability growth diagram
76. A fault tree analysis (FTA) typically generates a
a. Set of statistical data
b. Report on the relative costs of design options
c. Diagram showing a hierarchy of failure causes
d. List for a specific plan of action
Please go to Appendix A to check the best answers to these questions. If your correct answers are:
• 68 or more: You have excellent M&R knowledge, but you should always continue to learn and enhance your knowledge.
• 45–67: You have a good M&R knowledge, but there is a potential for improvement.
• 44 or less: You have significant opportunities to improve.
A best practice is a technique or methodology that is found to be the most effective and has consistently shown to achieve superior results. When implemented appropriately, a best practice should improve performance and efficiency in a specific area. We need to understand that best practice is a relative term. A practice may be routine or standard to some, but to others it may be a best practice because their current practice or method is not effective in producing the desired results.
A best practice is often not what everyone else is doing, but is what is possible to achieve. It requires persuasive techniques that rely more on appeals than on force. A best practice usually requires a change in process; therefore, it needs to be accepted by all parties/stakeholders for successful implementation.
A best practice tends to spread throughout an industry after success has been demonstrated. However, demonstrated best practices can often be slow to implement, even within an organization. According to the American Productivity and Quality Center, the three main barriers to adoption of a best practice are a lack of:
1. Knowledge about current best practices
2. Motivation to make changes for their adoption
3. Knowledge and skills required to make changes
The workforce needs to have the knowledge of best practices in the area of maintenance and reliability in order to implement them effectively: A commitment to using the best practices in the M&R field and utilizing all the knowledge and technology at one’s disposal ensures success.
Remember that fundamental reasons not to implement best practices are:
• Failure to understand the business operational risks
• Inability to correlate best practice cause and effect
• Fear of change
• Budget and schedule constraints
Also, the performance of an asset is based on three factors:
1. Inherent reliability—how it was designed
2. Operating environment—how it will be operated
3. Maintenance plan—how it will be maintained
In later chapters, we will discuss all these factors in more detail so that we can achieve high asset performance throughout the asset life at minimum (optimum) cost.
Q1.1 Define a best practice. What are the barriers to implementing best practices?
Q1.2 What are key factors that impact the performance of plant machinery?
Q1.3 Why has reliability become a competitive advantage in today’s environment?
Q1.4 Identify five key performance measures in the area of maintenance and reliability. Elaborate on each element of these measures. What are typical “world-class benchmark numbers”for these performance measures?
Q1.5 Define what makes a benchmark “world class.” Discuss, using specific examples.
Q1.6 Define planned work and identify its benefits. What is a typical world-class benchmark number?
Q1.7 State and discuss four reasons that organizations fail to implement best practices.
References and Suggested Reading
Gulati, Ramesh, and Terrence O’Hanlon. 10 Rights of Asset Management. ReliabilityWeb.com, 2017. Gulati, Ramesh. Uptime Elements: Dictionary for Reliability Leaders &
Asset Managers. ReliabilityWeb.com, 2017. IW. Industry Week. Penton Media Publications, 2006–2008. Moore, Ron. Making Common Sense to Common Practice: Models for Operational Excellence. 5th ed.
SMRP and IMC (International Maintenance Conference). Annual Conference Proceedings, 2008–2019.
Effective leadership is putting first things first. Effective management is discipline, carrying it out.
—STEPHEN COVEY
After reading this chapter, you will be able to understand:
• Organizational culture
• Leadership and its role
• Vision, mission, and goals
• Reliability culture
• Change management and the role of a change agent
Successful implementation of a best practice or a new practice, small or large, is a challenge for any organization. A best practice is an improvement and a change. The implementation requires enthusiasm rather than distrust or fear from the individuals who will be impacted by the change. Guiding, nurturing, and shepherding the workforce are the skills needed to ensure that changes are received and implemented with a positive attitude. Usually, how the workforce perceives these changes needs to be evaluated and considered in developing a “change” implementation plan. And so do people’s beliefs, values, attitudes, and expectations need to be evaluated and considered.
Leadership plays a key role in enabling this process by providing both vision and resources. Creating a reliability culture conducive to change is a long journey. It is not just the maintenance workforce that needs to change its thinking, but also others in the organization (operations, production, design, stores, information technology, etc.). All need to be working together as a team to create a sustainable reliability culture and eventually a culture of excellence.
The vision of where the organization, or some unit of it, wants to be is an important element of creating a reliability culture. Stephen Covey, a leading motivational author, emphasizes the importance of mission, vision, and goals when he talks about “beginning with the end in mind” in his famous best seller, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. According to a study by a Stanford management professor and reported in the Wall Street Journal, organizations using mission and vision statements successfully outperform those that do not (with the key being these organizations actually using their mission and vision statements). When we visualize, we are able to materialize and convert our vision into goals and then into reality.
All organizations want to improve their processes in order to become efficient and effective. For maintenance and reliability