Report the Wins
To everything there is a season. Just as with living things this is true for machines. Despite our best efforts, eventually they fail. With robust Reliability Centered Maintenance programs most unexpected failures can be avoided but unfortunately, not all. It could be human error during a routine PM or a poor design of new equipment but eventually, even for those of us who are attempting to do everything “right” a defect will find its way into the process and cause a downtime event. Sometimes those events are so costly they get the attention of upper management.
When a major unexpected downtime event due to machine failure occurs, depending on the situation as well as the person(s) and their background, the reaction can be one of understanding or one of frustration. Operations and maintenance may be pitted against each other. There may be safety or environmental considerations. Engineering could very likely become involved. Quality assurance may need to investigate and issue deviation reports. The entire plant is on red alert. If that machine happened to have a little blue Augury endpoint on it or some other type of monitoring program, just or not, there will be heavy scrutiny of said programs. That is why it is so important to draw a similar level of attention to the wins of those programs.
As I started off saying, machines fail. Let’s do a quick hypothetical exercise. Without any design for reliability, acceptance testing, spare parts handling best practices, condition monitoring, or precision maintenance practices, let’s just say perhaps an average plant would have twenty unexpected failures in a year. Now let’s say by implementing all of the aforementioned initiatives through FMEA and RCA learnings the plant manages to reduce the unexpected failures from twenty down to two. Surely these initiatives and the resources spent on them were well worthwhile. But if the only thing upper management hears about is the two failures, they may quickly forget what life was like back when there were twenty failures and be ready to find a new Reliability Engineer or drop the condition monitoring program that as far as they can tell “doesn’t work”.
Similarly, a new Head of Engineering, Plant Manager, or VP may look at the plant's budget and see big dollars toward the Reliability Program and virtually no unexpected downtime. Rather than understanding the direct correlation between the two, there is a chance in a struggling economy they will say “We aren’t having breakdowns so we don’t need to pay for condition monitoring”.
These scenarios emphasize why it is so important to report the wins! When you replace bearings proactively, cut them open and take pictures of the damage. Add those pictures to a screenshot of the relevant data improving, calculate the savings of the proactive maintenance including the saved opportunity cost and email it to all of the department heads. When you have Gemba walks or other cross departmental gatherings, mention it. Tell your boss during 1:1 discussions. And when you get a chance to talk to your boss's boss, let them know how great it’s been that your boss has been supportive of your Reliability Centered Maintenance initiatives because of all the headaches it’s saving.
Reporting the wins draws attention to all of the great work you and your teams are doing. It is recognition that is well deserved and shouldn’t be overshadowed by the rare events which are incredibly difficult to prevent. What other ways do you shine a light on the wins?