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RELIABILITY - THE NEXT 10 YEARS Projected by Neil B. Bloom, Author, Reliability Centered Maintenance – Implementation Made Simple Published by McGraw-Hill

What role will reliability play and how important will it be over the next 10 years?

It depends.  It depends on whether the global industrial complex continues with its historically narrow vision of maintenance and reliability as being only a “necessary evil” or if they begin to truly acknowledge and embrace maintenance and reliability as a “cornerstone” (which it should be) for achieving efficiency and profitability for a corporation.  

Assuming maintenance and reliability is acknowledged as a cornerstone, it still depends.  It depends on how smart the global industrial complex is in regard to understanding how to achieve that cornerstone.  It depends on the knowledge a corporation has in order to develop and implement a premier maintenance and reliability program. 

Why have I used the terminology of a “global” industrial complex?  Because that is exactly where the competition is.  It is global.  We are beginning to understand that that the challenge to corporate America is no longer confined only to our native soil.  We have begun to realize that we can no longer afford to produce mounds of product to sit on inventory shelves awaiting their sales. We have at least learned that a major contributor to corporate profits is to minimize, to the extent possible, any unnecessary inventory costs.  So what does this cause?  That causes perhaps one of the paramount reasons for having a reliable production facility.  We then produce and/or manufacture only what we need and what has been ordered.  No excess inventory is necessary.  We have also come to realize that customers are very demanding.  If your “product” cannot reach its customer when promised because of production line breakdowns, power generating plant shutdowns, or unreliable manufacturing/processing plants you will likewise have a major problem. 

Therefore a reliable production schedule takes on much more added importance.  What then, is the single most critical aspect for driving that all important production schedule?  It is a premier maintenance and reliability program.  Without the proper attention being afforded to reliability, production line breakdowns, delays, and other such interruptions that could previously be absorbed with only a modicum of financial pain (when inventories were filled to their max levels and competition was minimal) will now place the corporation on the sidelines in its challenge to compete in the international marketplace. 

It is not unlike the old adage “the one with the fastest horse will probably win the race.”  Now it becomes the one with “the best reliability program will probably reap the most benefits.” 

Any corporation that does not have the vision of the importance of maintenance and reliability, and the wisdom to go along with that vision, will find themselves like the disappearing corporations of the past such as NCR, Commodore, Atari, and the many others that have joined the corporate dinosaur scrap heap. 

Mr. Corporate Executive, don’t let that happen to you!