Let's take
an example. If I am a maintenance person in an
organization and have been so for my entire career, I
am expected to repair equipment so that we can make
more products. As a matter of fact, my performance is
measured by how well I can make the repair in the
shortest time frame possible. I am given recognition
when emergencies occur and I respond almost
heroically.
Now comes along this Root Cause Analysis (RCA)
initiative and they want me to participate in making
sure that failures do not occur anymore. In my mind,
if this objective is accomplished, I am out of a job!
Rather than be perceived as NOT being a team player, I
will superficially participate until the
"program-of-the-month" has lived out its
six-month life and then go on with business as usual.
We have seen this scenario repeatedly and it is a very
valid concern based on the reality of the end-user.
This perception must be overcome prior to implementing
an RCA initiative.
Let's face the fact that we are in a global
environment today. We must compete not only
domestically, but now with foreign markets. Oftentimes
these markets have an edge in that their costs to
produce are significantly less than here in the U.S.A.
Maintenance, in its true state, is a necessary evil to
a corporation. But when equipment fails, it generally
holds up production, which holds up delivery, which
holds up profitability. Imagine a world where the only
failures that occurred were wear out failures that
were predictable. This is a world that we are moving
towards, as precision environments become more the
expectation. As we move in this direction, there will
be less need for maintenance type skills on a routine
basis. What about the area of Reliability Engineering?
Most organizations we deal with never have the
resources to properly staff their Reliability
Engineering groups. There are plenty of available
roles in the field of Reliability. Think about how
many reliability jobs are available; vibration
analysts, failure analysts, infrared thermographers,
metallurgists, designers, inspectors, nondestructive
testing specialists and many more.
We are continually intrigued by the most frequently
used objection to using RCA in the field from our
students, "I don't have time to do RCA?" If
you think hard about this statement, it really is an
oxymoron. Why do people typically not have time to do
RCA? They are so busy fire fighting; they do not have
time to analyze why the event occurred in the first
place. If this remains as a maintenance strategy, then
the organization will never progress, because no level
of dedication is being put towards "getting rid
of the need to do the reactive work!"
So how can
executives get these very same people to willingly
participate in a new RCA initiative?
1. It must
start with an executive putting a rubber stamp on the
RCA effort and outlining specifically what his or her
expectations are for the process and a time line for
when he expects to see bottom-line results.
2. The approving executive(s) should be educated in
the RCA process themselves, even if it is an overview
version. Such demonstrations of support are worth
their weight in gold because the users can be assured
that the executives have learned what they are
learning and agree and support the process.
3. The executive responsible for the success of the
effort should designate a Champion of the RCA effort.
This individual's roles will be outline later in this
chapter.
4. It should be clearly delineated how this RCA will
benefit the company, but more importantly it should
also delineate how it will benefit the work life of
every employee.
5. Next the executive should outline how the RCA
process will be implemented to accomplish the
objectives and how management will support those
actions.
6. A policy or procedure should be developed to
institutionalize the RCA process. This is another
physical demonstration of support that also provides
continuity of the RCA application and perceived
staying power. It gives the effort perceived staying
power because even if there is a turnover in
management, institutionalized processes have a greater
chance of weathering the storm.
7. However, the most important action an executive can
take to demonstrate support is to sign a check. We
believe this is a universal sign of support.
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