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Articles: Human Asset Management

Creating the Vision

...and seeing it through to fruition

Excerpted from 100 Years in Maintenance and Reliability Practical Lessons from Three Lifetimes at Process Plants by V. Narayan, James W. Wardhaugh & Mahen C. Das

Courtesy of Industrial Press

 

Location: Automobile Parts Manufacturer

Background
On my first day at work in this company, I met my boss, the General Manager of Production (GM). My position had been vacant for a year, during which time the head of the production planning department had been managing it. During this interim period, a number of issues had arisen, which the GM listed for my action. When he finished, I requested a three-week vacation, and he nearly fell off his chair!

I explained that I would come to work, but wished to be free of executive responsibility in order to evaluate the current situation for myself. This review would help me identify the expectations of all the stakeholders, including the people on the shop floor—but I did not share this thought with him. The review would give me a first-hand impression of the current status. From these inputs, I would produce a master plan. Each item in the master plan would be a separate project, with its goals, cost, time, and resource estimates. When he heard this explanation, he accepted my request. He still negotiated the review time period downward to two weeks.

 

Disabling Reliability with the Best of Intentions

By Jeff Shiver, CMRP

Have you ever wondered "What in the world are they thinking?" when the managers of your company make decisions or changes? After spending years in various management roles, and providing services to help other companies improve, I have seen many management decisions that impact plant performance and long-term profitability by repeatedly undermining site reliability. At some point, we as managers may become participants in disabling site reliability. So, how is it that executive management down to front-line supervisors disable reliability? We will examine in this article the different ways we impair site reliability with the goal to help your organization avoid the same pitfalls.

 

Don’t Work Harder, Work Smarter

Making Operational Excellence a Reality

by Mike Bresko

Has your company struggled to sustain its Lean, Six Sigma, or other initiative?  Even if the initiative appears successful, does a closer look reveal that standard work is often not followed, front-line supervisors don’t exhibit the behaviors required to sustain the improvements, and the culture hasn’t really changed?  This article aims squarely at understanding the root cause of these problems, and providing a solution that builds a culture of ongoing operational excellence.

Executives Role for Enabling Reliability and Operational Excellence

From time to time I do seminars and workshops for executives, general managers, vice presidents, and even presidents and CEO's, mostly from manufacturing companies. When doing these seminars, I like to play a word association game with them. That is, I say a word, and they respond with the first word that comes to mind. For example, I might say "black", and the typical executive will respond with "white". I might say "woman", and most will respond with "man". After this little bit of training; I'll look at one of the executives abruptly and say "Maintenance". The most common response to the word maintenance from these executives is "Cost". The second most common response is "Breakdowns, or Downtime".

Experience Is The Best Teacher: The Art of Storytelling

The Manufacturing Game has been using the art of storytelling for many years now. Our philosophy is that story telling is a powerful way to transfer learning, increase motivation, encourage teamwork, and teach communication skills in order to lead change.

Five Affordable Ways to Boost Employee Happiness, Loyalty, and Motivation

No matter how much they want to reward their employees, many leaders just don't have the financial resources to give out much-deserved raises and bonuses. Fortunately, according to Todd Patkin, you don't need to spend a cent to show your people beyond a shadow of a doubt that you care about them and appreciate their hard work.

Getting What You Need From Management: Laying the Groundwork

Imagine you are a corporate sponsor trying to decide between two professional pool players. You watch each of them as they make a shot. The first one steps up, shoots, and sinks the eight ball in the left corner pocket. After sinking the eight ball, the player smiles, and proclaims

"Exactly where I was aiming"

How do you know how to get there if you don’t know where you’re going?

by Nick Kroll, Trico Corp

Too often the momentum of business takes us places we never expected to be. We find ourselves engulfed with obstacles, unsure where they came from. Day to day business activities (tasks) consume our time and we do not take an opportunity to look ahead. Planning is a vital part of business management. Are you running the business or is it running you?

Human Error in Maintenance and Reliability and What to Do About It

This paper describes the cost and consequences of human error in maintenance and reliability (M & R) in a variety of venues such as utilities, manufacturing and government. Key elements will focus on:

Initiative Overload?

In Dupont there were so many initiatives, Butch Hoffman, a maintenance foreman, said to Winston Ledet, "Winston, you are not the only person who shows up here, and you have eight initiatives you want me to implement in maintenance. Can't you guys create some way of showing us how to apply all of these initiatives in our work?"

Internal Consulting in Your Organization

by Stephen Thomas

We live in difficult times. Plant closures, mass layoffs, downsizing and reorganizations appear in the news on a daily basis. These efforts are focused on cost cutting which, in many cases, is designed simply to keep the company in business.

 

Introduction to the Process Of Change

Excerpted from Successfully Managing Change in Organizations: A User's Guide by Stephen J. Thomas (Courtesy of Industrial Press) 

Several years ago, I was part of a program to introduce the concept of "quality" into our plant. For a very large fee, we hired a consultant to work with us and make our "quality process" a success. Site management imposed ground rules on the project team, most of which (in retrospect) set us up for failure. The program had a kick-off date less than three months from the time it was introduced to management. With such a tight timeframe, there was inadequate time to prepare for the meetings that were an integral part of the process. To make matters worse, the meetings were to be mandatory for everyone. The official message was, "meetings are mandatory, participation is voluntary."

Is Your Company Running Scared?

Fight or Flight Might Not Be Your Best Strategy

by Chris Colson and Timothy R. Weilbaker


Any time a market (or an entire economy) declines, there are certain behaviors that we can expect to observe in companies.  The specific actions we witness should come as no surprise to even the casual observer, especially since the actions taken by companies during tough financial periods are also observable in individual human behavior during times of great fear.  And what other emotion would be more fitting than fear when corporate revenue experiences a sustained decline?

Leadership and Little White Lies

How Those Seemingly Harmless Fibs and Half-Truths Can Hurt Your Business

Every leader tells a white lie every now and then, right? Perhaps-but that doesn't make it okay. Author Dave Anderson says that white lies can do serious damage to your reputation and can lead to much bigger issues down the road. Read on to see why cleaning up your act can help save your business.

 

Maintenance Goes a Lot Further Than Equipment

Maintenance managers have a lot of responsibility in making sure that equipment is properly maintained. Equipment is an asset and carries some kind of monetary value. People on the other hand are an asset but do not carry a specific monetary value as an asset. Countless times managers have proclaimed people are the most valuable asset. Why do we perform preventative maintenance on equipment and not the people, which carry the most value and work on the equipment?

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