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Articles: Human Asset Management

Shoestring Supervisors

Have you ever watched a child who has to stop everything every few feet to tie their shoes? You start to wonder why they do not double knot the laces to prevent them from coming untied. The same thing can be seen in “Corporate America”. The same thing happens with everyday operations at various levels in any organization. I would like to concentrate on supervisors though due to the direct input they have to quality, productivity, and training. The three areas that I would like to discuss are the past (overcoming), present (reaction), and future (planning). In addition, recommendations will be made on how to improve this process.

Skilled Workforce in the 21st Century

The purpose of this study is to explore the upcoming changes that are viewed by many as the ‘Skilled Workforce Crisis.' The importance of the "Skilled Workforce in the 21st Century" research and study project is that it has been developed independently and without funding from any particular interest. Its authors felt that it was important to the Reliability & Maintenance industry to fully understand what we saw as the real issues related to the present evolution of business and R&M.

Start Early & Stick With a Plan - Developing Marketable Engineering Skills

For the foreseeable future, the "job of the future" will exist in a world that wrestles with issues of outsourcing, offshore design and manufacturing, and generally uncertain employment prospects. Among the job seekers, aspiring engineers need to develop effective ways of finding and keeping employment in this murky environment.

Guidance is helpful as you ponder the question of where you should be headed in this sea of instability. Today we live at a time when professed experts expound diametrically opposite views and often have the audacity of serving up their views with an air of infallibility. The answer as to where you should head is multi-faceted, but being balanced and learning a marketable skill instead of going after an ill-defined "education" is certainly a good start.

Telling it like it is: Why Doesn’t Management Give You What You Need?

Everyone has limited resources, not enough time or money to do everything that you feel is necessary. Your resources are limited because your company's resources are limited. The appalling reality is yYour company has given you what it perceived your activities are worth.

The ABC’s of Failure – Getting Rid of the Noise in Your System

For the past 40 years, I have observed many companies; including DuPont (where I spent 27 years) pursuing planned maintenance with the standard tools of planned maintenance: inspections, planning, scheduling, materials procurement, CMMS systems, etc. with the same results. They succeed for a while and get their percent planned and scheduled maintenance up to the 80+ only to see that drop back later to 60 I am amazed how many of the companies we work with have had this experience.

The Continuous Improvement Method of Thomas Edison

There is a good chance you can make astounding changes and achieve incredible performance improvements from your plant and equipment. It can be done with the method used by Thomas Edison to solve his problems and make his discoveries.

Improvements in the order of 20% maintenance savings with 100% on-time achievement of production plans are possible.

The method is that of continuous improvement. You start by proving it works for yourself first and then, once you are sure it works, you introduce it to your people.

The Human Factor in Field Productivity

Many businesses are investing in optimization software to improve the efficiency of their people. So why do they put all potential returns at risk by ignoring the human element and adopting a technology-is-all approach when implementing such solutions, asks Stewart Hill?

The Law of Unintended Consequences

Or why some incentive programs work against reliability and maintenance excellence.

Actually it is not clear whether this is a law, a rule, a guideline or simply a figment of someoneʼs imagination. However, there are some examples in history of well-intended laws and policies that generated significantly different results from what the originators desired. One example that stands out is the actions and reactions resulting from the passage of the Volstead Act in October 1919. The intention was to ban alcohol (Prohibition) in any form. The unanticipated result created the so-called "roaring twenties"-an era of unprecedented violence in the US that did not end until repeal in 1933.

The Modern Maintenance Manager: How to Get the Most out of Your Work Team!

What skills should a maintenance manager have? This question gets asked time and time again throughout the world. Normally the answers are something like, understanding of operational resource planning, understanding of basic reliability principles (RCM a bonus), understanding of CMMS management techniques, blah, blah, blah... Do we really need to be told this much?

The Optimization Trap

Originally presented at Reliability 2.0

The Optimization Trap
by Phillip Slater
Inventory Process Optimization Specialist
Initiate Action Pty Ltd

Whether it is maintenance strategy, planning, manning, PMs or inventory, for all good managers an optimal outcome is always the goal. Yet, it has been proven time and time again that optimization does not always deliver the results that are expected. I call this phenomenon The Optimization Trap. Surprisingly, most people that are caught by the optimization trap don’t even realize it.

This paper explains the Optimization Trap, what it is, how to tell whether you are in danger of falling into the trap, and, if you have already, what you can do about.

The Weakest Link

What is the weakest, most unreliable, least dependable part of any system or process? If you said the human that is operating it or maintaining it, you would be correct. Human Factors is a buzz word in industry these days, but it has been around in the airline world for a long while now. We have special classes on Human Factors - how to recognize them, and how to defend against them. It is something that we take quite seriously, and perhaps you should also.

Things to think about (and do) in 2010

2011 Version is up! Read here!

We are pleased to announce a very special project that created a very special outcome.

Reliabilityweb.com and Uptime Magazine invited thought leaders in the maintenance and reliability community to contribute a single page communication directed toward creating a new idea or action on the part of the readers, the maintenance and reliability professional community at large.

 

Too Much Capacity

by Geoff Generalovic

I have been a maintenance electrician for 37 years, 15 of those in PdM, namely infrared inspections, motor testing off-line and on-line, ultrasonic testing and some basic vibration, I do have definite ideas on the maintenance world out there and what I see is not encouraging, but in spite of my doubts I am hopeful.

Transferring Knowledge as Our Skilled Workforce Retires

It is said that in business, people are the greatest asset. It's not just the people, but the knowledge they possess. If this is true, why aren't businesses acting accordingly? Operations are automating and expectations are that the business can produce more with fewer and fewer people. Acquisitions and mergers persist in our competitive, global economy. With this consolidation, people are often the first to be cut in the interest of cost reductions and improving the bottom line for shareholders. Training and other investments in people are viewed as discretionary expenses, often rationalized away. This reality is complicated by a developing demographic trend - the work force is aging and retiring.

What Do Bosses Really Want From The Maintenance Effort?

We don't have to be mind readers about what the big bosses want from maintenance. We just have to read the Wall Street Journal or any newspaper business section. Big bosses want less maintenance, big bosses want maintenance that does not interfere with production, and big bosses don't want anything like accidents, environmental violations, or fires, to get in the newspapers.

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