Articles: Human Asset Management

16 Question Survey

The Manufacturing Game has developed a short 16-question survey based on Joseph Campbell’s concept of a Hero’s Journey.The survey is designed to facilitate the story writing process, and it guides the writer through the writing process. They provide this survey to maintenance and reliability professionals for their own use.  Clients may opt to use the written story internally or share their success with others by approving it for publication in external publications such as the our quarterly TMG newsletter or a monthly magazine like Uptime Magazine.

See the list below for the 16 questions in the survey, as it relates to writing about Action Team successes.

Confidence –The Magical Element of Cross Functional Teams

In the thirteen years we have offered The Manufacturing Game to over 32,000 participants, I have always marveled at the accomplishments of small cross functional teams and wondered what determines the great results they achieve. I have often sat with teams as they attempted to come up with a plan to eliminate a defect they identified as their target. From the rational point of view of an engineer, it appears that they will never arrive at a solution. Then someone comes up with an insight that immediately resolves the problem; the plan to eliminate that defect is then completed via some simple action or actions. Where did that come from? This is the phenomenon that we recognize as the magic in cross functional teams. But how does it come about?

Conversations of Maintenance

Can a conversation make a difference? Well sometimes a conversation can change the direction of your life. My father was a mechanical engineer. He had many interests but he ended up in engineering. He related a conversation he had when he started college in 1935. His first advisor cautioned him against engineering because he said there were no jobs for Jews in the engineering field. My father told him (politely) not to worry about his employment prospects but to just sign his forms so he could take the classes. My father always found employment and spent 50 years as a practicing engineer.

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.

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?

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."

Measure Behavior – Measure Success!

Many times, maintenance professionals have been involved in changes to processes or systems where they have relied on seat of the pants knowledge to determine whether or not they were successful. More often than not, the initiative flounders once their attention has been turned to other endeavors.

Measuring Sustainable Change

Originally presented at Reliability 2.0

by David A. Army, CMRP, SAMI and Gwendolyn Army, LCPC

The Perspective

Many times, business professionals have been involved in changes to processes or systems where they have relied on seat of the pants knowledge to determine whether or not they were successful. More often than not, the initiative flounders once their attention has been turned to the new “flavor of the month” and its back to business as usual.

Now Is The Time to Make A Difference

by Phillip Slater

The impact of the Global Financial Crisis is being felt far and wide.  Millions have lost their jobs, production has been cut, shifts dropped, overtime cancelled and budgets slashed.  In this environment it is easy to see how people get frustrated and angry.  Angry that they lost their jobs through no fault of their own; angry that their colleagues have been let go; angry that they are left to do the work without the manpower that’s really required; angry that their carefully thought out plans are cancelled due to a sudden lack of funding; angry that they are expected to produce results without adequate resources.

Reliability-Centered Maintenance Mindset (RCM2) The Cognitive Psychology of Maintenance Development

The Building Blocks of a Maintenance Philosophy

by Michael Rezendes, Raytheon Technical Services Co.

Originally Presented at the Reliability 2.0 Conference 

1. Introduction

The focus of this paper is to familiarize the reader with the concept of Reliability-Centered Maintenance Mindset (RCM2) as a methodology to focus attention on the maintenance developer. The current methodology of RCM in industry today is focused on the Preventive Maintenance (PM) developed for hardware. RCM2 is the methodology applied to the selection and training of the potential maintenance developers. This paper will discuss how a successful preventive maintenance program starts with the maintenance developer.

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