Articles: Reliability Leadership

Crisis Compels Change

Crisis Compels Change

Crises, such as the ongoing economic crisis in the US and world, will compel change. As we all know change can be good, or bad. We can take a positive approach to these times and use the situation to bring about radical, yet positive change, that while painful at times, will assure our future prosperity. There is great risk in this approach – we can overreach and make bad decisions that damage the prospects for that same prosperity. The challenges that most manufacturing businesses face are huge, and they will be compelled to change, particularly those who have long languished under poor management.

How Does Plant Management - and Possibly Corporate Management Enable Unreliability?

When I was a production superintendent at a DuPont nylon plant, I was returning to my office with my mind full of thoughts from a staff meeting. I walked into the central control room still distracted by the issues from the meeting. All of a sudden, I found myself face-to-face with the central control operator and in making small talk I casually asked him, "What rate are you running?" He mumbled something and went back to his work. I thought that I was distracting him from his job, so continued on to my office. The next day, my two assistants came to me and said that I had put enormous pressure on the control room operator the day before.

Maintenance and Share Price—Mutually Dependent

(Editors note:  This article was originally published in the SMRP Quarterly, 1994 and stands the test of time - Terry O)

At first glance, it would probably seem illogical to most people to put maintenance and share price in the same phrase. However, it would also be wrong, as it has been for decades, to presume that they are not mutually dependent. In many organizations, maintenance is driving share price, but the CEO isn't even aware of it.

One Out of Many…Pointing the Whole Organization in the Same Direction

By: Dr. Peter G. Martin

Although huge quantities of technology and intellectual property have been invested into the efficient and effective operation of industrial plants over the past century, many plants are still not operating to full potential. At least part of the reason for this has been the lack of focus on the value that the human assets can generate given a supportive, collaborative and empowering environment in which to perform. Mobilizing the valuable human assets to approach their full performance potential has been proven to result in a new operational paradigm which maximizes the business performance through all plant assets. This new paradigm is labeled "asset performance management".

Reliability-Centered Maintenance and Root Cause Analysis: Working Together to Solve Problems

Mark Galley, Cause Mapping®, ThinkReliability
Douglas J. Plucknette, RCM Blitz™, Allied Reliability, Inc.

As plants around the world strive to reduce maintenance costs and prevent incidents and accidents, they often turn to various reliability tools to speed the road to improvement. Reliability tools first help identify where losses are, then develop procedures to mitigate the losses and, thus, improve equipment reliability and performance.

Reshaping Sugar

The Transformation of U.S. Sugar

by Darrin Wikoff, CMRP

A 12% increase in production capacity over three years with virtually no increase in operating costs makes United States Sugar Corporation the leading producer of retail and industrial bulk sugar in the United States.

Selecting The Right Manufacturing Improvement Tools Web Workshop

Please join author and Manufacturing Improvement expert Ron Moore for an 11 part Reliability Roadmap Web Workshop.

Video Tip: Inspect what you Expect

Join Larry Hoing, Wells Dairy and Ricky Smith, GPAllied for a (2:30 minutes) Video tip about what works for improving maintenance performance.

©2010 Reliabilityweb.com