Variation is Your Enemy

Number 1:

Preventive Maintenance (PM) is not effective. It is not the appropriate maintenance strategy to address most failure modes. Even if it was, we continue executing PM, and equipment failures continue to occur. If a PM procedure does not address the prevention or detection of a specific failure, then why do we do it?

Number 2:

Work Procedures for Corrective Maintenance (restoring to a maintainable state). PM, Lubrication, and Operator Care are written in a manner that does not address Variation caused by humans. If a procedure is not written to the lowest level of the people performing the work with the specifications, standards, procedures (step by step), then you have major Variation and you wonder why you have failures! Let's face the fact, humans do not have an unlimited or infallible memory, so effective procedures and the following of these procedures are critical. No excuses accepted unless you enjoy living in a reactive world.

Number 3:

Managing with metrics which drive the right behavior. I have had people tell me they can not measure Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF) or PM Labors vs Emergency Labor Hours, Percent of Assets with No Identifiable Defect. I know everyone has an excuse, so we don't know where we are until we have a ship wreck. If you are managing with Lagging Metrics, such as cost, you have a problem because we need to be measuring everything before it, which impacts cost, and share a few of those metrics in order to drive the right behavior. I know MTBF is a lagging metric, but I also know it can drive the right behavior when used properly. The great industrialist once stated.

Please watch this 2 minute video

Variation is Your Enemy