Deming once said "Your systems (and processes) are perfectly designed for the results you are getting."

Industry is forever searching for ways to maximize financial return from its physical assets while responding to ongoing market changes and social requirements. As a result, the average system undergoes 30 to 50 physical and operational changes per year. This represents significant capital expenditures for most organizations. Unfortunately, most organizations do not achieve a measurable improvement in their assets performances from year to year despite these efforts.

There is an alternative; asset performance enhancement through a reliability initiative. Comparatively, reliability initiatives are much less expensive than capital projects and drive the culture change that is more apt to ensure sustainability as they include improvements to the systems and processes. They also provide a continuous improvement stream that leads to an increase in benefits beyond the project phase.

As with all projects and initiatives, reliability improvement initiatives need to be managed and therefore measured. The measures and expected results should be defined upfront and used to scope out the initiative and track success.

Tip provided by Ivara, www.ivara.com