Lately it seems that strong, single minded commitments to beliefs have just about everywhere in the world in some kind of struggling situation. All kinds of groups, everywhere, on all kinds of issues, taking the absolute position that they’re right, the other side is just wrong, and there’s no common ground where some kind of agreement can be reached. Agreement where there might actually be some work done together to make things better for all.
This is not new to people in the world of Maintenance and Operations who have struggled with seemingly conflicting objectives, probably since the very first tool of any kind was developed on the planet. There was no doubt some pretty violent debate back then about when, and how often, that tool should be sharpened, and the truly dire consequences if it wasn’t. (Some might even say the actual sounds of the debate haven’t really changed across the eons).
As a brand new maintenance supervisor, too many years ago, I remember being counseled by some older mechanics that we, maintenance, were at war with production, we always had to fight them, and trying to be “nice” to them, working out some accommodations, was just showing weakness that they would exploit.
If there was something wrong with a machine, “We should just walk over, shut it down right now, and do whatever we have to do to fix it completely, properly, no matter how long it takes”.
I remember thanking them for the advice, but pointing out that I had a young family with numerous expenses, and a regular paycheck was somewhat important to me.
But not entirely disagreeing with their position.
Over the years, and it took quite a few, I eventually realized that this pretty common (sadly often fostered) conflict when unresolved, causes some real roadblocks to improvement in plants, and eliminates any chance of getting close to manufacturing excellence.
Operations and Maintenance each in their defensive, fortified silos, not trusting or communicating well and seemingly just worried, mostly, about building bigger, stronger silos.
Maintenance demanding downtime or else the world could end, and Operations saying, “No way. Couldn’t be that bad. We don’t believe it”. And of course, the post-disaster blamefests.
I’ve witnessed some truly great dramatic roleplaying, with both sides performing like they felt they were supposed to. Just like the warring families in “Romeo and Juliet” or the more recent, perhaps somewhat less classy “Family Feud”.
Not to say there aren’t different viewpoints on issues, but routine open, respectful, structured teamwork discussions can get to agreement on solutions that will move things forward.
In years of teaching about maintenance and manufacturing, this issue often comes up in discussion, and if it doesn’t I’ll bring it up, because it’s always, always there, no matter how nicely both parties might talk about each other and their relationship (when they’re both in the same room) and it has to be dealt with.
It usually shows up in discussions about problem issues and dealing with them on a planned, scheduled basis vs just jumping in and fixing, taking however long it takes. The “morality” of putting some patch repair in place, or maybe even just leaving it, till a proper repair can be planned and scheduled.
I remember one particular group of really solid, well intentioned, capable maintenance folks where they said “If we have an issue, we’re going to deal with it in the best way, right now, because that’s the kind of people we are”. (Emphasis adjectives removed).
“Doing it right” is important to all of us, and especially for craftsmen who take real pride in their work. Anything else just doesn’t feel right, seems to be lacking in principle, not the way we were raised and trained, and our mothers would be upset with us if they found out.
I had some remodeling work done in a bathroom at home and the tiling contractor worked on it all day Saturday. He came back on Monday to finish, but when I went to check on him he had torn out a bunch of what he did on Saturday, and was redoing it. He said “I thought about this all day yesterday, and it just wasn’t right”. “It’s my mistake it won’t cost you anything”.
It had looked just fine to me.
There are many quotes on the subject “Do it right the first time”, “If a jobs worth doing, it’s worth doing well” and the famous one attributed to John Wooden the famed UCLA basketball coach and leadership guru. “If you don't have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over?”
These quotes are sometimes thrown out by those in the maintenance silo at those in the operational silo as a way to take the moral high ground in the argument. (What kind of person can live with themselves not giving up enough downtime for us to do it “right”, right now?)
But what is doing it “Right” for the organization overall.
It always seems to be a big revelation how inefficient, and worse ineffective, unplanned, unscheduled, maintenance work really is. For many folks they’re working really hard, in the best way they can, fixing it as right as they can, going home late, worn out, so how can that be wrong? And it really can’t be that inefficient?
But when we go over jobs in detail talking about the time spent figuring out what to do, looking for parts, figuring out what else to do when we don’t have them (Cheap company won’t stock what we need) trying to get everything together on a hurry up basis, under pressure, taking shortcuts. (Did we do all the safety stuff we’re supposed to?), it becomes pretty apparent that a lot of time was just flat out lost.
We finally get something done, but most times it’s not really done “right” after all, and we’ll have to revisit it anyway.
So we’ve taken more operational downtime than we needed to (which cost a bunch of money) We wasted a bunch of maintenance resource time(that we never have enough of anyway) and worst of all we have to do it again.
The numbers usually quoted are staggering. Typically unplanned work takes 4 times longer than planned work, costs 4 to 10 times as much, and it usually has to be done over again anyway.
No organization can afford this. And it’s usually not a matter of not having enough staff, but just that we’re wasting so much of people’s time.
So is taking this loss doing it “right”, or is it better to find some workmanlike way to keep things running while we get our act together (provided we’re not doing more damage, creating a safety, quality, environmental, etc. issue) so we can do it “right” on a planned scheduled basis.
This is not some dishonorable, unprincipled behavior where we should feel badly, and again we wouldn’t want our mothers to know about it..
This is what I think doing it “right” in the quotes above is really all about. It’s not about values, it’s about the timeframe. Right now, or when we’re ready?
The issue comes up also in discussion of Preventive Maintenance Work. (Don’t you really wish we could redo some maintenance terminology, so we didn’t have to constantly explain the different definitions there are for these exact same words?)
To some folks “PM ing” a piece of equipment means taking some downtime and then going through inspecting and then fixing everything we can find wrong.
Seems like an approach, but what usually happens is we find some things wrong, and decide to fix them now “since we’re here anyway” then find we don’t have what we need to fix them “right” (parts, resources, information, etc.) but we still try to do it anyway, taking extended time, (and not getting the rest of our PM done). Then we get upset when Operations begins to demand that they need to machine back to fill customer orders. It’s not an emergency breakdown type, repair, but it’s still unplanned, unscheduled work with the huge inefficiencies that go with it.
Of course if it is a serious issue that won’t last, we will have to deal with it somehow right then, but that really speaks to the effectiveness of our PM inspections.
If a machine will be out of service for a long period of time then the first activity is thorough inspection to find the things going wrong, then planning and scheduling the repair work, so we use our resources effectively and efficiently.
We can use the analogy of an auto racing pit stop. Do they take however long it takes? Or is it a detailed planned, highly efficient, scheduled activity done in the shortest possible time, using the prior constant communication from the driver and observers for input.
Not really a parallel to the industrial situation, but the concept of Maintenance and Operations both tied into equipment care done in the most effective, efficient way is exactly where we need to get to.
So the key to success is both groups realizing they really have the same objectives, and that both have responsibilities to achieve them.
Operations is responsible for operations but also for equipment care because that care is vital to good operations, and they have a role in it. Maintenance is responsible for equipment care but also for operations, because the purpose of the equipment is providing goods and services to customers in timely, cost effective ways, and maintenance have a role in this.
What are ways to get there?
- Communication and trust is the only way to break down the silos, and it just doesn’t happen by itself. In fact we all tend to surround ourselves with people who think like us, and stay away from those who don’t. (How many Operations people do you meet at Maintenance Conferences? And vice versa?)
One of the explanations for the upsurge in polarized opinion these days is that there are so many channels of information available, that we can choose only to see and hear what supports our positions, and never even visit the other side.
So the communication has to be forced, with routine, every day, mandatory, scheduled, structured, (blame free) meetings with Operations and Maintenance to review and discuss current issues and solutions. Tried informally, it just won’t happen consistently, in any way that’s close to effective.
Once the communication is there and good results begin to happen from it, then the trust will build. - Effective structured PM inspections to find pending issues are the key mechanisms to give us the time to plan and schedule effective, efficient repair work.
Involving operators in this, as the ones closest to the equipment, gets them involved and owning equipment care and improvement. There are always a variety of concerns about this participation by those who have never experienced it. I know I had plenty. But it just really, really works when ownership is fostered. - Operations and Maintenance have to agree on some realistic amount of downtime needed for PM inspections and effective efficient repairs and Operations has to commit to this, and also commit to finding ways to get it as a part of their function. The Production Scheduler has a responsibility to find time for maintenance as well as for production.
A key item of the daily meeting is Operations giving Maintenance information about downtime opportunities for planned scheduled work that day. - Maintenance has to commit to using this downtime time well with properly prepared, planned, scheduled work.
But constantly look for ways to reduce this downtime by doing the work in better ways or finding ways to eliminate it, e.g. looking for ways to get inspections done on uptime vs downtime. - The Maintenance Work schedule and PM schedule for the next week are developed and owned by both Operations and Maintenance to make sure it’s the right work from both viewpoints.
The status of both PM and Maintenance Schedule Compliance are reviewed daily in the meeting as we move thru the week and adjustments made as needed. - And make sure we avoid unplanned work whenever we can. Or better stated. Just don’t ever do unplanned work, unless there’s absolutely no other choice.
Published as an article in Uptime Magazine