Reliability is a key business imperative for any company in an ever increasingly globally competitive market. It is a cornerstone of any operational excellence program. Those companies operating in the top quartile of reliability performance, when benchmarked against the average performance their peers, enjoy 4% more availability, at half of the maintenance cost (as a consequence, not an action), and typically have a better safety record as a result.
Those top performers have some important behaviors in common. They have reliability centric business processes in place. They maintain their assets proactively and have an optimal mix of Preventative (Time based), and Predictive (Condition based) maintenance work processes. They have strong reliability engineering capabilities. They apply IIoT sensing and analytics technology appropriately to condition monitoring and diagnosis of their assets. But the key factor that allows the top performers to achieve all these things, is the culture. They have been successful in embedding a reliability culture in their organisations. To draw a parallel, over the past decade/s, to everyone’s benefit, almost all organisations have been successful in embedding a safety culture. Everyone is aware of safety, and the role they play in making themselves and others in their workplace safe. Gone are the days when safety was considered the sole responsibility of the safety manager. The top performers in reliability have achieved the same with a reliability culture. Everyone in the organisation understands their role and impact on reliability, and the enormous financial and business advantage gained through performing in the top quartile. They understand the value of integration between departments (Operations, Maintenance, Finance, IT, Materials Management….), and the benefits of a coordinated focus on reliability performance. In these top performers, the days are gone when reliability was considered the sole responsibility of the maintenance manager.
The path to this culture requires investments in people. They ensure that their people understand the bigger picture, see the benefit in changes to work processes, and the introduction of technology that will enhance them, not detract. Our broad Operational Certainty Consulting capabilities address all of these elements, and a tool we often use to address cultural change is the “Reliability Game”. This is an excellent management team building tool that highlights the business value in moving from a reactive maintenance model to a proactive one, and demonstrates the impact of every role on a plants reliability performance.
Emerson’s “Reliability Game” workshop, utilises a sophisticated simulation of an operational plant which requires operational decisions to be made, and the outcomes from those decisions are used in the learning experience. The Reliability Game®, clearly demonstrates the value of proactive reliability practices and the positive effect on the bottom line. It is an educational tool, that is operated in a relaxed, collaborative atmosphere, in conjunction with supporting presentations. This model promotes discussions on reliability practices to enhance the collective understanding of your reliability business goals.
