Asset performance management (APM) is not just about technology. It's also about people. Some experts say that the success of any improvement effort will be determined 90% by people, and 10% by technology. Regardless of the percentages you place on one or the other, everyone can agree that people play a critical role in the success of any APM initiative and require attention. This fact was echoed at Meridium Conference 2010 by Jeff Dudley, Maintenance Technology Center Director, The Dow Chemical Company during his presentation Minimizing Unplanned Events through Leadership. Jeff quantifies the financial impact of poor leadership management - a 10% loss of revenue, or the equivalent of wasting 45 days of the year due to unplanned events.
The Meridium Value Assurance Program (MVAP), recognized as a key catalyst in the successful implementation and sustainment of asset performance initiatives, recognizes resource effectiveness as one of the six key areas of focus for maturity assessment and development. This critical, but often overlooked, management system plays an important role in any asset performance initiative. As Ralph Hanneman, Senior Consultant, Meridium, echoes in Eight Steps Promoting User Adoption of Failure and Event Codes:
"Since 1993, Meridium has observed multiple ERP and CMMS software implementation projects. We have found that once systems "go-live", anticipated reliability improvements are often disappointing. This disappointment is exacerbated by the fact that in general, so many things were done right during the implementation process. Why is it then, after doing so many things right, that a simple thing like entering the correct code on a work request often doesn't get done?"
While there is usually a myriad of contributing factors why improvement initiatives run amuck, more often than not, a key contributor is a failure to integrate user adoption into the development process.
As Six Sigma Black Belt, James Bumpas, CMRP, Project Director, Meridium, shares in Why Corporate Improvement Initiatives like Six Sigma Fail:
"When improvement initiatives go wrong, we often look for reasons in all the wrong places, like the asset/equipment strategies and tactics we spend a lot of attention, time, and effort on analyzing for improvements. Are these asset strategies important to the success of corporate improvement initiatives? Unequivocally. However, the root cause of most improvement failures usually has far less to do with the equipment strategies and much more to do with the people in our organizations."
No serious discussion on the topic of root causes - mechanical, system, or human - would be complete without including the work of Charles Latino, Founder of Reliability Center, Inc. Charles devoted his professional career to understanding and developing products and methods for identifying and eliminating the root cause of failures within organizations. In his article, Solving Human-Caused Failure Problems, Charles offers insights and direction on identifying and solving human-caused failures enabling you to better manage the people, who manage your technology. Start focusing on resource effectiveness and seize back the 10% profit you are leaving on the table due to unplanned events.
Click here to download, Solving Human-Caused Failure Problems, by Charles J. Latino, Founder, Reliability Center, Inc.
Click here to download Root Cause Analysis vs. Shallow Cause Analysis: Why Understanding the Difference is So Important, by Robert Latino, CEO, Reliability Center, Inc.
Click here to read Six Common RCFA Challenges and How to Overcome Them, by Albert Sijm, CMRP, Head of Reliability Engineering, RasGas Company Ltd. and Manish Shah, CRE, CMRP, Reliability Engineer, RasGas Company Ltd.
Click here to read Enhancing the Value of Root Cause Analysis Using Knowledge Templates.
Click here to discuss this topic with your peers in the APM Community Forum.
