Maintenance Management Legends (part 3)

part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7

Torbjorn Idhammar IDCON - Maintenance consultants
Posted 11-15-04

There are many paradigms and legends surrounding maintenance management in plants. Often, the legends are known to be untrue, but people live with them because it is politically correct, or simply convenient. To be successful in improving equipment reliability and maintenance management, plants must break the legends that exist in their organizations. Some of the legends will be addressed in this article. You may find that these legends are uncomfortably close to describing how your plant operates.

Legend 3: People are our biggest asset

If you work in plant management or as a corporate officer, it is politically correct to say "people are our biggest asset." Most managers would agree to that statement. I don't agree. People are not a company's biggest asset —the right people are a company's biggest asset, and the wrong people are liabilities.

I confirmed this opinion during a recent seminar for a group of supervisors and craftspeople. One of the discussions started with the question, "Isn't it true that if any given crew in this plant would lose its poorest performing people (about 10% to 20% of the total), the loss would hardly be noticed?" After the laughs and pointing had subsided, several people confirmed that there were always a number of people in any given crew who had "never accomplished an honest day's work." These people destroy morale, and in some cases, even slow the rest of the crew down.

Management must deal with underperforming people. If you have a decent relationship with your union or your nonunion workforce, they are usually receptive to discussing these matters. Poor performers are a big problem for them as well. It is also true that people cannot be more effective than the system in which they work allows them to be. Management can minimize the amount of wasted time and energy by implementing good maintenance and reliability processes.

to be continued....