Today, facilities managers must add to their list of responsibilities the task of making the case for funding for critical maintenance tasks and improvements. Fortunately, the right tools for communicating this need to financial decision makers are readily at hand.

NOT LONG AGO I was talking to a recruiter about a placement she was working on. It was tough going. Her client had emphasized that he wanted someone who “really fit in.” But when asked how he’d measure this, he said “I’ll know it when I see it.”

By focusing on people and operational improvement, such an EAM program can significantly improve asset utilization rates while reducing long-term capital costs. That attention to people and operations is an essential element of EAM success, however, strategies centered alone on capital investments in facilities and fleet logistics typically fall short of the significant benefits an effective EAM effort can produce.

Although safety and risk mitigation is a fundamental part of creating value and boosting profits, it is not the end of the story when it comes to asset management. To realize the true value of an asset across its entire lifecycle, a business must ensure it has a set of key building blocks in place. These consist of forward-looking management structures and processes that adopt a broader perspective than just identifying and addressing threats and vulnerabilities.

Just in case you or someone you know is experiencing an undesirable work environment, the author shares this brief recap of a maintenance turnaround plan. Warning: Leading a maintenance turnaround is not for the faint of heart. It takes guts, vitamins and a lot of prayers, in addition to a good plan.

The function of reliability is still so tightly married to maintenance that it is often perceived to be the only combination that can unlock all challenges related to an asset. But can maintenance alone handle all aspects of reliability throughout the lifecycle of an asset? What if the asset has inherent design flaws or inadequate commissioning procedures? What if it is being operated outside of its operating parameters? Such issues are related to engineering and operations, which are outside of the maintenance scope.

In late May, Uptime Publisher Terrence O’Hanlon posted on LinkedIn that attendance at maintenance conferences has dropped significantly. Responses to his post offered plausible reasons, including budget constraints, lack of content, recurring content, and total saturation. While these are no doubt contributors, there may be one more growing reason for this decline: more and more organizations are finally recognizing that maintenance is not the source of their competitive or financial problems. This article provides proof for why this reason may be on point.