For far too long, particularly in industry, soft skills have been seen as the responsibility of HR while the operations department, maintenance, logistics, finance, etc. concentrate on the hard skills that generate value. As somewhat of a disruptor I take a contrary view. Firstly, why spend any time at all on soft skills if they do not contribute to the bottom line? Secondly, if they do contribute to the bottom line then all leadership should become expert in these soft skills and not abdicate the responsibility to HR.  

Today I present the last two steps in the 8-step process to enable you on your journey to Operational Excellence. Commitment to your people and your tools is essential for success.

This is the 3rd installment of an 8-step process to enable you on your journey to Operational Excellence. Monitoring progress is essential to the continuous improvement process to ensure the implemented changes deliver.

This is the 2nd installment of an 8-step process to enable you on your journey to Operational Excellence. Once you have identified areas for improvement you must develop and implement your improvement plan.

Operational Excellence is the practice of continuously maximizing the potential of your people, optimizing your business processes and as a result achieving best in class performance. This best-in-class performance is repeatable if you consistently follow these 8-steps:

Critical thinking is essential for effective maintenance management. As a maintenance manager, you are responsible for overseeing the maintenance, repair, and replacement of equipment, machinery, and other assets. To be an effective maintenance manager, you must also be able to analyze problems, identify root causes, and develop solutions that address the underlying issues. This involves a range of critical thinking skills, such as deductive reasoning, problem-solving, and decision-making.

Total Productive Maintenance (TPM), is a comprehensive maintenance management system that drives all three elements of OEE, namely: machine availability, speed, and quality. This short article will demonstrate how to accelerate your OEE gains by committing to a structured TPM program. The focus of TPM is zero unplanned failures, zero product defects and zero accidents, these are the foundation on which to build the eight pillars of TPM that will support increased productivity through work force empowerment.

“Serialized” spare parts are repairable components, usually expensive and complex, where each individual item needs to be tracked and recorded to ensure reliability. Serialized components are often in contact with the process and require refurbishing several times over their life span. The example I’ll use here are covered rolls used on a paper machine.

“Repairable” spares (sometimes called “rotating” or “rotable” spares) are parts or assemblies that are carried in the Maintenance storeroom and which are not automatically re-ordered when they are issued. They rotate through a cycle that includes in-service in operating equipment, then to a repair shop, then to inventory and then back to service.