IN CONVERSATION WITH
MRO Pro Tip Proactive desirable maintenance BY PAUL DAOUST
30 MRO / Winter 2023
MRO Pro Tip
The lost art of alignment BY HOUTAN GHAFFARISARAVI In today’s complex business environment, effective communication is critical for securing necessary investments in maintenance. Key strategies for conveying the importance of maintenance to decision-makers are: Utilize data-driven arguments: maintenance managers should present data and analytics to back their requests. Including historical maintenance records, downtime costs, and impact of maintenance activities on overall productivity. Demonstrating how proactive maintenance can save money in the long term, by preventing costly breakdowns, is a compelling argument for investment. Align maintenance goals with business objectives: it’s important to show how maintenance investments align with the broader business goals. Whether it’s increasing operational efficiency, ensuring compliance, or improving customer satisfaction, making the connection between maintenance activities and these objectives can help executives see the value in the proposed investments. -Develop a compelling ROI case: presenting a clear ROI case can be influential. This involves illustrating
how investment in maintenance will lead to tangible benefits, such as reduced operational costs, extended equipment life, or enhanced safety, which contributes to the bottom line. Use visual aids and reports: visual representations of data, such as charts and graphs, can be more effective than verbal or written descriptions. These tools can help executives quickly grasp complex information and the implications of maintenance activities. Communicate in business terms: speaking the language of business when communicating with executives is crucial. Meaning focusing on cost-benefit analyses, risk management, and strategic planning, not technical jargon. Share success stories and case studies: providing examples of successful maintenance investments from within the organization or from other companies, can serve as powerful testimonials to the value of proper maintenance. By employing these strategies, you can effectively communicate the need for maintenance investment to executives and decision-makers, ensuring the necessary support and resources for optimal maintenance operations. MROMAGAZINE.COM
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One of our best maintenance metrics is work identification. Where did the work come from? Many organizations are stuck in a reactive maintenance regime. To them asset management means “fix my maintenance”. Here’s how. Proactive desirable maintenance should comprise about 80 per cent of our work hours: primary time and condition-based and predictive work with secondary work identified from formal tactics. Reactive undesirable maintenance should make up about 20 per cent of our work hours: breakdowns and all requested work that doesn’t stem from formal tactics. We avoid the term corrective work because it has both desirable and undesirable components. Immature maintenance organizations have a high degree of breakdown work. Moderately mature organizations have a high degree of requested work; the equipment hasn’t failed, Listen to the but the problem wasn’t identified podcast through deliberate proactive means. here: www. Mature organizations have a high mromagazine. degree of proactive work, as much as com/podcasts/ necessary, as little as possible. Maintenance work execution helps us plan, schedule, and execute our work but it doesn’t have much control over what comes into our work hopper. Organizations already adept at basic maintenance work management should focus on developing effective proactive asset operations and maintenance tactics to optimize cost, operational performance, and risk where technically feasible and worth doing. View all the tips at Measuring is easy. The change mromagazine. challenge is switching the organiza- com/mr-os-tips/ tion’s mindset to one that rewards the Or scan the QR desirable maintenance and punishes code! the undesirable maintenance. Maintenance leadership must no longer be measured on budget alone. They must be incentivised to increase the proactive maintenance, decrease the reactive maintenance, and lower the overall maintenance burden.
