Change ... continuous and unrelenting change ... is a dramatic part of the lives of every person on the planet today.
Regardless of your personal preferences, we are battered with pressures to continually change ... our careers, our companies, our work processes and even our lives! And here's the bad news: If you work in maintenance or reliability then it is a lot worse!
As a growing and new managerial discipline, our area has been one of the main "bene ...Change ... continuous and unrelenting change ... is a dramatic part of the lives of every person on the planet today.
Regardless of your personal preferences, we are battered with pressures to continually change ... our careers, our companies, our work processes and even our lives! And here's the bad news: If you work in maintenance or reliability then it is a lot worse!
As a growing and new managerial discipline, our area has been one of the main "beneficiaries" of change. The areas of technologies, work processes and methodologies, talent management, the vast range of opportunities we now have, or in the way we understand how assets work, all of these areas are vastly different from when I started out in the game 21 years ago. (Time flies!)
My own career is a study in change. Twenty-seven countries, most industrial sectors, every managerial level and a number of different managerial functions - (and every time helping companies to change themselves in some way) - tends to teach you a little bit about change; how to manage it and how to embrace it rather than fear it.
The "raison d'etre" for this blog is to explore change in the maintenance and reliability area. We will cover a lot of ground, but at all times we will remain focused around the goal of getting the most economic value from physical assets for a given level of risk and performance.
Some of the change areas we will be discussing over the next year include:
- Changing technology. (The good, the bad and the ugly.)
- Out with the old. Radical challenges to accepted ways of thinking. (Are we really advancing?)
- Changes to the maintenance environment. (Are we ready for prime time?)
- Careers and the challenges we are facing as a discipline and as individuals. (What if it all ends tomorrow?)
- Changing the way people think. (Or ... how to sell reliability and keep on selling it!)
- Implementation. I have spent an awful lot of time thinking about this over the past three years. And it is an area where we really need to get a lot better. (A LOT BETTER!) So we wil be discussing this at length!So who is this for? Well... a lot of people I hope. It depends on how you see yourself in the world.
- Are you frustrated that "they" don't listen and don' understand? (Then "YES.")
- Are you trying to change the way that your company does business, even in a small way? (Then "YES.")
- Are you trying to start up a company in the field of maintenance or reliability? (Then "YES.")
- Are you trying to improve your career? (Then "YES.")
- Do you want to improve the way your company uses its physical asset base? (Then "YES.")
- Do you need to implement an improvement project? (EAM/CMMS/ERP/RCM/RCA, whatever!) (Then "YES.")But, if you think that you will be safe and secure in your job until the end of your career with no major changes - then NO, this probably isn't for you.