Normally reliability initiatives don't start until a company is in trouble, or when something has gone tragically wrong. In fact, the majority of clients I have had in the past twenty five years have called me, or my company, because they had run into trouble.
The number of companies who take on reliability proactively, ironically, is very low. What a waste.
The latest Aberdeen Group report states that 49% of respondents nominated "Maximizing Return on Assets"as their key strategic driver for reliability programs.
This was followed closely by Achieving a competitive Advantage (46%), Reduce Total Lifecycle Asset Costs (44%), and trailing was Minimize safety related incidents and Compliance with 16% each.
The case has been made many times, in many companies across the globe. Asset reliability is no longer anything but an integral part of how asset-intensive corporations must manage their physical assets if they want to stay competitive.
Period!
Among the "best-in-class" the report claims they have achieved an O.E.E of 89% (No mean feat), 97% on-time shipments, and only 2% unscheduled downtime. The impact on your company's bottom line, even with demand shrinking, is enormous.
No more projects, initiatives, rollouts or campaigns. Reliability needs to be as much a part of your company as safety, operations or financial management. Especially now that the economy has taken a downturn.
So what are they doing?
- 54% of leaders are implementing advanced asset reliability management and analytical capability
- 38% of leaders are enabling benchmarking and collaboration between departments, plants and facilities
- 33% are investing in real-time analytical approaches.
Of particualr note is the fact that 88% and 63% respectively are investing in preventive maintenance and predictive maintenance.
One of the highlights of this report for me was that the leaders embraced reliability not as a way to survive, but to thrrive in these economic hard times.
Paul Krugman, the Nobel prize winning economist with the NY Times, has recently commented that "We could easily be talking about a world economy that is depressed into 2011 and even beyond,"
So, if you do not take this opportunity to implement or grow your reliability program reliability now, meaning right now, then you may not need to worryabout it in the future...