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What are the best doing?

Sept. 2, 2008

Standardizing their asset maintenance and reliability initiatives across the organization, implementing RCM and condition based approaches, and implementing mobile working with their asset maintenance programs. This is according to the latest research published by the Aberdeen Group in their June report on Enterprise Asset Management. Regardless of any crush on resources 65% of best in class manufacturers are implementing reliability as a means of maximizing their return on assets, with 61% doing it to reduce the risks of failure of critical assets. Meanwhile, only 7% mention a focus on a retiring and aging workforce. Again the focus on strong prioritization and being able to deliver rapid high cash results wins out. For the longest time I have counseled my clients to do the same. Always start where you can show maximum rapid benefits. Not the "low hanging fruit" (Terrible concept) but the assets that are performing badly that, if fixed, would provide a large boost to revenues or reduction in costs. So where is your organization? There are lots of figures thrown around, as well as the very misleading term "world class", however, according to this Aberdeen study the best in class manufacturers are achieving the following results:

OEE - 93% and rising

Throughput - 97% and rising

Asset Downtime - 3% and falling

Good easy measures. Is your plant "best in class"? If not then not then it is probably because of two underlying challenges.

Cultural change - getting the workforce, management and leadership to move away from the break and fix style of maintenance , and
Management understanding - getting corporate leaders to stop viewing maintenance as a necessary cost, but as a source of strategic advantages.

To address these issues Aberdeen goes on to point out that best in class companies are 50% more likely to standardize their work processes for maintenance and reliability across the organization. It goes on to point out that Reliability centered maintenance is used not only as an asset performance improvement tool... but also as a cultural change initiative! There is a heck of a lot more information in the report but this is the thrust of it. Good incentive to change wouldn't you say? Achieving a steady 97% throughput is nothing to sniff at anyway, lots of business case opportunities there.