Why focus is the key to driving reliability success in manufacturing plants

Key takeaways

• Focus on a few high-impact reliability priorities instead of spreading efforts too thin across many initiatives.
• Culture change in reliability demands leadership alignment, resource focus, and resisting distractions from corporate agendas.
• Use Chalk Circle Observations to uncover process waste and achieve quick, cost-free improvements on the shop floor.
• Track and improve metrics like PM completion, PdM usage, and wrench time to reduce downtime and boost plant efficiency.
   

A few years ago, I visited a plant in Texas. The plant leadership was several months into their reliability journey having accepted best practices.

The maintenance manager was very intelligent and passionate about the reliability roadmap created in partnership with a consultant. New processes were created and workers were trained for the following: planning and scheduling, job kitting, inventory management, rebuilds, preventative maintenance, predictive maintenance, problem solving, storeroom, overhauls, precision maintenance, planned work execution, unplanned work execution, lubrication, and governance of the whole reliability system.

However, early enthusiasm was beginning to wane. Unplanned equipment downtime continued at a consistent pace. Maintenance costs continued to rise. Everyone was doing more work with no recognizable impact. Doubt was aggressively verbalized in meetings as well as on the shop floor with operators and technicians.

During my visit, I attended the reliability lead team meeting. This monthly discussion was attended by the plant’s leadership team including these managers: plant, production, maintenance, safety, human relations, engineering, continuous improvement and finance. The meeting was led by the maintenance manager who gave a status update by showing 64 PowerPoint slides of the change efforts underway for the reliability initiative. No questions were asked. At slide 35, the one-hour meeting ended.

In my one-on-one conversations with leadership, I heard the following reasons repeated for why results did not follow the deployment of these best practices: perhaps our plant is unique. Best practices may not work here because of our product, processes, and culture. Sound familiar?  

Driving culture change in plant reliability: Why laser focus is essential

What advice did I provide? One word: focus.

Focus is saying “no” to a lot of things. There will be critics; there will be different agendas; corporate will get upset you are not working on their pet projects. Do not give up your power. This is where the plant manager earns his pay. The plant manager must have the ability to align and focus resources to make significant business impact all while preventing distractions from other organizations (aka Corporate).

Furthermore, you have undoubtedly heard the phrase, “If everything is important, nothing is important.” This holds true for reliability best practice culture change. Being excellent in everything is a panacea. You cannot have 64 priorities; not even 10. Best case, you will make glacial progress across a massive front. The lack of tangible results will cast the reliability effort on top of the pile of good ideas that did not work at your plant.

Instead, leaders need to answer this question: What three changes can we make in our plant, that if we all aggressively drive for excellence over the next 12 months, will make a dramatic impact on our business? Examples of small changes that will drive excellence over the next 12 months:  

1. Preventative maintenance: completion percentage is 25% per month.
2. Predictive maintenance (PdM): currently just 2% of our technician workhours are the result of PdM anomalies found on inspection routes.
3. Wrench Time (WT): job efficiency measured by WT is 15%; best practice is 50%.
4. Lubrication: year after year lubrication failures are the number one cause of downtime and expense.
5. Motor failures: year after year unplanned motor failures are the number two cause of downtime and expense.
6. Precision work: the number three common downtime event is not executing maintenance work with precision. Examples: shaft alignment, rebuilds, overhauls.


   Take inspiration from the movie Moneyball. In 2002, general manager Billy Beane of the major league baseball team Oakland A’s, must build a team of players with a payroll of $41M to compete with the New York Yankees payroll of $126M. Billie chose to implement a system that focused on getting unconventional talent that was undervalued by traditional baseball experts. They also relentlessly focused on getting on base over batting average, home runs, stolen bases and player technique. The A’s ended the season with the same number of wins as the Yankees.

Billy’s journey will be very similar to the reliability journey at the plant. There will be critics and setbacks, but you must focus on a few strategic levers for success. This “focus on a few” concept is also supported by Warren Buffet’s 5/25 rule (see link below to a YouTube video). Buffet instructs the change agent to focus on five critical priorities and ignore the remaining 20 at all cost.  

Chalk Circle Observation: How shop floor insight sparks fast, cost-free reliability wins

Once the three focus areas are agreed upon, where should you start? Go to the shop floor and observe. 

By observe, I am referring specifically to “Chalk Circle Observation,” a process developed by Taichi Ohno of Toyota. These observations are hours or even days long in duration. Chalk Circle sets the observer in an imaginary circle placed on the floor to see wastes. Examples: observe technicians installing a new pump; observe a PM being executed; attend a planning meeting to see how work is prioritized for the following week. 

The brilliance of Chalk Circle is it identifies actions you can take in mere days often at zero cost. These simple and free actions can be implemented for quick wins leading to organizational momentum. If there is disagreement about an action, consider calling for a 90-day experiment; worst case is that you learn something. From this platform of results, set plans to make more strategic changes in your three focus areas that take more time and resources to implement. 

Monday morning action plan: Practical steps to prioritize plant reliability and reduce downtime

1. Watch the video on Warren Buffet’s 5/25 Rule.
2. Create a list of every reliability change you are making in your plant.
3. Identify the 5-7 biggest opportunities that are year after year the reliability killers in your plant.
4. Ask yourself and your leadership team, have we made any progress on these 5-7 killers in the last five years?  
5. Discussion: why do we expect this year to be any different?
6. Introduce the concept of “focus on a few.”