This is to anyone out there who works in an organization that has one team that all pull in the same direction. I'm sure you know what I'm getting at. If you people exist who have solved the age old problem of Production and Maintenance teams who just love to blame each other it would be great to hear from you.
How do you get to the ideal one team system?
How do you convince the non believers to remove their fire fighting hats and put on their proactive hats?

Hello Camrat,

Having been in an organization like you are describing of production v maintenance, it can be very frustrating trying to achieve a proactive environment. The organization I was in, was actually in the UK. We went through various ˜flavors of the month' exercises dependent on what the new manager preferred.
The thing that certainly put us on the right track to engaging both production and maintenance together was a TPM (Total Productive Maintenance) program that used OEE (Overall Equipment Effectiveness) as the KPI (Key Performance Indicator) for the program. (Sorry for the acronyms!) This focused on production throughput, quality and availability which required production and maintenance to work together ˜as one'! The process had its ups and downs but in general it was heading in the right direction. We also had production team leaders who were (dare I say it?) not in line with business needs due to a fundamental lack of understanding of process and maintenance working together. They tended to run the plant flat out on their shift, to beat production records and get a pat on the back, only for the next shift to have record downtime due to breakdowns of the equipment that had been pushed too hard on the previous shift!! It was a vicious cycle and from a maintenance and reliability perspective it was very,very frustrating.
So I would suggest maybe using TPM as a tool to try and move to a one team environment.
How do you convince the non believers to remove their firefighting hats – firstly understanding the real cost of breakdowns and doing a cost benefit analysis of these breakdowns is a starting point? Compare these costs to performing regular maintenance and you could open a few eyes at the potential savings you could make for the business.

Good Luck.

Gary

I think a strong top leadership can unite these two depts if they exist separately. Sometimes Maintenance is sub-dept under Production. Rivalry for promotions and desire to show good achievements for promotions may encourage this internal conflict. Thus, balanced KPIs for both production and maintenance aspects should be in place.

Site visit to plants where Production and Maintenance work closely and cooperate harmoniously could point them to the right direction.

Have you tried team building sessions where Prod and Maint personnel are mixed together to complete some games or things like that to break the ice or to test the water?

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Josh,

I am not convinced, this is a management problem and management needs to change. All the "flavors of the month exercises" and all the "acronyms" may have some short term improvement but all will eventually fail in the long run. I think identifying the root cause is a first step and this is what I have seen prevalent in some of the top companies as problems.

1. Maintenance is in the customer service business

2. It's my way or the highway

3. Your reward for doing good is not being punished

4. We have always done it that way

5. It's not my job

6. It's production that makes the company run

Please, if you have any more to add please do so and if you think something should be moved to the top of this list please say so.

Next step after the problems are identified?

I've been in a couple of situations like this: - A new person fills the Production Manager role. A good Maintenance Manager, and a good maintenance staff, including the Reliability group, make a "sales" presentation to Production Manager. Production Manager is impressed, and "joins" the maintenance group as a resource.

And everything goes fine, until:

(1) Production Manager changes roles or jobs,
(2) Maintenance Manager changes roles or jobs,
(3) Maintenance staff and Reliability Group either:
(a)changes jobs,
(b)or has their focused changed, since they don't seem to be finding problems like they used to,
(c) Is outsourced, or downsized, or rightsized

Then, as we all know, production costs go up, maintenance costs and downtime go up, and new people are put in place to resolve this issue. After awhile, they get a handle on the problem,

and the cycle starts again.

At least, it seems that way to me.

Josh,
Done the team building stuff. Done the site visit thing. Both work for a short time then things slip again. I agree with your point about strong leadership.
Old millwright,
We have a lot of points 4,5 & 6 going on in our plant.
Stan,
We are going through exactly what you describe.
Except the people in the middle and below aren't going to be as easy to convince as the higher management. So I guess things will go round in the way you describe.
I guess all the guys with the success stories must be on holiday spending there bonuses
If they exist.

quote:

Except the people in the middle and below aren't going to be as easy to convince as the higher management

Because they have seen the movie before. It is easy to convince management as long as it cost them nothing. And training is an expense...

Camrat,

I've been there, just a quick advise, if you are aiming for that position, be sure you can control your frustration since it is really a frustrating job, but when things change slowly, drip by drip, then your efforts will not be in vain.

You will be challenge by a lot of pessimist, old timers, done this before people, and so on, Good Luck !

My Warm Regards,

Thanks for the encouragement Rolly.
I am a big sufferer of the frustrations you describe, I appreciate it is a long slow job. Things are changing slowly but so slowly its painful. Fortunately I have two guys above me who know the score. Lets hope we can keep them or we will end up going in circles as Stan describes.

Camrat,
There is light at the end of the tunnel for you or at least there could be.
Recently cost avoidance has been considered as a cost savings in our plant. It was not that long ago cost savings were only to include perpetual reductions in the cost of material, manpower, services, and so on in our plant. Recently though ..and I am going out on a limb here, since the implementation of the Pdm program, Pdm cost avoidance which is directly tied to uptime, reduced downtime, or any other KPI name is seen as a sustainable cost savings. It's all about the Benjamins and the accountants and chief controllers may be beginning to see the true value of equipment reliability as it relates to "cost/rate per unit".
Proving a decrease in unscheduled repairs is my most often used method of convincing the "nay sayers". If your operation has a CMMS and if half of it's capabilities are utilized you should be able to track a bad actor that is now under control. If the bad actor is critical to the day to day operations even better. For production days prior to Pdm, the rate of machine failure should be more frequent, therefore the RPU will be considerably higher for a given time span. After Pdm implementation there should be a reduction in unscheduled repairs or an extension in the mean time between/before failure of the unscheduled type. The end result is a sustainable RPU that is favorable or at least on target to the projected costs to produce. Pdm programs are cost avoidance programs pure and simple. It's been a long time coming such programs are seen as value added and a method of sustainable cost savings.....

I consider PMs and predictive maintenance as a physical for the machine.

Do we get our annual checkup because it will save us money? No, we go to hopefully to extend life.

For some reason management just does not get that. It is all $$$. Apparently life extension of equipment is just too far in the future for them to see. But, by then most of them will have moved on anyway.

So I guess the next time the Doc tells you to lower your cholesterol just think how much money you will save by avoiding that heart attack.

This is not an easy task to accomplish in an industrial environment. What we first must understand is that not all potential or exsisting employees are fit for this type of responsibility.

This current work environment that I am in is probably one of the best in my 28 yrs in the work force!
In a nut shell this what we do.
We prioritize our own work orders and schedule equipment for repairs working closely with the Operations Manager and Operations through the Control room.

We walk down LOTO's and perform pre and post job briefs with service providers for lessons learned to improve scheduling and to shorten time frames for downed equipment

We Plan and schedule additional personnel, equipment and parts for forced and planned outages.

We create work requests, document and update our own work orders. We send out notification emails on certain equipment repairs and what was done within the department and to Operations, as a way of informative communication.

We communicate directly with OEM's on problems with equipment to determine if equipment is undersized, oversized, for root cause of failure, if there are upgrades available, if we make an improvement to the existing equipment to improve reliability we share it with the OEM.

We as a team in this Maintenance Dept, have become very good at what we do, not only do we support one another when our own experience falls short, we go out of our way to assist each other when help is needed.
The same goes for Operations as well. Never have I worked in an industrial environment where we all go above and beyond the call when it comes to support. The best thing is help is always a radio call away. All of us will stop what we are doing ASAP to assist someone who needs it.

A wide diversity is needed within each individual the flexibility to adapt. All must have a common goal which is a reliable plant with reliable equipment. With a thin staff; complaining is a real moral killer and needs to be dealt with quickly. Not everyday is a good day and some can even be over whelming. When this happens regrouping to check priorities is the best place to start.

All of us at our plant have made some serious mistakes resulting in down time and lost generation, from a tripped unit to one account of a plant blackout.
Employers that want this environment need to be realistic about mistakes and to be sensitive to how mistakes are handled. All mistakes can be capitalized on, with this in mind mistakes and mishaps turn into insurance. Insurance that a repeat has been eliminated and everyone benefit's and the reliability of the plant improves. Why fire someone to only bring in someone that needs to be retrained as well as increasing the possibility of a repeat failure by making the same mistake.

The difference lies for us is in having meetings for lessons learned, to ensure that it will not and cannot happen again. We have had great success in these meetings so repeat failures and down time from these types of mistakes do not repeat themselves. We correct them and ensure that all affected knows what happened so that the same mistake does not repeat itself. Equipment failures are treated in the same manner. If there is no spare then the equipment is reclaimed and the root cause is investigated and corrected. We empower solutions not just remedies to eliminate these errors and failures. The root cause must always be investigated and eliminated, whether it is corrected locally or working through OEM assistance,

Our management staff is also thin and loaded up with their own task and responsibilities. Tracking budgets, major maintenance items, planning and scheduling, along with dealing with multiple personalities. In this type of environment at best can be very challenging.
This is our environment in a nut shell. I can say with confidence that our management trusts our judgment, and I dare anyone question our plants reliability and maintenance practices.

establishing trust is the first thing. Allowing and giving employees the tools, time and propoer resources is another biggy.

If you don't take time to do it right you will have to take time to do it over!

Camrat,
Trust is something that has to be earned. The basic lack of trust is something that is created by the way most managements run their business. Maintenance often do not help their own cause. And produvtion breathes down their neck to meet production targets. All this will be familiar territory.
How do we break it?
My recipe is not earth-shattering, it is pretty obvious. Improve work quality so eqpt. does not fall apart once we do the work. That needs time and competence. Do proper RCA, with operators in the team. In many cases, they start and stop eqpt. badly, overload excessively etc. If we don't tell them but they find it out themselves, that will help in future. Finally, if PMs are done on time, i.e., compliance is >90%, breakdowns will drop dramatically, so work at it.
Remember, if you point the finger at somebody, there are three fingers pointing risght back at you!