Bryan,

quote:

Vee, I respect your opinion but in this case it is based on an ideal world that does not really exist. Most managers nowadays must be cost focussed otherwise they will be out of a job. Whether you like it or not the real world is all about financial targets and performance.

There are many ways of slicing the pie. If you have the impression I am against reducing costs, ban the thought, I am all for it. My view is that costs reductions are a RESULT of reliability and productivity improvements, and that is the right way to go about it. And labour costs, while they are very significant in the West, in Rolly's situation, which I have worked in for over 20 years, they are not more significant than e.g., materials, logistics and vendor support costs.
In a situation where people are working a lot of O/T, they often have hordes of contract labour. All I am saying is that in this scenario, improving reliability and productivity can release some labour numbers. Instead of just firing them, I suggest we re-skill them to replace contractors where possible. The same cost savings will still accrue, but with less hardship to own staff.
O/T work is often indicative of poor productivity. In the same manner as we aim for high quality first time to eliminate rework, high productivity to minimize O/T is equally laudable.
In a study an associate of mine conducted in a Refinery in the far east many years ago, O/T was running at 20% or more. They put in a computer system to track the originators. Conventional wisdom said that operators were making unreasonable requests for work to be done urgently. The facts were quite different; maintenance supervisors were the main culprits. They were using O/T as a reward or incentive to pad up their staff's income! So focusing on operations as thjey had been doing earlier was abandoned, and they moved the focus to the real causes. The O/T levels dropped dramatically, to about 7% in year 1, and just over 5% in year 2. At the same time thay got contract numbers down by 40%, all this wjile reliability went up! Did they get costs down? You bet!
For the record, I have stayed with Rolly's scenario throughout. My comment on the skill situation in the west was in response to your own post about your experience in the west of Scotland.
Having done some of the up-skilling I mentioned earlier, I think I remain in the 'real world'. It may not be an 'ideal' world, but certainly one which is better than a world where people are fired willy-nilly, often due to faults of the management. I have practiced what I am preaching, so there is no idealism here.

Bryan,
There is a good saying in maintenance... "in maintenance, no manager is ever going to cost cut his way to prosperity"
I have been to companies that are over staffed when we started working with them - but you know when you talk to the maintenance people at the time they will all tell you they are understaffed. We run a "what is wrong with your organisation" session at the start and inadequate resources is always there. Returning to these organisations years later, we find that there are less maintenance staff and a different structure. Attrition has taken care of some of the few lost heads.
Now I used to work as a consultant for PWC and know that sometimes there are Business Process Review assignments that are geared to improve processes so that labour can be reduced. These assignments do exists but if companies want to increase unit costs of production, then cutting maintenance staff in a reactive maintenance organisation is a good way to do the opposite.
Regards
Steve
www.pmoptimisation.com.au

Rolly,
We do a lot of work and training in Philippines and asia in general. I have never got the question of job loss. In fact some times management does not care too much about job loss because labour is not a high cost overall.
At each training session we start with "what are your current maintenance issues" and list them on the board. Lack of maintenance reasources will always be there - then if you want you can lever off this and discuss the topic with the first step being that they think they dont have enough. It can become aparent that "productivity" is not a dirty word. And in fact, the whole basis for the training is to prepare people for a new way of thinking and the new way of thinking has to be positive to productivity.
So Rolly, my suggestion would be to lead this disucssion so you are on the positive and in control.
Hope this idea is useful.
Regards
Steve
www.pmoptimisation.com

To All My Brothers in the field of reliability,

First, may I start by saying that reliability has always something to do with the culture. Here, in our country, a typical salary of a maintenance (technician), mostly that do most of the repairs is not sufficient to cope up with their day to day living and so most of them are dependent on overtime, once equipment improves, they will have less repair and less overtime.

If we think for the company, then this is good as cost is saved on overtime, but if we think as a technician then it means sarcifice for them most specially on the economic point of view.

I have seen and experience a lot about management cutting on maintenance resources, some being transfered on other plants since their line improved, others forced to resign (most are my friends), others go mostly to other countries like Singapore, Taiwan, others leave since they can't take the pressure and so on. We, which means you and me and the rest have to make a living in a way , and I have seen some old timers (my friends) up to this very point in time that are jobless, mostly because the age had gotten with them. (They are overaged)

Around 95% or more of the people I have taught, are not againts improving reliability even if they know that the expense will be loosing their overtime or their job. But we cannot take this concern away from them and it is a valid one if I may add, and the what if scenario did occur and the time come that it happens, then this means tightening their belt to deal with their day to day chores.

I often give advise and I say that my advise is off the record, when it happens then we must be prepared. If your basic salary is in your right pocket, then think of ways on how to make money on our left pocket that will not in anyway breach any rules or regulations in your company. Just dont let yourself down by thinking that doing overtime is the only way of adding small money in your pocket and you might never know that it might grow, maybe not related in the maintenance field but in a way will compensate for money loss on overtime. If you want to write a book, then do so, if you want to put up a small store so be it, if you want to sell some stuff or garage sale then do it. But most of all pray for wisdom. After saying this, I see smile on peoples faces instead of some worriness in their faces.


Steve, you quote :
It can become aparent that "productivity" is not a dirty word. And in fact, the whole basis for the training is to prepare people for a new way of thinking and the new way of thinking has to be positive to productivity.

I would like to disagree, Productivity is like politics, I've seen many industries sacrificing reliability just to the extent of hitting productivity and cycle time. My belief is that productivity should not be the priority but reliability, yet I admit in most if not all its the other way around because we wanted it to be that way. THere are lots of ways to improve productivity but the best way to improve productivity is to improve the reliability of the equipment in the first place.

This is why maintenance people are often treated as 2nd rated people when it comes in most industries, why ??? since emphasis is on productivity. Maintenance should be considered in the same rank as operations. It's like maintenance people are considered as extras or stuntman in a film, and who's the star, you know it will be the operations people . Japanese do not focus on productivity, but on quality since by focusing on quality they will have more productivity.

It is like when you put up a business what is your priority, to profit or to satify your client, these 2 are entirely different. If you focus on satisfying your client then expect more profit.

I continue to be in this profession since this is where my passion drives me crazy, and as I have said, I develop my courses out of my frustration to convince industry that there is a better way of staying alive and surviving, yet most industry's gates are closed and will remain close. I will never win them all, but I have a few industries right now listening and now thinking on what I have been preaching for a very long time, and now on the process of changing their culture one step at a time.
It's a very slow and rewarding process
Most industries and Top Management have not yet realized and it will take time for them to understand that most doors on their maintenance structure or organization still remain close, but when repair business lessen then we can hope that new and more valuable work for the maintenance function will now open. Our profession in maintenance is so granduer in nature, yet we have been thought of by most people as a bunch of no nos whose job is to perform repair . . . . Let me tell you what doors can open on the maintenance that most industry dont have . . . . Many industries will take time to digest or really understand that these functions in the maintenance are not a nice to have but a must have.

- Tribological Group
- Lubrication Management Group
- Contamination Control Group
- Condition-Based Organization Group
- RCM / PMO / TPM groups
- Failure Analysis groups
- In-house Oil laboratory Analyst
- Fractographers
- Technical training group
- Preventive Maintenance Group
- Calibration Groups
- MTBA / MTBF Engineers
- Maintenance on Special Projects
- CMMS people
- Spare Parts Management Groups
- Special Rebuild and Overhaul Groups
- Weibull Analyst
- Parts Design Weakness Improvement Groups
- and many more . . .

Yet most of what we can think of is we are just a bunch of people that perform traditional fix and repair, they just don't know how diversified and granduer our profession is thats why people who are in this forum are
much more than repairman. Isn't it the real purpose of maintenance is ideally to eliminate maintenance, which we should not take literally but rather its more to do than continuously improving the way we do things around.

In a plant I teach right now, I have convince them to acquire an ultrasonic monitoring to complete their line up of Predicitive Maintenance tools and where would you think they will get the resource person, it will be a selection on the best qualified on their maintenance function. Now this is one function for the maitenance that open up !

As long as there are industries listening to the right message, then theres a reason to do what I'm doing currently.

Again, it will take time for industry to absorb and fully understand the diversity of our function, for now some may say that this is an ideal state, not perhaps in the near future.

I am honored and proud that I belong to the maintenance function and so are we all.

And I think that's is all I have to say . . .


My Warm Regards,

Rolly Angeles
Teacher

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Rolly12,

Rolly,

Correct me if I am wrong but I believe you are in he business of improving reliability. One of the consequences of doing so is to reduce effort and costs, is that bad? Similarly, improving productivity also reduces resources and costs. These are two different paths, but both achieve similar results. As to the right order we will discuss it later.

quote:

Here, in our country, a typical salary of a maintenance (technician), mostly that do most of the repairs is not sufficient to cope up with their day to day living

Over 50 years ago, Parkinson stated that "expenditure rises tio meet income"; this is true in every country, not just your own. Eventually the extra cost has to be borne by the customers. In a global economy, the customers will go elsewhere, so the business itself will disappear!

quote:

improving reliability even if they know that the expense will be loosing their overtime or their job.

All successful inventions, whether of the wheel or of light bulb or the steam engine or the motor car or the computer improved productivity. Most of them were vehemently decried, sometimes violently, when first introduceed. This is a traditional change management issue.

quote:

My belief is that productivity should not be the priority but reliability, yet I admit in most if not all its the other way around

You are absolutely right; that is the right order; direction is always more important than speed if you want to get somewhere, especially if you are in a hurry. But the cost-cutting brigade constantly pushes for productivity first. Short term gains or quick wins seem more important than sustainable results. But just so we dont forget, BOTH reliability and productivity lower costs. They are complementary, and both produce similar end results - less work.

quote:

If we think for the company, then this is good as cost is saved on overtime, but if we think as a technician then it means sarcifice for them most specially on the economic point of view.

See what is happening in the US auto and steel plants, European shipyards; in the long run, if we dont strive to improve our unit costs, we will not as industries, survive. It wont then be one person's overtime income or job, it will be 00s or 000s of jobs. Workers are more intelligent than we give them credit for; this is why we should be open and explain right from the beginning what e.g. an RCM or a Thermography program will do; not just the technical outcomes but the ones that matter most to workers, their job security and their take home pay.

quote:

what is your priority, to profit or to satify your client, these 2 are entirely different

There is no dichotomy here; these are not contradictory. Companies that are very successful over long periods of time see satisfying clients as the most important route to sustainable profitability. In my view the two merge, and without happy clients we dont stand a chance.

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

quote:

Steve, you quote :
It can become aparent that "productivity" is not a dirty word. And in fact, the whole basis for the training is to prepare people for a new way of thinking and the new way of thinking has to be positive to productivity.

I would like to disagree, Productivity is like politics, I've seen many industries sacrificing reliability just to the extent of hitting productivity and cycle time. My belief is that productivity should not be the priority but reliability, yet I admit in most if not all its the other way around because we wanted it to be that way. THere are lots of ways to improve productivity but the best way to improve productivity is to improve the reliability of the equipment in the first place.

Rolly,
I think you have taken me out of context here. If the plant is reliable, machines will be productive and so will your maintenance people.
Also I agree, reliability is a culture and this is why I say "the new way of thinking has to be positive to productivity".
Regards
Steve
www.pmoptimisation.com.au

Dear All,

I have seen a lot of maintenance overtime vanished into thin air, merely as a result of cost reduction measures and not reliability improvement efforts, ratio of maintenance to machine had been increased from time to time.

I agree that most managers are inclined to cut cost as they have to follow orders from the top, a typical chain of command scenario, and this is a fact that exits in most industries.
I agree with Brian here.


What happens to the people who are affected and part of the reduction scheme, some options will be provided by the company either to relocate to some other departments that needed manpower instead of sourcing them outside the company, others are offered early retirement packages or early resignation plans, and some trainings are being offered to this people such as Change Management before leaving. Now when the volume hits up again then they hire new breeds, fresh people or with some luck, some old timers will be called up again.

With respect to the diversified positions in maintenance, sad to say it won't open on most industries at the moment since, Top Management, CEO's do not understand what these are, what it can do or why it is needed in the first place. As I have said, it will take time for every single industry to understand the diversity of these functions. Not at the moment but hopefully in the not so distant future and it is not an overnight function for us to convince and justify to them the need for these postions.

Currently most industries will only have a limited slot or vacancy for the maintenance function in which most of the people are placed on the repair mode system, with some PM groups, Planners, some have some PdM group while others outsource them through 3rd party contractors, and one criteria for selection and job description is for those who can work under pressure and long hours, then you are qualified.

Management right now are educating themselves on new techniques such as RCM, PMO, RCFA, Risk Based Analysis, TPM, etc, but I doubt if they can implement it on their own once the classes end unless otherwise a consultant will facilitate in any of these initiatives. But again this will depend on industries that have the budget on this, that's why most gates on industries remain closed as they have little or no budget for training their people but they have a lot of budget on repairs and spares even if the part fail again and again or eventually even if the part more than a million times.

Steve, Vee, Brian, Joe, and the rest, I think our job is to educate our people on all levels the need for these functions. We might be on different roads yet we are on the same destination.

There might not be an easy answer to my question as these are realities of life in the maintenance function, we just have to accept and be prepared when it comes to our plant.

My Warm Regards,


Rolly Angeles
Teacher

Not to veer from the subject. The discussion proves that management is an art than science. Managers work with people to accomplish the objectives of both the organizations and its members.

quote:

THere are lots of ways to improve productivity but the best way to improve productivity is to improve the reliability of the equipment in the first place.

This is not necessarily true. It is all dependent on the type of operation. It may be true in process or manufacturing industries that are dependent on equipment. The truth is that it is people who improve productivity not machines. If you cannot motivate the people to do so then you are sunk.

quote:

I think you have taken me out of context here. If the plant is reliable, machines will be productive and so will your maintenance people.

AFAIAC there is no correlation between performance of production machines and performance of maintenance people.

quote:

Not to veer from the subject. The discussion proves that management is an art than science. Managers work with people to accomplish the objectives of both the organizations and its members.

Rod, I don't think you are veering from the subject. In fact I think you have hit the nail right on the head. As I understood it this discussion was about how to manage people, not machines or equipment.

quote:

AFAIAC there is no correlation between performance of production machines and performance of maintenance people.

You said it yourself,

quote:

The truth is that it is people who improve productivity not machines. If you cannot motivate the people to do so then you are sunk.

I find your couple of post rather contradicting, I hope you can enlighten us.

When you combine your post together I think there is a strong correlation between production machines and maintenance people.
And this I believe to be a fact.

Warm Regards,

Rolly Angeles
Teacher

quote:

I find your couple of post rather contradicting, I hope you can enlighten us.

OK, I am Scottish so perhaps my English is not clear

You said, "If the plant is reliable, machines will be productive and so will your maintenance people." If you are saying that the reliability of the equipment drives the productivity of the maintenance people then I am afraid that I just cannot follow your logic.

Rolly, I can only offer you my opinion based on my own experience. I am sorry that you have not found them helpful.

Bryan,

We are both consultants, although I consider myself as a teacher and do not want to be called so, your post was well noted, and I do learn from your post and others,

I now understand your postion, it is the people that will drive the relaibility of the equipment to make it productive. So what is important is to motivate the people in the first place.

May I add also an important factor that we must not be deprived off "RESPECT & DIGNITY", this is how maintenance should be treated so they will be motivated to perform their work. I hope you agree on me on this.

I know you speak from the heart and at your own experience as you have encountered these things as I have. You are more experience than me Bryan, I'm 44 yrs old and spend around 20 good years on maintenance, and I know you have been in the park much longer.

I highly appreciate your response and thank you for enlighthening us on your post.

Again nothing to apologize, and nothing to forgive.

My Warm Regards,


Rolly Angeles
Teacher

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Rolly12,

Dear All,

One more thing I would like to add is I am a firm believer of continuous improvement and best practices and I do believe that if maintenance overtime will be cut short as a result of these improvement initiatives then I go for this but if maintenance initiatives will be cut by means of cost reduction measures, then its a different story.

My Warm Regards,

Rolly Angeles

Rolly,
With respect, I suggest that to the person who is affected (overtime or job loss), our motives - whether for continous improvement or cost cutting, dont matter one bit.

It only matters to those left behind, who do not lose their jobs as a result of our actions. With a cost-cutting approach, the work volume remains where it was before, so the fewer people left behind will have to work harder or more productively as one might say. On the other hand, if reliability improves as a result of our efforts, work volumes will fall, so fewer people are required to do the smaller volume of work. In this case the people left behind will not have to work harder.

The main argument in favour of higher reliability is that fewer failures result in higher quality, higher uptime, improved integrity and hence safety, lower maintenance costs, and longer asset life.

I do not accept your argument that it is OK to fire people if this is a result of continous improvement (read TPM, RCM, RCA etc), but not as an action of a cost cutting management. The result is the same as far as those affected is concerned. Whatever be the reason to fire people, I ask that we handle it sensitively, so that it causes the least amount of pain and suffering, both economically and psychologically.

quote:

Originally posted by Vee:

I do not accept your argument that it is OK to fire people if this is a result of continous improvement (read TPM, RCM, RCA etc), but not as an action of a cost cutting management. The result is the same as far as those affected is concerned. Whatever be the reason to fire people, I ask that we handle it sensitively, so that it causes the least amount of pain and suffering, both economically and psychologically.

Vee, I cannot say for other plants, but for plants I work, they did not fire people but rather, they offer people early retirement, or voluntary resignation, in which I was included since my department was eliminated in the process since management thinks it is a non value department. The psychological part still remains.

Rolly,
I use the word 'firing' in a general sense. Loss of O/T or other loss of income has the same effect. The point is that 'continuous improvement' is no better than sost-cutting for those directly affected. It only matters for those not directly affected.

quote:

Originally posted by Rolly12:
One of the most common remarks I get from people I teach, is they often tell me that if we follow what you are teaching and our equipment's reliability improve then we aint working on overtime no more, and if our line definitely improves then they can cut manpower resources on maintenance and I might loose my job.

How would you address this situation ? Kindly be in my shoes when you answer this post, as I come from a third world country where unemployment is a big problem. Perhaps in other countries such as yours you can get a job easily, so this is not often an issue to the maintenance people afterall.

Appreciate any feedback here

Rolly12,

I really appreciate the challenge being faced by technical personel in third world country if equipment reliability should improve. I am expecially moved by this question because I had similar background. I studied and practised in third world country for over six years before coming to europe for futher studies. I will like to advice your students to implement any known equipment's reliability strategy because this will give them ample time and opportunity as individual to improve themselves in modern trend of maintenance and instead of being redundant or out of job as envisage, they will become more versatile and better relevant to take up higher responsibility in design modifications and process improvement either in the same company or in another company or better still in another country due to the modern trend of skill mobility.

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

Dear Steve,

I am not taking you out of the context, I have very high respect for you and your work, and I regard you as one of the experts in the field of reliability and maintenance, your remarks was well noted.

Thank you my friend,

My Warm Regards,


Rolly Angeles

I know we've beat this one around a lot, but going through some notes I came across an idea.

I think people always react better to change when you give them choices and logic.

1. Will people necessarily lose overtime if reliability improves? As was mentioned before there are usually plenty of jobs for maintenance to do. Most organizations prefer to run at some level of overtime rather than hire people. So, if you're running 50% overtime, that's probably not sustainable for the company or the employees, but if it's 20% or less it could be.

2. I think you have to sell the fact that per unit cost must go down or at least stay the same over time. It appears to me that raw material prices are increasing globally due to shortages of those materials and increasing demand. Yet, there always seem to be less expensive labor markets available and the efficiency of manufacturing processes increases.

While maintenance is usually not a direct per unit cost, maintenance, admin, sales, etc all contribute to the overall per unit cost of a product.

3. To drive costs down and remain competitive there are usually two choices.


A. management makes a decision to cut personnel by 30% ( just an example) across the board.Unfortunately this has been the US approach in many instances. Workers see the cuts as arbitrary and with no reason. Sometimes, people get a choice to leave in the nice situation where there is a buy-out, but it's just as common that people are let go. So the chioce for a worker is do you want to be part of the 30% (or maybe more) who are arbitrarily let fired?

This does result in efficiency/productivity improvements. The remaining work forces figures out how to do the work that is required and less important work is set aside. This usually works in the short term, but longer terms likely results in bigger problems, catastrophic failures, etc. However, the managers who fired everyone usually aren't around now, they've been promoted, transferred or gone to other companies.

In reality the same broken processes are likely in place and within a few years the company will find itself back in the same situation only it's worse. This time they'll be thinking about closing the facility and moving the work elsewhere.

B. workers can decide to continuously improve. That means that unit costs are cut through capacity improvement and increased utilization of equipment. If more products are made in the same amount of time unit costs go down. Most plants have plenty of hidden capacity. I know some will argue, but I believe it's true. To increase utilization and capacity, reliability technologies and processes must be implemented. So, given a reasonable level of overtime, workers can maintain their pay rates. This has been the Japanese way which I think has taken better case of its workers over the past 25 years. I admit it hasn't been perfect.

Bottom line, the workers face a choice. I believe this can be explained both in story form and with real life numbers. The workers will decide the path either way. It's really up to them.