Where to I begin? Or should it be what can you out there suggest on how to proceed from here?

Problem:
Last year as a new hire I came out of short lived retirement to work for a small company. When I joined this company had already embarked on a CMMS system and had a very strong willed manager pushing the system through using outside contractors and very minimum involvement of system stakeholders.

This manager much to his credit had the best intentions, vast experience, and a great vision of where we wanted to be and could recite verse and rhyme on how maintenance should function. In hind sight one major short coming was the apparent way the CMMS was bull dozed through and more emphasis placed on time as the most important factor. However the most critical flaw was not by anyone person but was due to the lack of Corporate understanding of the importance of maintenance. We do not have and continues not to have
No Corporate Maintenance and Reliability Policy
No clear written maintenance vision and mission
No Maintenance Management philosophy
No documented management system, process and procedures.
No "real" maintenance department or leaders.

The system was meant to be rolled out with minimum functions and improvement made as we go. Essentially the work order management and stores management modules where rolled out. It should be noted that procurement works off another system and the two and not linked. We have plans to link the two but no funds yet approved.

Well, the system was rolled out the system and has been taking a hammering from all directions.
The maintenance endusers see gaps and holes as related to their business requirements.
Generic strategies where used from another company to set our PM program and are thought to be too general and not match our equipment conditions (operational and design standpoints).

Upper manangement is now questioning what they see as vast amounts of money spent and want to audit the system.
In addition the outside contractor that was engaged never went through a competitive bidding exercise before they were awarded the work.

One could write a book from this experience on how NOT to develop and roll out a CMMS system in your company while all along avoiding all the lessons learnt from those that passed before us.

All water under the bridge and but back to my question: where to go from here?
My thoughts are:
Be open and transparent
Educate corporate management about the importance to maintenance and have then develop a corporate maintenance and reliability policy and philosophy for the entire company (no just our affiliate)
Perform a gap analysis using a credible outside expert and in-house team made up of key stake holders and assess ourselves against current best maintenance and reliability practices from around the world. (and lets ensure we competitive bid this outsourced contractor)
Develop a comprehensive and integrated maintenance and reliability management system as part of a wider asset integrity system (also missing)

All sounds nice but given the set of politics, strong egos, poor corporate ethos as related to maintenance it is going to be an uphill battle all the way. Any advise out there on how to best proceed as we more forward will be much appreciated. Retirement is looking good once again.

Hope to hear from you soon.

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

Pokey

One can only feel for you and the maintenance crew.

quote:

Upper manangement is now questioning what they see as vast amounts of money spent and want to audit the system

As engineers, we will have to live with the sword of damocles above our heads.

If we dig deep enough, upper management were aware of the decision to install and took an active, even though back seat approach to the issue. Now thta things did not go the way they were supposed to, it becomes an engineering issue.

But again, are we not architects of our own demise. At times, us as engineers do not do our jobs properly and effectively and when questioned, will say if we have this widget or that software, we will get out of this present situation.Management is left with no option except to beleive us and buys the widget or technoly solution. After installation, is there a change for the better?
There is usually noe and if the is change, itis for the worse.

When such happens, we are left with egg all over our faces and we lose credibility.

quote:

where to go from here

I guess it must be back to basics. Many people reccomend setting up a strong lubrication and cleaning regime to pick up faults as and when they arise. There ae people better quqlified than me to state what a basic reliability program consists of.

I am also interested in defining the contents of such a basic reliability program

Ecky