Maintworld 2/2020

ASSET MANAGEMENT
Kurt Lewin´s Force Field Analysis
DRIVING FORCES
RESTRAINING FORCES
EQUILIBRIUM
OR
PRESENT
STATE
The maintenance team must keep their suppliers and customers
up to date on what’s changed and what’s not changed.
Information that needs to be communicated:
• Equipment repair updates
• Maintenance schedule changes and updates
• Shutdown and outage timing
• Equipment problems
• Employee changes or absences
• Business priority changes
• Production line changes
All of the maintenance process partners, vendors and suppliers
will be affected by the disruptions. Continuous communication
will be absolutely essential to keep them informed.
Consider a weekly e-newsletter sent out to key partners and
external suppliers as well as phone calls and virtual meetings.
3. Empower your team - I’ve heard people talk about this
for years and yet they only give it a half-hearted effort. Now is
the time to make it happen and the reason is obvious – business
survival. Empowerment is the process of enabling or
authorizing an individual to think, behave, and take action, and
control work and decision-making about their job in autonomous,
independent, self-directed ways.
Current conditions have made this essential. Here are some
things you can do to empower your team:
• State what you need – be clear with team members about
the new responsibilities, what’s required and expected.
State it in measurable terms and be prepared to follow up
and adjust.
• Release control - remove barriers that limit the ability of
staff to act in empowered ways.
• Measure – Establish metrics that measure the team’s output.
Review them with the team and let the metrics speak
for themselves.
4. Employ game-changing maintenance strategies - For
years you had several initiatives that you’ve needed to implement.
All of these were designed to improve efficiency and
effectiveness of the organization. A lot of things have held you
back including a strong enough business case that would involve
management support. Here some ideas to move forward:
• Identify time-based PM tasks that can easily be transferred
to condition monitoring. This should be based on
ease and cost of implementation. Consider using a vendor
or outside resource. Allow them to manage the program
while providing metrics, updates and action plans.
“IT IS NOT THE STRONGEST OF THE
SPECIES THAT SURVIVE, NOR THE
MOST INTELLIGENT, BUT THE ONE MOST
RESPONSIVE TO CHANGE.”
CHARLES DARWIN
• Engage the operators! You’ve discussed it for years, now
is the time. Studies have shown that a well-trained operator
can prevent up to 75 percent of all impending failures.
Benchmarking studies have confirmed at least 25 percent
of plant operators' time can be utilized for carrying out
certain types of maintenance work. Four operators doing
frontline maintenance equate to one fulltime equivalent
maintenance technician. This allows maintenance to
employ the maintenance techs in more technical and value-added
activities.
• Outsource some of the projects that can be done remotely
such as procedure review and updating, PM reviews and
updates, CMMS master data updates and builds, BOM
development, and business process documentation, mapping
and updating to name a few.
5. Invest in people - At this time, your people will be worried
about their jobs and their futures. Leadership will need to
communicate clearly and regularly what steps they are taking
to secure their employees and keep them safe.
Some organizations are experiencing a shortage of workers.
It’s therefore possible the maintenance team may not have
the required skills to support it. This would be a good time to
accelerate upskilling to cover these gaps in the team that are
critical or will be when the crisis subsides, and the plant begins
expanding. Some things to consider:
• Virtual training
• Online computer-based training
• Virtual coaching and mentoring
• On the job training led by staff or senior technicians
Many say change is inevitable and that may be true. Unfortunately,
most are never ready or prepared for it. Change can
be disruptive and at times brings with it fear, pain, and suffering.
Today’s challenge is to face it and resolve to make something
positive out of it.
46 maintworld 2/2020