People Culture and Change

“I love researching solutions to problems, evaluating the best path forward, and implementing improvements. Reliability has an endless supply of opportunity.”
—Robert Bishop

Robert Bishop combines technical expertise with leadership to improve reliability at Bristol-Myers Squibb Co.

A passion for people and equipment allowed Robert Bishop the opportunity to find his dream job at the intersection of reliability and systems improvement. “I enjoy dealing with the equipment side of things, but I also love to deal with people,” the Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. (BMS) maintenance engineer said. “I realized early on that this is part of who I need to be professionally.

With a degree in mechanical engineering from the Univ. of Rochester and a master’s of science in bioengineering from Syracuse Univ., Bishop had many career options. He worked in validation for 12 years and then had to make a decision to either be a lifer or diversify.

“I knew that if I didn’t do something soon, the decision would be made for me,” he said. “The opportunity came for the role I’m currently in, so I took the leap. From the first day I sat in this chair, I’ve never regretted it. If I could sit down and create the perfect job for myself, I couldn’t come up with a better fit.”

Three and a half years later, Bishop has balanced his technical skills with strong management skills to launch and implement many successful reliability programs for BMS.

“The best thing about my responsibilities is the ability to enhance and improve our systems,” he said. “No matter where you are on the continuum there is opportunity to improve. Technology is always changing and people are always joining the team. I love researching solutions to problems, evaluating the best path forward, and implementing improvements. Reliability has an endless supply of opportunity.”

Maintenance and reliability philosophy

Bishop said he believes strongly that action is more impactful than ideas.

“My overall reliability philosophy is to create robust systems, to educate your team, and then get out of the way and let them be successful,” he said. “People are more important than knowledge. I try to remind myself that it’s great to have a lot of ideas, but if we don’t actually do anything, we are never going to go anywhere. You can’t just drag your feet forever. You can force people to do what you want, but if you don’t invest in the people and acknowledge that they are the ones that makes things happen, you’re not going to see that benefit for the long run.”

Bishop works with 550 other employees at the BMS biological site in Syracuse, NY. The equipment is similar to what is typically used in a brewery, but with more filtration and chromatography steps. His team of 10 maintenance professionals works on tanks, filters, pumps, gearboxes, skid-based equipment, centrifuges, chromatography, and filtration skids. The larger team involves about 100 people at the site responsible for facilities and engineering. Bishop serves as a maintenance engineer but also is the acting maintenance manager, so he is responsible for maintaining the equipment, as well as the asset-management department and the CMMS system. The non-process equipment is handled through an outsourced maintenance company and there is also a facilities-management group.

Bishop’s connection with people extends to mentoring others to reach their goals and succeed.

He remembers an example when a young woman within a different organization at the site had an interest in reliability but didn’t have any background in it. “Over the course of about a year we had some meetings, lunch-and-learns, and many discussions on the topic,” Bishop said. “I provided her with reading material and links to webinars that would help her to learn. She recently sat for her Certified Reliability Leader exam and passed. I’m very proud of her and know that someday she will have a more formal role in the field of maintenance and reliability.”

Although Bishop spends each day in strategy meetings, but also solves day-to-day issues. He drives root-cause analysis, launches new systems, and is involved in upgrades to the CMMS system. One of his most successful best-maintenance practices is reporting by exception. “I don’t need to know when everything is going well. I need to know when things are not going as planned so I can communicate to the larger organization,” Bishop said. “I try to look for what isn’t supposed to be there.  For example, when you look at the integrity of the data in our CMMS system, you can create all the reports you want. Sometimes, it is beneficial to go look for things you don’t expect to find. For example, I don’t expect to find a blank priority field. But if I write a query for that and pull up all work orders that have blank priority fields I can ask ‘Why?’ I share an office with our reliability engineer and we report to different reporting structures within our larger facilities but we work closely together and there are a lot of topics that flow back and forth.”

Bishop focuses on high-value work. “We all could spend 90 hours a week working and still not get everything done. We have to identify where to put our effort.”

His commitment to people and processes does not go unnoticed by his peers.

“Robert is a well-respected member of the reliability community both internally at Bristol-Myers Squibb Company, and externally,” said George Williams, BMS associate director of asset management, Global Facilities Services. “Robert was awarded the BMS Reliability Excellence Leader of the Year award for 2015. Additionally, he was a finalist for the SMRP Rising Star award and leads their Biologics and Pharmaceuticals VSIG. He is a contributing author and presenter at multiple conferences annually. Rob consistently looks to contribute, collaborate, and improve what we do every day. His ideas have turned into standardized approaches for BMS shared throughout our network and helping to drive us to reliability sustainability.”

“With all of the achievements and accolades, most notable is that Rob is a leader. He is humble, gracious, and looks to develop others, which creates an environment where everyone contributes and feels welcomed. He has a rare combination of skills and knowledge, combined with drive, motivation, and impeccable soft skills to navigate the difficult terrain of a global company.”

Programs that make a difference

Bishop is proud of several programs he has driven. He implemented one for paperless work orders that saved the company 120,000 pages of paper/year and also saved four full-time equivalent (FTE) efforts. However, he repurposed the people and no one lost their job. The program made valuable data available in real time while improving the quality of work.

He also drove a year-long PM-optimization program and implemented a lubrication-enhancement program that allowed closed systems, consolidated lubricants, and visual-management improvements.

The lubrication program focused on a BMS site that’s been around since 1943. It was originally a facility that produced penicillin during WWII, and had gone through a lot of evolutions through the decades. Many  of the lubricants on site were not needed. In fact, some of the drums of oil were 10 to12 years old.

“There were lubricants with slow turn, and it just wasn’t ideal,” Bishop recalled. “We didn’t know where everything went. A maintenance technician, who was here for 30 years, had a cheat sheet and knew which oil went in which gearbox. It worked great, but was not a very robust system. When I came into my role here, I took it upon myself to pull together a team that analyzed where everything was being used, and then we brought in one of our vendors who helped us consolidate.”

The program allowed the site to downgrade from 46 lubricants to just eight oils and four greases.

“We closed up the systems provided by the manufacturer on our gearboxes and level indicators. In most cases we used a sight-glass tube,” Bishop explained. “We closed the systems on the larger ones and installed Quick Connect so we could use a filter cart. We installed sample ports with dip tubes and we started doing oil sampling near where it is being used in the gears and not just in the bottom of the gearbox. We started the oil-sampling program to drive increased reliability. We weren’t necessarily having a lot of failures because of poor lubrication, but we had a lot of practices that weren’t ideal.”

The program included taking steps to do things through visual management. Now, gearboxes have a tag that indicates what is inside. It also identifies the viscosity and the manufacturer, and the same tag is on the oil container that is brought out to the field. An identical tag is on the oil-filtration skid.

It took about a year to transform into a closed system so no moisture or particles find their way into the gearboxes. “It was definitely worth the effort,” Bishop said. “We now have one of the better lubrication programs that I’ve ever seen. Nothing’s perfect, but we now have a very robust system.”

Challenges with change

Bishop said he has always enjoyed change and the positive impact it can have on reliability systems. But sometimes it is difficult to convince others that change is a good thing.

“The biggest challenge is convincing people that improving systems and reducing workload will not result in reduced headcount,” Bishop said. “I point to my track record, and it speaks for itself. My goal is never to get rid of people. The people I work with know they can trust me. I wouldn’t say something and then do something else. For people who don’t know me, I am very proactive about addressing this.”

Bishop relies on tools such as a Best In Class (BIC) weekly meeting where all crew supervisors get together with a common goal to continuously improve and help each other. They use other tools such as ARMED software, which can identify KPI and reliability data such as a top-10 bad-actor list. Bishop also uses his more than 10 years of experience in the field of equipment qualification and validation—experience that has provided him with a robust understanding of documentation, quality systems, and equipment.

The greatest tool that Bishop uses is his ability to connect people with culture and change. “I always want to improve,” he said. “I always appreciate the people involved, and I know what it takes to change culture. It isn’t always easy, but it is always possible. It doesn’t have to be a huge project. It can be small, incremental things. But I’m a supporter of change. We must always strive to improve.”