On The Floor: 2016 Regrets, 2017 Hopes

This month, the MT reader panelists share their 2016 regrets and the plans they have for 2017 success.

It’s that time again, when most of us make an effort to seriously consider what we didn’t get done in the past year and what we’re bound and determined to get done in the new one.  That also includes mulling over regrets and hopes in our work lives—which is what we wanted our EP Panelists to do this month. We asked them two questions:

• What were their (or their clients’/customers’) biggest work-related regrets of 2016 and why?

• What were their (or their clients’/customers’) greatest work-related hopes for 2017 and why?

Here, edited for brevity and clarity, are the responses we received.

Plant Engineer, Institutional Facilities, Midwest…

REGRETS: A major project that began in 2015 was halted with less than half of the work done, causing many problems in the first few months of 2016. The project was restarted, then stopped again before completion, leading to problems in the entire building as a result of cold, rainy, and hot weather conditions.

Most of our key problems stem from [issues with] the state budget. As a result, training is only done in house, with employees as instructors, and parts are ordered only as needed. We try our best to make repairs and perform maintenance with what we have on hand. Although we’ve been under a hiring freeze for more than a year, we still lose employees, making us even more shorthanded.

HOPES: Fixing the state budget would, hopefully, start getting us back to normal, but that could take years. Other hopes for 2017 include solving problems we’ve put on hold due to lack of funds; making upgrades so we can operate better if something goes wrong with the budget again; getting breakdown maintenance back to a more preventive type; entering all of our main equipment into a computerized management system; and having trend logs to help monitor problems and reduce energy use campus wide.

We’re also hoping our past problems will help management understand the importance of only starting totally funded projects and that dividing large projects into two or three phases could keep from leaving a building at risk. This approach alone would have saved all the money we spent on damage done by completing only part of a project.

Maintenance Leader, Discrete Mfg., Midwest…

REGRETS: I really can’t think of any regrets. The main reason being that, despite having struggled with our PMs in the past, our preventive maintenance and reliability projects are showing improvements. The numbers associated with proactive versus reactive work are starting to flip flop (definitely trending in the right direction). The team bought into a new that approach management offered and finally took ownership.

Our maintenance team has been together for a couple years and members work well with each other and are sharing knowledge. Training has also been occurring more than in the past.

HOPES: My hope for 2017 is to keep the system that we now have in place. It’s working well and showing improvements.

Industry Consultant, West…

REGRETS: Among my clients, the biggest regret seems to be PM/PdM (preventive/predictive-maintenance) compliance: not doing what they planned to do to prevent breakdowns. Measuring and publicizing the shortcomings have not corrected the issue. The PMs/PdMs have not been elevated enough on the radar to make them a priority.  Frequently, the Root Cause Analysis of repeat failures points back to incomplete or ignored preventive maintenance.

HOPES: My largest client is hopeful about a maintenance-worker-effectiveness study that it’s undertaking to help understand why productivity is dropping year after year. Although the organization has increased training and invested in maintenance employees, the returns haven’t been realized.

Technical Supervisor, Public Utility, West…

REGRETS: No real regrets. Staff training was very successful for 2016, and there were no issues with any other CBM (condition-based maintenance] projects. We filled a vacancy and purchased new handheld vibration equipment. We’re also in the process of upgrading our main GSU transformer partial-discharge, bushing-monitoring system with new acoustic monitors.

HOPES: [We hope to] continue technical and operations training for new staff. Changing dynamics in our state’s power industry, due to the ongoing addition of residential-, commercial- and utility-grade renewable-energy (wind and solar) projects, is depressing prices paid for power generation.

Being able to ramp up and down to back up the renewables is quite valuable. The depressed pricing is making gas-fired-combustion turbine plants un-cost-effective.

Maintenance & Reliability Specialist, Engineering Services, South…

REGRETS: We had more to be grateful for than we had regrets, but we did need training on an upgrade to one of our software programs that we weren’t able to obtain. This means we will be behind the learning curve when the new upgrade is implemented, which, of course, means it will take us longer to get the most out of the software.

HOPES: One of our biggest hopes for 2017 is the potential to share our on-line CBM (condition-based-monitoring) program with other groups across the enterprise. We want to leverage our enterprise-level packages and lessons learned with several other groups in an effort to cost share and allow consistency across the core.

Industry Consultant, Northeast…

REGRETS: With regard to my clients, one of my biggest 2016 regrets was the same as the year before. Specifically, I’ve been working with a medium-sized company that has slowly been going downhill. It’s basically selling a commodity item and, since I don’t work with the sales side of the organization, I can’t comment on that aspect of its operations.

What I do see, however, is the manufacturing side of the organization, where, regrettably, capital expenditures and skilled personnel are continuing to be cut under the direction of a president who is a great cheerleader, but never seems to get out of his office.   

HOPES: I’m quite hopeful, though, for another client: a successful manufacturing organization, about the same size as the first, where the president actually has an office on the manufacturing floor. This business is growing, partly because of an aggressive sales organization that, like my other client, is selling a commodity item, but also because the company has been able to separate itself from the pack by emphasizing quality at a competitive cost. Trying to keep that momentum going, this client has recently been working on a product-reliability improvement program involving just about everyone in the plant, including engineering, customer relations, the production group leaders, etc.

Sr. Facilities Engineer, Discrete Mfg., Southeast…

REGRETS: My biggest disappointment of 2016 is the lack of initiative toward new projects of products.  Status quo will get us nowhere.

HOPES: My biggest hope for the coming year is for success in our TPM initiatives and a successful migration into our new CMMS system.  Both are going to take a lot of cooperation from multiple groups.

The impact of politics

It’s worth noting that only one Panelist pointed to the possible impact that the recent election could have had on regrets and hopes of reliability and maintenance professionals. An industry supplier from the Midwest, he suggested that the development of many 2017 plant budgets might have been put off until the results were in. 

“There’s a ‘buzz’ in the air,” he wrote, “as people are optimistic about 2017 and beyond, right now, but waiting for the presidential switch. Many plants that were idled are coming online, and we’re seeing monies being spent to bring equipment back from [the effects of] lackluster maintenance budgeting or operations that were being run by spreadsheets and not by reliability requirements.”

“Seems like a positive movement,” he opined, “but time will tell once we see January hit.” As he explained, he’s not seen a lot of changes or new implementations of late, “but more just trying to take equipment in dire need of upgrades or maintenance and finally allocating funds for those repairs.” 

(EDITOR’s NOTE: This post is a slightly  expanded version of the Dec. 2016 print version of “On the Floor.”)

About the EP Reader Panel

The Efficient Plant Reader Panel includes approximately 100 working industrial-maintenance practitioners and consultants who have volunteered to answer monthly questions prepared by our editorial staff. Panelist identities are not revealed and their responses are not necessarily projectable. Note that our panel welcomes new members. To be considered, email your name and contact information to jalexander@efficientplantmag.com with “Reader Panel” in the subject line. All panelists are automatically included in an annual cash-prize drawing after one year of active participation.