Don’t Procrastinate…Innovate: Boots on the Ground

Two topics have dominated the news lately, sending shock waves through homes in North America and elsewhere. I refer, of course, to the virulent spread of 1) Ebola; and 2) ISIS (the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria). Remarkably, what makes both of these crises so dangerous to the world is their intrinsic link to culture.

With Ebola, the exponential spread of infection in several African countries has been difficult to arrest due to the cultural mistrust of Western medicines in favor of traditional methods of physically comforting the ill and dying, including caring for loved ones well into the later stages of a disease. As reflected by the staggering death toll, this widespread practice effectively exposed countless family members, friends, communities and other caretakers to the deadly Ebola virus before a sick person can be quarantined and ministered to appropriately. The spread of ISIS is just as horrifying. Who among us isn’t familiar with the reports and images of a regime that operates under a culture of no mercy for those who stand up to it—or who are merely innocent bystanders?

The world has seen some early responses that involve throwing a range of “high-tech” solutions at these two crises. For Ebola, numerous experimental drugs have been sent into places where there aren’t enough qualified health workers, beds or basic personal-protective-equipment systems. In the fight against ISIS, strategic air strikes have been carried out in hopes of ousting radical warriors entrenched in their natural environment. These initial responses have shown little effect in curbing the two disasters, which, in turn, has triggered calls from various sectors for “boots on the ground” if either conflict is ever to be halted.

The term “boots on the ground” is thought to have originated with the British military during the Malayan uprising of the 1940s. The phrase is associated with the achievement of success in a military campaign through the presence in a combat zone of foot soldiers that are trained to understand the culture of their enemy and use the knowledge against it. The late U.S. Army General William Westmorland introduced many of us to the metaphor during the escalation of the Vietnam War as he called for increased numbers of troops to battle the Viet Cong. Today, we’re hearing calls for “boots on the ground” to set up temporary hospitals in Africa and troop deployment into the Middle East to combat the scourges of Ebola and ISIS in cultural terms—face to face.

Technology versus culture

With regard to Ebola and ISIS, we’re dealing with basic people-related issues that are proving difficult to mitigate from afar. Similarly, the maintenance industry has also been known to struggle with implementation of an innovative technology or high-tech device/process that doesn’t take into account the culture in which it operates.

I like to describe maintenance management using the idiom “maintenance management is about managing people who manage assets,” and believe there are three elements that characterize best-practice organizations:

1. Understanding failure
2. Defining effective failure prevention and operating strategies
3. Ensuring the strategies are delivered effectively

Element #1 is about determining when an asset has reached a failed state in which renewal or reparation is required. Maintenance departments that work collaboratively with the operations side of the business are usually successful in determining and defining this element.

Once failure has begun to manifest itself in understandable terms to all parties, most sites will quickly move on to Element #2 and delve into their budget reserves to invest in technological innovation to measure and trend asset condition to determine and confirm potential failure and failure states. Examples of typical technologies are computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) purchases or updates, introduction of infrared, ultrasonic, vibration-monitoring and laser-alignment technologies to determine current-state measurements and trend against pre-set alarm points.

Elements #2 and #3 are true “boots on the ground” approaches that require an understanding of a workplace culture and the “ambient condition factors” that affect and influence how an asset is operated and maintained.

In Element #2, we might choose to attend conferences, workshops or certification training programs and use that new information to “go it alone” and set up a “homegrown” approach. Alternatively we may choose to solicit outside “boots” assistance to help choose the right technology (tool) before we buy it and develop process and strategies to make sense of the technical data driven out by the technology. If you lack experience in implementing management programs you will definitely benefit from workshop and certification training, but be advised to still bring in some experienced “boots” to facilitate Elements 2 and 3. You will benefit from prior understanding, and receive additional on-the-job training through the implementation process working with the external resource.

Element #3 is where program success is sustained. At the onset, most companies are relatively successful in finding problems, but start to experience difficulty when they try to keep up with the newfound workload, and eventually allow known potential failure to turn into catastrophic failure. Spending money to determine when an asset will fail is money well spent if you always heed the findings and are able to renew or repair the item in a scheduled and proactive approach before a catastrophic downtime failure occurs. Not doing so is the same as a planned run-to-fail approach with no repair strategy. This is the most harmful and expensive situation that can occur in a maintenance department, and is borne out of not truly understanding the requirement of Element #3.

As a “boots on the ground” strategy, Element #3 must be tailored specifically to the skill levels of the “boots” of those who regularly operate the
equipment and the maintenance teams who must interact with the equipment and understand how it works based on throughput demand and the immediate environment in which it runs. All of these aspects must be taken into account to build a planned and scheduled approach to managing work using technology to facilitate the process in accordance with the maintenance department’s ability to respond to findings.

Thus, Element #3 reflects a collaboration between operators and maintenance personnel to understand how equipment responds—not on paper, but in its operating context—to best determine if a strategy is working or needs to be tweaked along the way. This is an example of low-tech combining with high-tech to allow an innovative idea, process or tool to work as intended and harvest the desired results. Element #3 is the most crucial, and separates the best practice organizations from the rest.

Keep in mind that Innovation begins with understanding where you are in your current state and where you would like to be in a future state, then finding an efficient way to close that gap and achieve your goals and expectations. Taking an innovative approach to managing your maintenance business will, therefore, always be about managing “boots on the ground.” Good luck!