The State of the Practice: Steady As She Goes

Our survey-based review of maintenance best-practice strategies shows little change in their usage from three years ago—a stalemate, perhaps, between factors that encourage progress and those that inhibit it.

To call this an interesting time for industrial maintenance professionals is an understatement. On one hand, there is the recent, rapid growth of automated, digital solutions and other technological advances with the potential to give maintenance professionals unprecedented gains in efficiency. On the other hand, tough issues like the skills shortage have lingered, along with respondents’ inability to greatly advance their use of best-practice maintenance strategies.

Some respondents suggest these problems are related. “All the best technology in the world is worthless without the skilled personnel to maintain and improve its use,” writes one. “Leaders need to embrace training as a non-negotiable necessity if they are serous about success.”

Another writes: “We are in a state of transition, and I am not sure which way we are headed. It seems that industry is returning to our shores, but the labor is not necessarily available at a level that will embrace what we do. We HAVE to reintegrate engineering understanding and to succeed.”

Survey findings

Most survey findings, presented in chart form on the following pages, compare responses from the 2012 State of the Practice Survey with those from the 2015 version. With few exceptions, these comparative statistics are either close or identical. And this is the story: Three years has not been long enough for us to significantly reduce our reliance on inefficient practices (reactive maintenance), fix the skills shortage or implement certain other key changes necessary to broadly improve operational levels.

The beckoning new world

Our two 2015-only survey questions—on respondents’ use of IOT-connected digital equipment, and their familiarity with ISO 55000—represent the power of things to come. While responses to these questions show a somewhat conservative acceptance in both areas, this is not likely to remain. For example, more than a third (37%) of respondents say their use of digital equipment to support maintenance functions is either moderate or significant. And the ranks of those who say they have no such equipment—already in the minority at 19%—can only shrink in coming years as this equipment becomes more affordable and useful.The beckoning new world

Implementation of the ISO 55000 asset-management standard is a tougher sell, but our respondents also show progress here: 13% have either already implemented it or begun to. This level of implementation so soon after the standard’s introduction (in January 2014) is a good sign of its value to the maintenance and reliability community. Though there is still work to be done—more than a third say they have not heard of ISO 55000—it’s likely this could also change quickly as more operations not only adapt it, but require their suppliers to as well.

But how the next few years will unfold for those in desperate need of skilled labor is impossible to predict. Despite significant, growing support for skills training and STEM education from government, community colleges and private enterprise, respondents to our State of the Practice Survey continue to see this as their toughest and most worrisome challenge. In the survey’s final segment, which offered respondents the opportunity to write in their view of the current or future state of industrial maintenance in the U.S., more than half of the responses to this question addressed the topic directly. Two are included above; here’s one more: “There are no young people getting into training for this type of work,” writes this respondent. “If something does not change, we will be without people to maintain our equipment and plants.”  

The Efficient Plant State of the Practice Study, 2015:

• Is a survey-based overview of best-practice maintenance strategies currently used in U.S. industrial operations.
• Is based on 298 responses from Efficient Plant magazine subscribers to an online survey delivered in April 2015. Comparative chart information is taken from an identical study conducted in 2012 (293 responses).
• Includes some survey percentages that do not total 100% due to rounding.

Respondent details:

• 45% work at companies with annual sales above $25 million.
• 53% have an annual budget for maintenance and reliability activities that is greater than $100,000.
• Respondent job titles include Maintenance Manager, Maintenance Group Leader, Maintenance Supervisor, Director of Maintenance, Maintenance Coordinator, Maintenance Engineer, Maintenance Planner, Reliability Engineer, Director of Reliability and Facility Manager, among others.

Sources: Efficient Plant State of the Practice Studies, 2015 and 2012.