My Take: What’s Up with Management Support?

Much of my time each month is devoted to the creation and preparation of deadline-sensitive editorial material—most of which skews toward some type of “success.” We like nothing better than learning of and writing about maintenance and reliability successes. Our monthly plant profiles, including this month’s look at a successful synthetic-lubricant formulating operation (p. 20), are a case in point.

Sometimes, though, I learn of and share details related to not-so-successful efforts. That’s what happened this month. Answers we received to questions for the EP Reader Panel regarding implementation of new technologies, techniques, processes, and strategies in 2015 reminded me of something I hate to think about.

For the most part, these answers were positive in tone. But responses from two long-time members of the maintenance and reliability community stood out for their rather bleak views on conditions in many plants. The culprit they pointed to? Lack of management support or, in some organizations, sustainable management support, for improvement efforts and, by association, the teams that implement them.

One of these respondents, a consultant who had been working to help an international client implement Operational Excellence in its facility, was struck by the site’s total lack of commitment to the effort. Back in the U.S., he’s finding that things aren’t much different in the plants he visits. As published in December’s “For On The Floor”, he characterized these facilities as “still working in the dark ages of management,” with no interest in evolving. “Being a consultant to industry in America these days,” he wrote, “is quite frustrating.” Imagine that.

The second respondent offered what he referred to as a “funny” (true) story about an implementation of reliability over the course of many years. “Not ‘ha-ha’ funny,” he wrote,  “but ‘sad-to-see’ funny, and it keeps getting repeated over and over.” In other organizations as well.

Too long to publish in its entirety, his story basically boils down to a tale of revolving-management doors at an unidentified company, and the impact they had, not just on reliability efforts, but, ultimately, the health of the business. Here’s the digest version.

Back in the day, management at the company in question had great respect for reliability, given the fact that an experimental reliability team had boosted one site’s lackluster on-stream capability by a double-digit percentage in less than a year. Financial return was amazing, and reliability was driven across the business. Why not? These efforts were credited with extending the life of an antiquated plant with hundreds of jobs by almost a decade. While the program flourished and corporate profits grew, however, the company’s supportive, reliability-conscious management aged. A new superstar and his “skilled management team” eventually took over, putting an end to the reliability “frills.” One plant closed. Improvement efforts at another were decimated. In time, with profits lagging, the superstar didn’t look so super anymore. He retired several years after his arrival. Following his departure, new management came in and put reliability engineering and associated improvements back on the front burner for a while. Until, that is, another round of cost cutting eliminated or moved most reliability personnel to other assignments. Now, according to our respondent, things are again looking up for reliability at this company. The department has grown substantially over the past few years and the benefits are being preached. For how long is anyone’s guess.

Sadly, while I get whiplash just reading this type of story, I know there must be plenty more like it. Please don’t hesitate to share yours with me. I’m particularly interested in how management support (or lack of) is impacting your maintenance and reliability improvement efforts.

In the meantime, here’s wishing you a wonderful holiday season and prosperous 2016.

jalexander@efficientplantmag.com