Breaking Bricks

Here's a stat that surprised me until I saw it: What if half your PM program isn't delivering the reliability you expect? It may even be making things worse. It's a tough pill to swallow, but often the culprit isn't the quality of the work or even the skill of your team. It's change management. If you're running a PM program and leveraging PdM/CBM data do any of these sound like your reality? 'It saves time to just copy-paste that PM to similar assets, even if their operating context isn't quite the same.' 'Our PM tasks? They don't need to be overly detailed. We've always done it this way, and the team knows what " check " really means.' 'Our condition monitoring flags a fault, and we interpret that as: "Great, now we know we can push this asset closer to failure before intervening."' 'After a failure, we identified the mode and created a new PM. Layering this with our existing CBM will surely prevent...

 Trying to show that adding more preventative maintenance may actually cause more failures and higher spend? That can be like convincing my wife I really need that new Star Wars Lego set for 'stress relief' – a hard sell, but the logic is sound. Need help with that math, or the Lego set? Let me know. #AssetManagementROI #HusbandMath

Joining Lego and Star Wars is a beautiful match – both timeless and innovative, much like the drive for innovation in our organizations. Implementing that new technology or process can feel like opening that R2-D2 Lego set : pure excitement and anticipation! But successful builds start with why. Are we solving a problem? Are we just trying to get the coolest tech? And before we crack open the Lego set, hold on! Even Lego has some illegal building techniques . Lego enthusiasts know that incorrect practices can cause stress or damage, instability in connections, or violate the design intent. Does this sound familiar to you? Just like when I'm tempted to stick a plate between Lego studs, grab that scaffold pole to tighten a valve, or use the fancy AI model when Excel is more effective, often we try to take shortcuts leading to stress on our assets, processes, or people, leading to more waste and unfortunate and preventable incidents. How do you best channel the initial excitement of ...

Building operational excellence starts with culture & systems. Then we can empower  skilled people via robust processes , amplified by enabling technology to make risk-based, data-rich decisions. A continuous improvement mindset really drives this home. It reminds me of a quote by  Buckminster Fuller: " You never change things by fighting the existing reality.  To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete." Aside from resistance, what is one of your top challenges to achieving the operational excellence you are looking for? #AssetManagement #Reliability #ContinuousImprovement #Culture #PeopleProcessTechnology #ChangeManagement

A belated May the Fourth be with you! Speaking of reliable systems, for all its appearances the Millennium Falcon was pretty reliable. Known as a piece of junk, it was surprisingly reliable and fit Hans' needs. Hans and Lando didn't follow any management of change processes for all the modifications they made, but it had some impressive performance: making the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs... Now look at the death star. A beautiful sphere, but it wasn't a moon. It was a model of Imperial design, but one shot in an exhaust port: Catastrophic failure. Watch out for those low likelihood, high consequence events. Just goes to show that appearances don't mean everything in asset performance, and design for reliability will keep those scruffy nerf-herders off your back. 😉 #HanShotFirst #MayTheFourth #AssetManagement

Early in my career, I learned a valuable lesson about the importance of simple over complex. I appreciate it more every day. The vibration analysis entered a work request: "Critical pump has high vibrations and sounds awful - overhaul the pump." Strange, I thought...we had just repaired this pump. I went out with the analyst and the operator. We adjusted the flow recirculation loop: the vibration levels went back to normal and sounded smooth. The pump continued to run with no issues. Sometimes the simplest solution is the best one. #OccamsRazor What's a pivotal learning moment in your career? #ReliabilityJourney