From the Open Road to the Plant, Key Elements of a Successful Reliability Program
I recently wrote about the similarities between a 12,734 mile motorcycle ride and a Reliability Program including passion, preparation and perseverance. In this blog we highlight key elements that are critical for both a ride and a Reliability Program. These elements included:
1. Setting challenging, realistic goals
2. Selecting the right team
3. Making progress every day
4. Taking appropriate risk
5. Working as a team
6. Pushing forward under adverse condition
7. Celebrating success
1. SETTING CHALLENGING, REALISTIC GOALS
Many organizations pull reliability goals out of the air without any regard for what it will take to achieve these goals. Again, it’s important to evaluate the current state so reasonable goals can be established. Benchmarking other similar operations and reaching out in industry to see how the best of the best operate is quite useful. Independent facilitation and evaluation of turnaround readiness, project stage gate activities and HSE performance can help set these goals.
2. SELECTING THE RIGHT TEAM
In past blogs about riding and mountaineering, I describe how I selected my son for my partner as he was a strong, experienced climber and he selected me for financing. In this case my partners were close friends I had known for over 20 years and we had a bond based on trust. Your reliability team is critical. They need to have technical knowledge, leadership skills, a passion for the program and ability to effectively communicate up and down the organization. Each person on the team should be a team player and also have differential skills in some area of the program such as machinery reliability, mechanical integrity or process control.
3. MAKING PROGRESS EVERY DAY
We were able to travel from 100 to 600 miles a day, stop to see beautiful sights, enjoy great food and ride safely. On the worst weather day of the trip we were in very cold driving rain and freezing temperatures. Your program needs to endure these challenging days. It will get better and the sun will rise tomorrow. The point is to keep the team enthused about the program and move forward despite some adversity.
4. TAKE APPROPRIATE RISK
Running process plants and riding motorcycles involves risk. The challenge is to evaluate what is appropriate risk. This is based on your skills, state of equipment, programs to monitor your equipment and training. We had communication systems and standard hand signals to communicate with each other to identify and mitigate risks. Each morning we checked our equipment and adjusted as needed. Many industrial accidents happen when organizations push beyond individual capability or accept “normalization of deviance.” Normalization of deviance brought down both space shuttles and has caused numerous accidents.
5. WORKING AS A TEAM
We had to be a team to stay together, look out for hazards, help with camp chores, etc. Successful reliability programs require the technical, maintenance, operations and HSE groups work toward one common goal.
6. PUSHING FORWARD UNDER ADVERSE CONDITIONS
We experienced some adverse conditions. Driving rain, bugs, cold weather, hot weather, traffic and so on. Passion helped overcome these obstacles. We have seen many reliability programs collapse at the first management challenge. It’s important to always be prepared for that pothole, deer in the road, standing water etc. and be prepared to meet the challenge head on.
7. CELEBRATING SUCCESS
This is critical to sustaining a long term program. Fixing a chronic pump seal, executing a successful shutdown, meeting productions goals should be celebrated and some reward given for a job well done.
Do you want to challenge your organization to achieve next level performance? Becht’s reliability division is poised to integrate the full breadth of our multi-disciplinary expertise to help your facilities achieve world class reliability, safety, and profit. https://becht.com/engineering-solutions/reliability/