Machinery Lubrication magazine published by Noria Corporation
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September - October 2015 | 3 PUBLISHER Mike Ramsey - mramsey@noria.com GROUP PUBLISHER Brett O'Kelley - bokelley@noria.com EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Jason Sowards - jsowards@noria.com SENIOR EDITOR Jim Fitch - jfitch@noria.com TECHNICAL WRITERS Jeremy Wright - jwright@noria.com Wes Cash - wcash@noria.com Alejandro Meza - ameza@noria.com Bennett Fitch - bfitch@noria.com Loren Green - lgreen@noria.com Michael Brown - mbrown@noria.com Garrett Bapp - gbapp@noria.com CREATIVE DIRECTOR Ryan Kiker - rkiker@noria.com GRAPHIC ARTISTS Terry Kellam - tkellam@noria.com Josh Couch - jcouch@noria.com Patrick Clark - pclark@noria.com Greg Rex - grex@noria.com ADVERTISING SALES Tim Davidson - tdavidson@noria.com 800-597-5460, ext. 224 MEDIA PRODUCTION MANAGER Ally Katz - akatz@noria.com CORRESPONDENCE You may address articles, case studies, special requests and other correspondence to: Editor-in-chief MACHINERY LUBRICATION Noria Corporation 1328 E. 43rd Court • Tulsa, Oklahoma 74105 Phone: 918-749-1400 Fax: 918-746-0925 Email address: jsowards@noria.com MACHINERY LUBRICATION Volume 15 - Issue 5 September-October 2015 ( USPS 021-695) is published bimonthly by Noria Corporation, 1328 E. 43rd Court, Tulsa, OK 74105-4124. 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Noria shall not be liable for any inju- ries, loss of profits, business, goodwill, data, interruption of business, nor for incidental or consequential merchantability or fitness of purpose, or damages related to the use of information or recommendations provided. Machinery Lubrication killed by people who don't know how or don't care to prevent these failures. Good culture changes behavior and enables reliability. It doesn't take long to recognize the signs of bad maintenance culture, although the profile of this culture can vary considerably. The culture profile might be characterized by indifference, blame, tension between operations and mainte- nance, frustration/anger, distrust, pessimism, high staff turnover, waste of time/resources, excessive human errors, aging work-order backlog, frequent unscheduled maintenance events, crises and unprofitability. 8 Remedies for a Bad Culture Management and leadership both define and catalyze the culture of an organization, good or bad. Even bad culture that is rooted in high institutional inertia can be changed. This change may be more difficult and even somewhat disruptive, but it is far from impossible. Still, nothing happens without an unwavering management commitment to create a sustain- able foundation for change. Do you think culture is something that keeps your plant manager awake at night? Maybe he doesn't know how it's impacting the company's bottom line. Managers who understand and see plant reliability as a means to plant profitability have the desire to inspire and support culture initiatives that build charged-up and prosperous maintenance teams. Stopping the management revolving door is also important. The role of management on group behavior and culture has been the subject of countless books and publications. It relates to team building, engaged team members, empower- ment, communication, goal setting, defining mission/vision/values and so much more. You can't cheerlead your way into sustained cultural transformation, nor can you manage by memo. Two excellent books for managers are Good to Great by Jim Collins and Verne Harnish's Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It ... and Why the Rest Don't (Mastering the Rockefeller Habits 2.0). Another way to find wisdom is to study the success of others. What are the common threads of a successful maintenance culture? There are several, and most aren't specific to maintenance but are foundational to any oper- ating organization. Because of this, you can leverage the experiences of numerous teams that have successfully tackled the culture trans- formation challenge. To get you started, I've done some research and have listed the pillars of good maintenance culture below. 1. The Right People We've all heard that employees are a compa- ny's most valuable asset. This is true, but only when the right people are in the right jobs. Incompetent or poorly matched people working in maintenance positions can present sizeable operational and cultural risks rather than being productive assets. Select, nurture and inspire the right people to build a prosperous mainte- nance culture. 2. Job Skills and Know-how As previously mentioned, when people do good work, they feel good about themselves and their job. People want to do the right things right the first time and every time. However, many people suffer from uncon- scious incompetency. In other words, they are unaware or in denial of the level of their incom- petency. Others are fully aware that their skills are desperately lacking. A prosperous plant culture is a learning culture. Education, when effective, takes people out of their comfort zone. It not only builds intellectual capital but over time fosters a behavioral desire to do the right things right every time. It also builds team loyalty and dedi- cation to achieving business goals. People learn differently, so don't assume knowledge is only acquired in a classroom. Certification instills pride and should be the capstone to each learning stage by providing visible recognition of skill competency. Next, create an environment of standardized work, also known as procedure-based mainte- nance. This takes the guesswork out of the thousands of maintenance tasks that must be routinely and periodically performed. These shouldn't be just any old procedures and often are not even those found in machine service manuals. Instead, they should be refreshed with modern concepts in lubrication and mainte- nance. Seek the help you need to get these procedures right. 3. The Tools Much new technology has entered the world of lubrication and machine maintenance in recent years. As the old-timers are retiring, so must many of their tools. Today's maintenance toolbox should not just be used for repair and