Dealing with parts obsolescence

2020-06-152020-06-20

Are you finding it hard to get certain parts to keep your assets operating?

This situation is a familiar and ongoing issue associated with performing maintenance on systems that have been in operation for some time.

Need for Parts

In North America, maintenance department budgets are often evenly split between labor and materials in the work being performed, although it can vary depending upon labor costs. Internationally it can vary greatly, especially if the equipment is imported and if local wages are low. Read more “Dealing with parts obsolescence” →

Blog

Asset Management is not just Maintenance and Reliability

2020-05-262020-06-20

How does your organization differentiate between asset management, and maintenance and reliability?

Early in the discussions around asset management, some organizations simply renamed their Maintenance and Reliability departments to Asset Management departments, even though they continued to do the same tasks and activities they always did. Read more “Asset Management is not just Maintenance and Reliability” →

Blog

Do you really need an assessment?

2020-05-212020-06-20

Conventional consulting approaches begin with assessments to determine your current state of affairs, judge what’s good and bad about it, give it a score, provide a long list of recommendations and then build an improvement strategy based on the outcome. A typical assessment can take up to a couple of weeks plus report generation time. Does it really add the value you might expect? Read more “Do you really need an assessment?” →

Asset Management

Entropy Part 3 – Maintenance

2020-05-142020-06-20

What happens in maintenance and many operations can be explained with a simple, but a scientific concept – Entropy. Entropy is a thermodynamic concept that represents chaos and degradation. It occurs naturally in any physical system and will naturally grow (i.e.: the system will become more chaotic) if we don’t do something to arrest its growth. Doing something requires the expenditure of energy, so energy is what counters entropy. Read more “Entropy Part 3 – Maintenance” →

Blog

Uptime Insights – 10 – Process optimization

2020-05-042020-06-20

Business processes are often talked about, yet not well understood. The big problem with them is that too few people know what the whole process actually should be. Whenever you are following a set of steps to achieve some goal you are following a process. Sometimes various people follow different steps to achieve the same goal. You rely on processes in order to deliver results. If they are ill-conceived or inefficient, then things move slowly and results are more expensive to obtain than they need to be. Well designed, efficient, and consistent processes that integrate with other related business processes keep things running smoothly, costs down, and help to keep people motivated.

Blog

Explaining Uptime – what it delivers and what leadership…

2020-04-252020-06-20

This interview by Ryan Chan of UpKeep gives insight into what Uptime is, how it works, the value it can deliver (and how), and most importantly what leaders need to do to make it happen.

If you want to get a deeper understanding of the value we can deliver, then get a copy of “Paying Your Way“. Read more “Explaining Uptime – what it delivers and what leadership is needed” →

Blog

Uptime Insights – 9 – Teamwork for results

2020-04-202020-06-20

There’s an old saying that, “two heads are better than one”. Teamwork has been proven time and again to produce superior results. It is the basis for many successful methods like RCM-R, PMR/O, RCFA, Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) and various quality improvement programs like Six Sigma. The various methods that help us while Choosing Excellence depend on a foundation of teamwork. Beyond facilitated teamwork, self-organized teams are even more effective. Read more “Uptime Insights – 9 – Teamwork for results” →

Blog

Uptime Insights – 8 – Asset Reliability

2020-04-162020-06-20

You can wait for something to break, then fix it, or you can be proactive and manage the failure before it causes you problems. Being proactive is all about managing failures and their consequences before they occur. The failure itself, in some cases, is unavoidable, but how you manage consequences is entirely within your control.

You can reduce or eliminate the consequences of failure by forecasting what is likely to happen and deciding in advance about what to do about it. Major business impacts are the consequences of risks and those are manageable. Read more “Uptime Insights – 8 – Asset Reliability” →

Blog

Uptime Insights – 7 – Support systems, EAM, CMMS

2020-04-132020-06-20

Computerized data gathering and information management systems are indispensable tools for business. Just remember the last power failure you experienced and you’ll understand. Technology continues to develop and become more complex. The array of available business applications is astounding and more are added daily.

The world of maintenance, with all our work orders and valuable information that can help improve reliability performance, has seen multiple generations of management systems come and go. These systems can be a big help, or they can create huge distractions. Ultimately you want to make decisions informed by good data and verifiable information, you do not want to be distracted and side-tracked by the data. Read more “Uptime Insights – 7 – Support systems, EAM, CMMS” →

Blog

Uptime Insights – 6 – KPIs and Performance Management

2020-04-082020-06-20

Most of us wouldn’t argue that if you can measure it, you can improve it. Performance measures do indeed drive results, both good and bad. Knowing where you are now and what you want to achieve by some point in the future do help you to outline your path towards your objective. Once you know your path, you then need a way to make sure you are still on it. And once you’ve past way-points, you also need to know that what you’ve achieved so far, continues to be sustained. Read more “Uptime Insights – 6 – KPIs and Performance Management” →

Need for Parts

Experienced Insight, Training and Consulting You Can Trust

Login