” The cost of a Boeing jet is about 100 million dollars. This represents about 5% of the total costs over its lifecycle”

So said Steve Morris of the IAM on Monday 21st March .   I know that because I was there listening to him as I spent three days of this week in London. Venue was Stamford Bridge – home of Chelsea Football Club of course.  I was there with a colleague from ESS Ltd. at an Exchange where we met with various companies and looked for ,what are they called, ” mutual opportunities” .  More of that in later posts.

This statement set me thinking though about Life Cycle Costing or Whole Life Costing and its place in the Asset Management arena.  As a maintenance manager in the 1990′s I’d say I took little enough notice of  the life cycle of assets over anything other than a few years. That isn’t the thinking now – especially when talking Asset Management.

So, I’m off to see if there is any consistency of approach with these definitions and approaches and what are the most commonly used approaches - back asap.

PS. Apologies to blog followers in the Phillipines – I will try to keep the blogs going with greater regularity. Sorry. Thanks very much for your feedback & Great to see your interest!

We know a bit about failings here in Ireland – just ask us about Anglo Irish Bank. Actually, don’t. We’re right in the middle of a General Election here and heartily sick of  all we’re going through (now and in the future) because of our failings.

How about this as a failing though?

In a blog from DM  (see below)  he reckons that ” better and higher probability of detection technologies in the condition monitoring space is actually decreasing our ability to successfully analyse failure modes.”

He theorises that a bearing will fail for any number of reasons and among these are issues such as misalignment, too much heat during installation, and wear.

Vibration analysis will pick up all of these, but only one occurred during the normal installed use of the bearing. VA will detect failure due to misalignment, and will help you to avoid or reduce the consequences of failure… but if the cause of this issue is not addressed then the likelihood of it occurring again is high.

Likewise for too much heat. VA will help manage the consequences, but does very little to help eliminate or reduce the likelihood of the cause.

So, he concludes that as CBM becomes more and more widespread you see more and more of this sort of thing. Assets with shortened lives, recurrent failures, and growing costs of corrective maintenance. Yet the condition monitoring program, instead of being investigated as potentially hiding the impacts, is seen as saving us from the consequences.

He could have a point couldn’t he?

(Its all about getting to Root Cause isn’t it? Just ask why and keep going)

From DM – Daryl Mather - ”Get the Failure Modes Right” .

So, you’re a great multi-tasker?

Most maintenance people are. It has the power to ruin your day though. Multi-tasking I mean.

That’s because of something we all know (but do we really do something about it?).

PDJ (see below) gives us the following in his own inimitable style.  

If we’re focused on a task and then pull ourselves away from what we were doing to answer a phone or talk to someone, it takes us a lot of time to get back to where we were before we were rudely interrupted. 

How much time?  Dr. Gloria Mark in her research into ” Interruption Science” suggests it takes somewhere between 20 and 30 minutes to get back into our zone of high concentration where we are most productive. 

According to Dr. Mark’s research, we waste about 28% of our effort/time/resources each day. 

We know this. Everyone knows if we can get into the office before everyone else, we can get a ton of work done in a short time. Some of us know this so well that we go out of our way to arrive early; it’s what enables us to meet those insane deadlines. 

The reason we must arrive early is that we lack the rudeness (discipline) it takes to remain focused during the day as we are besieged by people begging just a ‘moment’ (20 minutes!) of our time. It takes a high degree of impoliteness (determination) to ignore the ringing phone, and almost a self centered superhuman concentration to disregard the pleas for attention from those around us.

To do something about it - try these. 

I heard a guy call these “batching”.
1 – Put it on silent. 
Voice mail will catch the messages and you get  to them in your own good time.

2 – Allocate time for phones and e-mail. 
Carve out some time slots during the day to take care of all the oh so important messages, in all of the mediums, that we’ve been rudely ignoring. Two or three slots per day make sense. Morning, Noon and before we head out into traffic. 

3 – Get a big ‘Do not disturb’ sign.

4 – Don’t reward those who interrupt you.
 

5 – Learn how to turn people away.
There’s a simple phrase that is almost socially acceptable in most organizations, it is, “I’m busy right now. Could we reschedule this until later when I can give you my full attention?”

6 – On the desk, only have what you are working on. Have everything else out of sight or turned over.
Nothing more distracting than being distracted by seeing all the other things you’re supposed to be working on. 

One final thing comes to mind… if we can avoid it? Don’t interrupt others. We can create a small cultural shift by respecting the concentration of others and refrain from needlessly interrupting those around us.

The above was taken from an article © 2010 Peter de Jager called ” Please ignore the ringing in your ears”– Peter rarely answers his phone, he says it is because he doesn’t like interruptions – but we suspect it’s because he doesn’t like people. You can contact him – if you dare – at pdejager@technobility.com

Natural = Good (doesn’t it?).

And ………how about we think about “Resistance ” as being valuable and necessary (and not something to be feared?)

Why? Because if we didn’t have it, then faced with any change, we’d just get on and do it and we’d be at the mercy of every Tom, Dick and Harry with a product or idea to sell.

Right so, when I’m presented with a possible change, I’m faced with a choice between staying where I am and moving to somewhere else. (Dead simple. Change is when something moves from one situation to another).

It seems reasonable to compare the choices doesn’t it? Here vs there?  You’d think it through wouldn’t you?

“Resistance” is the response we all generate when we demand the right to make the comparison.

Everyone does it.

Its natural.

Its good that we do make the comparisons.

Resistance is natural and good.

So, we must expect resistance to change and often we will have to overcome that resistance - not with force, but with the might of reason, information and appropriate communications .

Happy New Year to all  – keep the comments coming, they are all very helpful. Speaking of helpful, thanks again to Peter De Jager  for his book – A Pocketful of Change.

What I like about change is it is so simple – “Change is when something moves from one situation to another”. 

Simple. What can be so difficult about that? 

One word – Inertia. Look up Newtons First Law of Motion if you like but here’s De Jager’s first law of Change (with no apology to Newton either)

The Law of Inertia – ” People will stay where they are unless they have a reason to change. “  and what about his second law of change…..

The Law of the Status Quo ” The more people have invested in the past, the more difficult it is for them to change”

and now we’re really on a roll and good old DJ hits us with his Third Law (again, with no apology to Newton!)

The Law of Resistance ” When you try to change people ……..They’ll RESIST”

(DJ demonstrated this to me by placing his hand on my chest and pushing gently. What did I do? Resisted. Pushed Back. Bummer. Should have seen that one coming. )

Key Learning from this blog – Resistance is Natural.

(Note, I’m dipping in to Peter De Jager’s book – a Pocketful of Change for a lot of the stuff on this series of blog. He’s the Irishman in Canada )

Ok, First the sport update (Should I stop these?)  We all know this (don’t we) but since it is not safe to assume, then,  (for our overseas respondents primarily) the five in a row was not achieved!! Tipp won, the Cats lost. Great match. I was there with my father  and we had a super day – one to remember.

What’s the French Connection? Well, the five in a row has never been achieved in GAA here in Ireland. As the French say, ” Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose”  – “The more things change, the more they stay the same”.

Implies stagnation doesn’t it?  We all know that  change is everywhere, everyday and the old maxim is that ” People resist change”.

 Hmmmm. De Jager reckons that people aren’t resistant to change at all . I’d say he’s right on that. All of us make changes every day. Ever decide to drive a car, take on further training, ride a horse, get more active?

People resist…….. being changed. 

But we all have to get change into our maintenance organisations don’t we (Lean, for example?)

So, a better understanding of how we all react/embrace/resist change might help  – more later.

It’s all the talk this week. The Cats are nearly there in the history making stakes. (For our non Irish readers, Tipperary face Kilkenny – the Cats- in the All Ireland Hurling Final this Sunday going for an amazing Five in a row!!- unfortunately.)

It wasn’t always like that for Kilkenny. How have they created the processes and systems to allow them to regain – and then sustain – that performance over the long haul?

There must have been a change (or many many changes).

Spent some time with Peter de Jager this week – enjoyed his company. His simple definition of change is ” Change is when something moves from one situation to another” He then asks why is it that Change can possibly cause us all so much grief?

Neat answer from him – Inertia. Newtons First Law of Motion – An object at rest tends to stay at rest and an object in motion tends to stay in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.

So, People will stay where they are unless they have a reason to change.

In your maintenance team, have any of the people there got a reason to change?

Can’t think of the authors now who wrote ” Planned work cost three times less than unplanned work” .  We all know it to be true from practical experience - I’d love to see some science around these numbers too though. 

Some of the pitfalls to avoid around planning (and so how you won’t get the benefits!) include (according to B. Rivenbark of LCE):

Delays, e.g  your crafts persons having to spend time trying to gain details of what is involved in the work,  gather the materials and get them to the job. Typically all of this is happening after the production equipment has been taken out of service; downtime equals loss of production and loss of production equals loss of revenue.

Mismanagement:  The supervisor brings his team to the site and leaves them there while he goes to find someone in operations to get more information about the job: expectations, time available for repair, operator availability for support as needed, etc.

Ineffective Supervision:

1. The crafts stand around at the job site waiting for instructions about what to do and information on how to do it.
2. Most jobs get interrupted after work has begun, causing delays not only on this one but the new work as well.

Poor performance:

1. Crafts persons spend valuable time standing around waiting for equipment to be made ready so it can be serviced as required.
2. They are unable to complete one job before being pulled off to work on another one – they hop from job to job.
3. Crafts persons have to spend time figuring out what materials and/or special tools are needed to complete the job.
4. :

All of these situations contribute to machine downtime and production loss that proper planning and scheduling are designed to reduce. The core product of planning and scheduling is reduced delays – reduced delays in equipment downtime, in waiting for materials, in preparedness of starting jobs and in completing jobs. Reduce these delays and you increase equipment and machine uptime, resulting in improved availability of equipment and increased production “out the door.”

Back from the holidays this morning so the humour is great!! To make things worse the Cork hurlers were hammered by the Cats yesterday. Can’t see the “Drive for Five” being unsuccessful.

Had to make do with the English Newspapers while on the beach and one of the big debates raging in them is where will they get the money to pay for the replacement of Britains nuclear subs – Trident. (What with all the budget cutbacks, you see.)

Am I the only one who thinks it incredible that they’d run such capital intensive assets and only at their end of life begin to think about how to pay for replacing them? It’s really short term thinking (over years if that isn’t too paradoxical!!).

Such short termism – (what I call the “Quarter Thinking” – i.e. worry about this quarter only and forget about everything else) is one of the main reasons for the development of PAS55  - Asset Management. That forces you to think about how you are going to manage the asset over  four phases  - 1. Acquistion/Creation, 2,Utilisation, 3, Maintenance, 4, Renewal/Disposal.

It forces you to ask the questions and the answers clear away a lot of the fog!!

Well Cork didn’t get the fundamentals right in the first of the Munster Senior Hurling Final. Did better in the second half and it was exciting stuff. Can’t see either of the two teams troubling the Cats though.

I’m reminded of fundamentals because of the amount of times that I see managers chasing the newest shiny thing (Lean is still new and shiny to many) and forgetting about the fundamentals.

So, if you know what work you do, to what equipment, for how long and what spares you use – those are basic building blocks. If you then analyse that information and use it for continuous improvement – that’s good practice and it’s fundamental. No point haring off unless you (and your people!) are doing that as a sustained behaviour. (This is what we are doing in the ESS Ltd. CMI service).

C’mon the Rebels this coming Sat – get the fundamentals right!!

And no, there won’t be a vuvuzela in sight .