Management Acumen
Engineering Discipline
Reliability Focus

Performance Improvement
Professional & Scalable Services
Developing Leadership

Strategic Organizational Reliability Projects

• Assessment
• Action Planning Workshop
• Implementation

Using a medical analogy... You must first diagnose before you can prescribe. Assessments are the diagnosis. Once the diagnosis has been made the prescription is defined during the Action Planning Workshop and the treatment begins through Implementation.

What to Expect from an Assessment

A typical assessment consists of three phases; pre-work, on-site work and post-work.  An explanation of the assessment elements are described below.  The assessment results provide detailed information in the four elements of Organizational Reliability.  Each element has at least ten evaluation areas, and each evaluation area has ten to twenty criteria.  The use of two reliability professionals on the assessment provides checks and balances in the application of the assessment tools and consistent, repeatable scoring.  Figure 2 below is an example of the Foundation element results from a recent assessment.

 Pre-Work consists of getting the logistics arranged; when the assessment will take place, establishing the schedule of activities, etc.  Pre-Work also includes obtaining and reviewing available information about the organization and market environment as well as any maintenance & reliability data that the client can provide.  It’s important to get as much understanding of the current environment as soon as possible so on-site time can be as productive as possible.

On-Site Work is conducted by two reliability professions over two weeks.  The on-site work includes safety & security briefs as appropriate, an introduction and overview presentation/meeting, a plant walk through and a number of interviews, surveys, observations and data collection activities.  At the end of each day a short debrief session occurs with the project sponsor.  At the end of each on-site week a summary presentation is made.  Upon completion of on-site work the team commits to a date and time for delivery of the final assessment report and recommendations.  

Post-Work is the stage when all the assessment data is reviewed and analysis is finalized.  The report is provided with data that supports the conclusions, including an estimate of the business case for addressing the important issues.  A draft report is completed and sent to the project sponsor for review and comment to ensure quality of the report.  Once the sponsor has reviewed and commented a final report and presentation are developed and delivered in person.  At the conclusion of the meeting when the report is delivered a decision is made to go forward with the Action Planning Workshop and a date is set.  

Action Planning Workshop

Knowing where the opportunities are is the first step, but the benefits do not occur without taking action to capitalize on the opportunities.  Prioritizing opportunities and prescribing action is done through the Action Planning Workshop (APW).   

There are three main focus areas for the APW:

1. Senior leadership change management orientation
2. Prioritization and selection of initiatives
3. Identification of initiative project teams.   

There are three full days of activities, typically done during six half days in consecutive weeks.  The schedule is proposed to accommodate senior leadership team members.    

The deliverables from the action planning workshop are senior leadership commitment to implementation, identification of specific project initiatives and resource commitments to support the implementation project.  In addition, there will be an implementation schedule developed for resource planning.

Project Team Training

When we go through the effort to assess and properly resource and schedule implementation activities we need to ensure we empower our people to do the best job possible.  In order to get the most from our project teams they need to be aligned so that the work they do is as efficient as possible. 

Project team training consists of team skills and process design skills.  Team skills include topics such as effective communication, group decision making and conflict resolution.  Process design includes flow charting, development of process guides and creating behavior and process measures to monitor implementation and sustainment.   

An important step for the project teams is to review the project charter and ensure there is alignment from senior management to the project team.  If changes are recommended they are provided to the Guiding Team (senior leadership) for a formal concurrence with the changes.

Design & Pilot Implementation

The project teams are now set to work on their specific initiatives. Whether the initiative has to do with inventory management, work control, condition-based maintenance or other subjects, each team is introduced to best practices and common solutions for their initiative

After subject matter training a visioning exercise is conducted to outline the desired future state. Based on the current assessed status, the team then begins the design process to close the gaps between current state and the vision state. 

At key points during the design process the design is presented to the Guiding Team (senior leadership) to ensure the plan is sound and aligned with senior leadership. Any clarifications or changes are then made the design is ready to implement.

Implementation is preceded by training of those who will be asked to perform within, or support, the new processes.  This may be a limited or pilot implementation to confirm the design, or it may be a complete roll out; this depends on the scale and complexity of he new design.

Drive to Common Practice

 As the new processes are put into place there is an initial burst of energy and enthusiasm.  Project team members are proud of their efforts and the new processes are beginning to take hold.

Often times, after several months the processes begin to back slide.  Managers and supervisors may be distracted by other issues, craftsmen and operators are not challenged to maintain the same level of effort in following the new procedures.  Soon the implementation becomes difficult to maintain.

 The answer to keeping up the intensity and positive results requires that people stay engaged.  We keep everyone engaged by publicizing the positive results to upper management, by using behavior and performance measures to keep everyone informed on the status of the implementation.  We recommend tying behavior and performance measures to manager and supervisor performance evaluations to improve the probability of successful implementation and sustainment.

 Periodic outside review of the program is also beneficial.  This does not normally need to be more than annual audits.  This is a similar procedure used by college accreditation boards, and for ISO 9000 certification renewals.