Condition Based Maintenance (CBM)
CBM works most effectively when incorporated into a holistic Reliability Strategy.
Coaching your staff in CBM will reveal asset integrity issues ahead of failures and therefore avoid unplanned downtime.
It's quite common to identify large value wins immediately providing you with an instant return on investment.
CBM warns of impending failure, identifies lubrication requirements, and drives continuous improvement
UPTIME Consultant shares the CBM techniques that work and are relevant to your assets
Starting your reliability journey with CBM will enable a proactive Maintenance Strategy
UPTIME Consultant occasionally collaborates with partners that supply instruments to suit your requirements if requested.
We remain agnostic by never taking percentages from the third parties we introduce to clients if they require a referral.
We are constantly evaluating developments and advances with technologies used in CBM
Coaching your staff in CBM will reveal asset integrity issues ahead of failures and therefore avoid unplanned downtime.
It's quite common to identify large value wins immediately providing you with an instant return on investment.
CBM warns of impending failure, identifies lubrication requirements, and drives continuous improvement
- Learning from a practitioner with decades of experience formulating pragmatic strategies
- NOT based on theory and expensive instruments, although we can and do advise on the latest CBM technologies
- Positively impact your asset availability by targeting the critical few delivering immediate cost benefits
- CBM training workshops for your maintainers include many elements of proactive maintenance
UPTIME Consultant shares the CBM techniques that work and are relevant to your assets
Starting your reliability journey with CBM will enable a proactive Maintenance Strategy
- Condition Monitoring Techniques
- Vibration Analysis
- Acoustic Emission
- Ultrasound
- Thermal Imaging
- Oil Sampling
- Continuous Monitoring Technology
- Connected Technologies
UPTIME Consultant occasionally collaborates with partners that supply instruments to suit your requirements if requested.
We remain agnostic by never taking percentages from the third parties we introduce to clients if they require a referral.
We are constantly evaluating developments and advances with technologies used in CBM
Condition Monitoring Workshop with Engineers in Food & Beverage
UPTIME Consultant Case Studies
Condition Based Maintenance Influences Design
Reliability is inherent... it's built in at the design stage.
This is where decisions are made that can negatively impact asset reliability.
This is where decisions are made that can negatively impact asset reliability.
The design of all assets is constrained by budget, physical footprint, accessibility, operation, maintainability, ergonomics, power requirement, health and safety, the list is extensive.
The Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) has a lot on their plate, designing, specifying and building assets to fit your operating context perfectly, it's little wonder that sometimes it may not suit the end users exacting requirements.
That's assuming that the OEM understands the end users final intention.
Then there's the manufacture and assembly of assets, what are the standards used to aid assembly?
Often assets amount to a shopping list of sub-assemblies that make up the whole machine.
Now we can have many OEMs involved, some with different engineering standards all coming together.
These components interact with each other sometimes not as perfectly as we would expect in service.
When critical assets enter service one of the first things that often happens is that they break down unexpectedly.
Everyone is shocked, except for the CBM Engineer who has probably seen it all before.
Early Equipment Failure occurs more often than we would like and it's mainly due to the constraints mentioned above.
The users operational context may be completely different to the one assumed at the design phase.
Operations Managers often want their new asset to run above the design envelope immediately, this is more common than we would like, then when it breaks down or 'underperforms' they ask the maintenance department....
"What are you going to do about fixing it?" (or if they are feeling more generous)
"Can you fix it and make it run more reliably please?"
This should not be the remit of maintenance, it's a procurement, design, or lack of FAT before deployment.
The Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) has a lot on their plate, designing, specifying and building assets to fit your operating context perfectly, it's little wonder that sometimes it may not suit the end users exacting requirements.
That's assuming that the OEM understands the end users final intention.
Then there's the manufacture and assembly of assets, what are the standards used to aid assembly?
Often assets amount to a shopping list of sub-assemblies that make up the whole machine.
Now we can have many OEMs involved, some with different engineering standards all coming together.
These components interact with each other sometimes not as perfectly as we would expect in service.
When critical assets enter service one of the first things that often happens is that they break down unexpectedly.
Everyone is shocked, except for the CBM Engineer who has probably seen it all before.
Early Equipment Failure occurs more often than we would like and it's mainly due to the constraints mentioned above.
The users operational context may be completely different to the one assumed at the design phase.
Operations Managers often want their new asset to run above the design envelope immediately, this is more common than we would like, then when it breaks down or 'underperforms' they ask the maintenance department....
"What are you going to do about fixing it?" (or if they are feeling more generous)
"Can you fix it and make it run more reliably please?"
This should not be the remit of maintenance, it's a procurement, design, or lack of FAT before deployment.
The Maintenance function cannot make assets 'more reliable' than the inherent design. Maintenance can only maintain the original design specification.
Only by redesign can these improvements be achieved.
Only by redesign can these improvements be achieved.
When I started my reliability journey I transitioned from being fully employed on wasteful reactive and planned maintenance tasks to specialising in CBM with existing technologies and a focus on Lubrication.
The Maintenance Manager asked me to build the CBM and Lubrication Strategy for Europe's largest snack food plant, part of PepsiCo International in the UK.
Fortunately the Engineering, Operations, and Maintenance Managers allowed me the time to investigate and implement what I found to be the best solutions for our site, then work continuously on improving their application.
We moved from a site heavily weighed down by planned and reactive work to one based upon 'On Condition' using RCM.
Early on in my journey I experienced negative comments and disparaging remarks from colleagues.
Many maintainers are proud of working on recovering from catastrophic failures, and they enjoy the plaudits from management and their peers.
The story I'm sharing is about a critical asset that ran on many of our production platforms, and came under the most extreme operating conditions of all, these are hot oil fryers.
The Maintenance Manager asked me to build the CBM and Lubrication Strategy for Europe's largest snack food plant, part of PepsiCo International in the UK.
Fortunately the Engineering, Operations, and Maintenance Managers allowed me the time to investigate and implement what I found to be the best solutions for our site, then work continuously on improving their application.
We moved from a site heavily weighed down by planned and reactive work to one based upon 'On Condition' using RCM.
Early on in my journey I experienced negative comments and disparaging remarks from colleagues.
Many maintainers are proud of working on recovering from catastrophic failures, and they enjoy the plaudits from management and their peers.
The story I'm sharing is about a critical asset that ran on many of our production platforms, and came under the most extreme operating conditions of all, these are hot oil fryers.
Fryer components that are at risk of failure are the main oil pump, motors, transport belts, control systems, heat exchanger, fines removal unit, feed conveyors, and the bearings.
Bearings in Fryers are routinely renewed at planned maintenance intervals, but still fail prematurely and unexpectedly in service.
Many that are employed constantly renewing fryer bearings don't look for solutions as they enjoy living with reactive work.
Bearing failures also often result in collateral damage with worn shafts, damaged belts, and ball bearings found in fryer oil sumps.
This practice of repeated failure becomes normalised over time, it becomes a bad habit that is custom and practice.
The question I asked back then was....
Bearings in Fryers are routinely renewed at planned maintenance intervals, but still fail prematurely and unexpectedly in service.
Many that are employed constantly renewing fryer bearings don't look for solutions as they enjoy living with reactive work.
Bearing failures also often result in collateral damage with worn shafts, damaged belts, and ball bearings found in fryer oil sumps.
This practice of repeated failure becomes normalised over time, it becomes a bad habit that is custom and practice.
The question I asked back then was....
"Are these bearings fit for purpose, or were there constraints at the design phase that we are now paying the price for in operation?"
Fryers in the snack food industry operate around 180ºC, oil is pumped through the fryer bed to create a directional wash, some bearings sit out of the cooking oil whilst others can be partially or fully immersed.
If the lubricant can withstand the high temperature and keep the cooking oil out you may just about get away with it.
H1 Food Safe Lubricants that operate at this high temperature are very rare and very expensive to purchase.
Periodically fryers have to be boiled out with caustic agents, this chemical gets into everything including these critical bearings.
I consider CBM as a tool for improvement, not just a function in itself, this is where many get it wrong.
Being proactive with CBM makes a difference with the end goal of eradicating reactive work completely.
After searching I found a company that could provide the solution to our operational context.
Bearings that don't require greasing and are impervious to 180 degree hot oil in fryers.
The Engineering Manager could see the benefits, even after I explained the additional cost of retro-fitting a complete set.
The decision was made easier (his words) as I presented him with the historical bearing failures recorded in the CMMS along with the projected savings per annum.
By removing expensive lubrication PMs, stopping unplanned downtime, increasing confidence, and knowing that these assets would be available to operations with increased reliability it looked like a winner.
If the lubricant can withstand the high temperature and keep the cooking oil out you may just about get away with it.
H1 Food Safe Lubricants that operate at this high temperature are very rare and very expensive to purchase.
Periodically fryers have to be boiled out with caustic agents, this chemical gets into everything including these critical bearings.
I consider CBM as a tool for improvement, not just a function in itself, this is where many get it wrong.
Being proactive with CBM makes a difference with the end goal of eradicating reactive work completely.
After searching I found a company that could provide the solution to our operational context.
Bearings that don't require greasing and are impervious to 180 degree hot oil in fryers.
The Engineering Manager could see the benefits, even after I explained the additional cost of retro-fitting a complete set.
The decision was made easier (his words) as I presented him with the historical bearing failures recorded in the CMMS along with the projected savings per annum.
By removing expensive lubrication PMs, stopping unplanned downtime, increasing confidence, and knowing that these assets would be available to operations with increased reliability it looked like a winner.
A full fryer bearing change was carried out in a planned maintenance window and shared with the maintainers.
They were asked not to intervene, but report any anomalies they found using the modified Planned Maintenance inspection.
Zero failures occurred in the 18 months of the Bearing OEMs guarantee period.
The first full bearing set change had to be pushed out to 22 months because of increased operational demand.
The original bearing set was carefully removed and retained for further inspection whilst the new set was installed.
Later I removed the shields from the used set and found them to be in excellent condition.
See below:
Zero failures occurred in the 18 months of the Bearing OEMs guarantee period.
The first full bearing set change had to be pushed out to 22 months because of increased operational demand.
The original bearing set was carefully removed and retained for further inspection whilst the new set was installed.
Later I removed the shields from the used set and found them to be in excellent condition.
See below:
I followed this up in addition to my usual work by managing the retrofits on all fryers in the plant over the next three years.
Remember reliability is a journey, it can only be improved by design change and persistence... it's a marathon not a sprint!
This bearing story came full circle when a new production line with two new fryers was later commissioned.
Specifying these polymerised bearings resulted in a lot of push back from the OEM and the project design team.
They believed they owed nothing to operations, maintenance, or in-service reliability.
They believed their job was to just deliver equipment on schedule (usually late) so this type of request was new to them.
Eventually they agreed to instal our choice of bearings that were fit for the environment they would operate in.
The two new fryers were assembled with fully polymerised bearings and these were specified as an OEM part.
Remember reliability is a journey, it can only be improved by design change and persistence... it's a marathon not a sprint!
This bearing story came full circle when a new production line with two new fryers was later commissioned.
Specifying these polymerised bearings resulted in a lot of push back from the OEM and the project design team.
They believed they owed nothing to operations, maintenance, or in-service reliability.
They believed their job was to just deliver equipment on schedule (usually late) so this type of request was new to them.
Eventually they agreed to instal our choice of bearings that were fit for the environment they would operate in.
The two new fryers were assembled with fully polymerised bearings and these were specified as an OEM part.
Criticality of Spares in Proactive Maintenance
Making sure your Proactive strategy supports procurement and spares availability is crucial
"Why be preemptive in the first place, just how do we make all that extra work pay back?"
I'm a believer that being proactive and preemptive can't exist in a bubble.
Logically if I am going to invest in training people in CBM and being preemptive then when these techniques deliver we must ensure that inventory control is also proactive and not trapped in their own reactive cycle.
This is where many CBM plans can fail, if the correct spare is not available to put that future reactive event into a planned event then credibility will be lost and fingers will point towards the program not being effective.
Engineering have to be involved in the spares stock levels and oversee the procurement quality.
I say 'oversee' because purchasing has a role to procure the correct specification of spare in a timely fashion.
Often we need to check this happens as sub-standard spares or lack of availability will cause future failures.
Maintenance needs to get close to procurement, demand the specification and quality of the parts that are fit for purpose.
Identical bearings may look the same but one could be specified for its operating context whereas the other could be sub-standard and prone to early failure.
Purchasing may not fully understand the nuances of parts selection, and in my experience it's never cost effective to buy cheap.
Logically if I am going to invest in training people in CBM and being preemptive then when these techniques deliver we must ensure that inventory control is also proactive and not trapped in their own reactive cycle.
This is where many CBM plans can fail, if the correct spare is not available to put that future reactive event into a planned event then credibility will be lost and fingers will point towards the program not being effective.
Engineering have to be involved in the spares stock levels and oversee the procurement quality.
I say 'oversee' because purchasing has a role to procure the correct specification of spare in a timely fashion.
Often we need to check this happens as sub-standard spares or lack of availability will cause future failures.
Maintenance needs to get close to procurement, demand the specification and quality of the parts that are fit for purpose.
Identical bearings may look the same but one could be specified for its operating context whereas the other could be sub-standard and prone to early failure.
Purchasing may not fully understand the nuances of parts selection, and in my experience it's never cost effective to buy cheap.
You may need to justify the specification of your part to procurement, and you should as their job includes budget responsibilities
You can have the finest on-line remote, internet of things, AI, labour intensive maintenance program, but without those critical spare parts being available it will add zero value.
Be mindful of the importance of keeping the Stores informed, help them by highlighting stock location anomalies, low levels of critical spares, indicate if you are booking the last or penultimate part out, it all makes good sense to help each other out.
Stores personnel hold a lot of information about parts on computerised systems and in their heads, but they can't be expected to understand all the environmental conditions that these items have to fulfil in service.
Be mindful of the importance of keeping the Stores informed, help them by highlighting stock location anomalies, low levels of critical spares, indicate if you are booking the last or penultimate part out, it all makes good sense to help each other out.
Stores personnel hold a lot of information about parts on computerised systems and in their heads, but they can't be expected to understand all the environmental conditions that these items have to fulfil in service.
Remember the consequences are multiple if you get caught out in this situation, the asset may not have entered a reactive phase (yet!) but now the procurement department goes into a reactive spasm of searching databases to see if the parts are on hand in other locations, hoping their usual stockist has the part (or a similar one 'that will do' = future breakdown) or paying a premium price for overnight shipping by a courier.
Criticality of assets, lead time for spares, stock levels, specialist applications, high turnovers, rebuild times, shipping locations, all of these impact spares availability, we have to preempt all of these to make sure we have the right spare, at the right time, and in the right place.
If you are fortunate and have all this covered so that the right spare, time, and place is a done deal don't just leave it there.
Spares need to be looked after, some even require maintenance themselves.
Ensure that the best conditions possible are available, storage of spares in damp, dusty or vibration intense locations will be detrimental and will lead to premature failure when they are eventually put into service.
For example large rotary items should be maintained periodically by rotating their shafts.
I would opt for 'dry' units that are replenished when put into service, it's no use having a gearbox sitting for years full of degrading oil.
Vibration of floors and storage racks can damage bearing races in equipment through false brinelling, this causes bearing races to form damaging ridges due to fretting leading to early failure when in operation.
Some other things to watch out for are bearings, seals and other parts removed from protective packaging and stored in open boxes, no system of stock rotation, open access to stores, prevalence of 'emergency orders', lack of inventory control i.e. no booking out system or one that is too hard to use, obsolete parts and duplication.
I've previously stock controlled one particular bearing that had eight different part numbers!
These are just a few aspects that spring to mind, I'm sure you can think of many more.
Conclusion: inventory and procurement are critical functions if you aim to get the best from your Proactive program.
Criticality of assets, lead time for spares, stock levels, specialist applications, high turnovers, rebuild times, shipping locations, all of these impact spares availability, we have to preempt all of these to make sure we have the right spare, at the right time, and in the right place.
If you are fortunate and have all this covered so that the right spare, time, and place is a done deal don't just leave it there.
Spares need to be looked after, some even require maintenance themselves.
Ensure that the best conditions possible are available, storage of spares in damp, dusty or vibration intense locations will be detrimental and will lead to premature failure when they are eventually put into service.
For example large rotary items should be maintained periodically by rotating their shafts.
I would opt for 'dry' units that are replenished when put into service, it's no use having a gearbox sitting for years full of degrading oil.
Vibration of floors and storage racks can damage bearing races in equipment through false brinelling, this causes bearing races to form damaging ridges due to fretting leading to early failure when in operation.
Some other things to watch out for are bearings, seals and other parts removed from protective packaging and stored in open boxes, no system of stock rotation, open access to stores, prevalence of 'emergency orders', lack of inventory control i.e. no booking out system or one that is too hard to use, obsolete parts and duplication.
I've previously stock controlled one particular bearing that had eight different part numbers!
These are just a few aspects that spring to mind, I'm sure you can think of many more.
Conclusion: inventory and procurement are critical functions if you aim to get the best from your Proactive program.
Predictive Techniques and Front Line Engagement
Ensuring payback from your Predictive Strategy
As part of my travels through industries I get insights into a lot of sectors including, Food & Beverage, Automotive, and Utilities.
Requests usually start with an introduction to 'predictive' methods and a wish to move away from a reactive situation, or from purely fixed time planned maintenance routines.
As a Production Engineer with experience of working not just with machinery but with front line staff it gives me an understanding of how to get the most from Proactive/Predictive techniques as part of a maintenance strategy.
Something I ask clients to think about before engaging is:
Who, What, Why, Where and When, also referred to as my 5Ws
Asking these questions gives me information about how far forward they are, or if they have even contemplated these basic issues.
I also like to ask "What are the benefits that you are targeting?"
If there are no benefits forthcoming then why bother investing time, money, and resources?
It's best to identify these benefits beforehand as this forces you to measure your starting point and encourages you to track the future progress.
Requests usually start with an introduction to 'predictive' methods and a wish to move away from a reactive situation, or from purely fixed time planned maintenance routines.
As a Production Engineer with experience of working not just with machinery but with front line staff it gives me an understanding of how to get the most from Proactive/Predictive techniques as part of a maintenance strategy.
Something I ask clients to think about before engaging is:
Who, What, Why, Where and When, also referred to as my 5Ws
Asking these questions gives me information about how far forward they are, or if they have even contemplated these basic issues.
I also like to ask "What are the benefits that you are targeting?"
If there are no benefits forthcoming then why bother investing time, money, and resources?
It's best to identify these benefits beforehand as this forces you to measure your starting point and encourages you to track the future progress.
Shown above are the six failure patterns identified by Nowlan & Heap in their December 1978 RCM paper.
They were also applied to other industries outside of aviation by John Moubray in his RCM2 book in 1991.
Pattern 'E' represents 100% random failure at any point with its flat line.
'F' shows early mortality again with a random state following, these two modes together total 82% of failures!
Traditional time based wear is represented by the minuscule 2% shown in graph 'B'
The commonly taught 'Bathtub Curve' at 'A' provides only 4% of all recorded failures.
As you can see 89% of failures fall in the random category... no Planned Maintenance can trump randomness!
Here are a number of approaches that can be considered:
Some have a large appetite and opt for the traditional reactive strategy, this might be due to budget constraints or the organisation being happy with the status quo.
They were also applied to other industries outside of aviation by John Moubray in his RCM2 book in 1991.
Pattern 'E' represents 100% random failure at any point with its flat line.
'F' shows early mortality again with a random state following, these two modes together total 82% of failures!
Traditional time based wear is represented by the minuscule 2% shown in graph 'B'
The commonly taught 'Bathtub Curve' at 'A' provides only 4% of all recorded failures.
As you can see 89% of failures fall in the random category... no Planned Maintenance can trump randomness!
Here are a number of approaches that can be considered:
- Operate reactively
- CBM Contractor visiting
- Full time CBM Specialist
- A CBM team
- Full time connected solutions
- CBM enabled workforce.
Some have a large appetite and opt for the traditional reactive strategy, this might be due to budget constraints or the organisation being happy with the status quo.
A CBM Contractor may work on a small number of high value critical assets that are targeted, the problem is these periodic inspections can prove to be way too long between visits to identify any potential failures in time.
The full time CBM Specialist also has pros and cons, they will require ongoing support, training, and development.
Remember also that it's important that they are fully released from all other maintenance duties.
A CBM team sounds like a good idea, but they can suffer from lack of focus becoming an information gathering exercise instead of providing solutions.
Fully automated solutions may be part of the future but after 15 years of watching this space I still don't believe it's happening just yet.
It's coming slowly but I believe it will take a massive shift in investment practices and thinking before we see it everywhere in the production environment (this was updated in August 2025 and my mind still hasn't changed)
The CBM enabled workforce: this is where the real value can be added with ongoing investment in awareness and training.
Our people operating these assets are the ones that should be empowered to become the owners, and ultimately the decision makers regarding their assets, obviously working within the overall mission of the operation.
The full time CBM Specialist also has pros and cons, they will require ongoing support, training, and development.
Remember also that it's important that they are fully released from all other maintenance duties.
A CBM team sounds like a good idea, but they can suffer from lack of focus becoming an information gathering exercise instead of providing solutions.
Fully automated solutions may be part of the future but after 15 years of watching this space I still don't believe it's happening just yet.
It's coming slowly but I believe it will take a massive shift in investment practices and thinking before we see it everywhere in the production environment (this was updated in August 2025 and my mind still hasn't changed)
The CBM enabled workforce: this is where the real value can be added with ongoing investment in awareness and training.
Our people operating these assets are the ones that should be empowered to become the owners, and ultimately the decision makers regarding their assets, obviously working within the overall mission of the operation.
Condition Monitoring and the impact on Safety, Sustainability and Costs
Saving Time and Money with Condition Monitoring
Starting your journey to a Proactive future
Being Proactive often gets bad press... usually from the reactive fire fighting brigade!
Not the ones that save our lives when our house is burning down.
These fire fighting heroes are the reactive maintenance brigade, like coiled springs awaiting their call to action stations!
Why bother with a Proactive tools when we have lots of Planned Maintenance, surely our PMs cover all the eventualities?
At least they do until the next unplanned breakdown occurs, then we can call the emergency response team!
I don't understand why some people would be anti-proactive, after all it is reactive in essence.
It's just that we are 'reacting' ahead of the curve and can stop the assets from hitting the deck.
Proactive techniques are just tools used within a Planned Maintenance activity, we take routine measurements based on an asset's criticality, the inherent risks, known modes of failure, safety concerns, and ease of maintenance.
It's logical and based on facts, things break, we don't know when, we want avoid or mitigate that risk, let's use a technology or tool that enhances our natural senses, now we get an early warning, great I can plan in a change activity to avoid the consequences of that future failure.
These fire fighting heroes are the reactive maintenance brigade, like coiled springs awaiting their call to action stations!
Why bother with a Proactive tools when we have lots of Planned Maintenance, surely our PMs cover all the eventualities?
At least they do until the next unplanned breakdown occurs, then we can call the emergency response team!
I don't understand why some people would be anti-proactive, after all it is reactive in essence.
It's just that we are 'reacting' ahead of the curve and can stop the assets from hitting the deck.
Proactive techniques are just tools used within a Planned Maintenance activity, we take routine measurements based on an asset's criticality, the inherent risks, known modes of failure, safety concerns, and ease of maintenance.
It's logical and based on facts, things break, we don't know when, we want avoid or mitigate that risk, let's use a technology or tool that enhances our natural senses, now we get an early warning, great I can plan in a change activity to avoid the consequences of that future failure.
If your business experiences negative consequences due to unplanned stoppages then you need to invest in becoming more proactive and predictive
Most operations sit somewhere on the time line of my infographic above, some accept the status quo, whilst others may want to move towards the right hand side.
To be on the left is not 'wrong' per se it's just where most might find themselves today.
It feels uncomfortable, uncontrolled, disjointed, stressful, haphazard, difficult to plan, but those fire fighters will love working on a site like this... and the heroes of the day will be rewarded accordingly.
Some organisations will sit in the middle with lots of comfortable PMs that are managed and scheduled on a repeated cycle, some might get missed but these can go on backlog, on and on they will go forever adding no value, but at least it feels safe. They'll still experience lots of unplanned downtime though.... it's strange that.
The fire fighters still get their busy days with back slapping and high fives all around
What's happening on the far right of the chart?
We are operating in a planned way, operations are happy (who ever heard of that!) availability is no longer a bottleneck. The non value adding PMs have been put to sleep, criticality has highlighted the major issues, RCA has been adopted when triggered, front line operators have partnered with maintenance, predictive technologies are being used extensively where risks have been identified, assets are now being maintained only 'On Condition'
There's less stress, and now there is even time for Continuous Improvement activity to take place.
Sounds too easy right?
That's true, no one gets a free ride to World Class Reliability, it starts with a vision from the highest level in an organisation to take the journey to this future state.
Some talk of 'changing the culture' on the shop floor, incorrect... this takes a cultural shift across the whole organisation, this can't be administered in a single silo.
Then there's that word 'culture' that means different things to different people, we need to be clear and describe what we are really looking at.
I'm going for this definition: 'the attitude and behavioural characteristic of a particular social group' some will instantly say that the 'attitude' needs changing, well I say good luck with that one.
For me 'behaviour' equates to 'habits' and people learn and adopt bad habits as well as good ones.
This could take up a whole new article so I will leave it there for now.
What do you think?
Can you really change peoples attitude?
I believe attitudes change only when new habits and behaviours are adopted, that for me is the key.
"Our people are our most valuable asset"
This is a mantra that's often rolled out but often lacking in reality.
With process driven industries, people and what they do day to day (habits) present the best opportunity to get ahead when introducing a proactive and predictive mindset.
People closest to the assets play a big part in driving the bottom line, they are vastly undervalued in my opinion and can be a massive wasted resource.
When I visit a new process or operation the operators are the people I want to talk to the most, often they are hungry to be asked 'What do you think?' their conversations with me as a third party allows them to tell it how it is, usually because no one else has bothered to ask them!
They can provide invaluable insights that can provide real benefits very quickly.
These are the people that Proactive and Predictive training should be aimed at, they are 'present' they 'operate' their assets every day, changing their habits to allow them to 'care' for their assets, instil ownership, then they can influence the change to a more predictive and proactive future.
Engineers from NISSAN Motor Manufacturing UK enjoying their Introduction to Predictive Techniques
The Fire Fighters of Reactive are an ageing cohort, they are not being replaced.
One day the process will hit the floor and there will be no emergency response team.
One day the process will hit the floor and there will be no emergency response team.