have you ever seen Rocky IVIn this 1985 hit, American boxer Rocky (Sylvester Stallone) takes on a rough and formidable Russian opponent with all the odds in his favor.
To prepare for the battle, Rocky travels to the Soviet Union to train waist-deep in the Siberian snow using only the bare essentials. Meanwhile, his opponent, Ivan Drago, includes a team of experts measuring and recording his every move and physical change, using what was considered his NASA-like technology at the time. gives you all the benefits.
But despite all the adversity and the best technology of the time, Rocky defeated his opponents and won the champion title once again. This is largely due to his exceptional understanding of the basic principles of boxing, his resolute style of preparation and his unwavering demeanor. dedication to his training.
in the meantime Rocky IV “” is fiction, but it highlights a valuable life lesson that should resonate with all of us. Technologies such as computer maintenance management systems (CMMS) and artificial intelligence (AI) can be great resources for achieving higher levels of success within your company and industry, but without proper training and mastery, these Tools can easily fail. Best practices for maintenance and reliability.
Case Study #1: CMMS Solution
A company I currently work with is in the process of upgrading their facility’s CMMS program. They mistakenly believe that new software alone can solve all the problems maintenance and reliability programs currently face. These issues include:
- Poor prioritization of work orders
- Poor planning of work orders
- Lack of implementation and documentation of preventative maintenance
- Incomplete Bill of Materials
- large amount of backlog
- expensive to maintain
- unreliable
Their chosen CMMS solution is priced at over $10 million. At this scale, a failed deployment can have serious ramifications, resulting in issues such as:
- Change your focus and allocate more resources to solving CMMS problems instead of improving plant reliability.
- A system that delays the process of maintenance work orders.
- Decide that untrained people should not use the system.
- I have a problem getting spare parts.
- Attitude changes that can lead to employee dissatisfaction
- High system and data management costs
These issues not only pose a real threat to the company’s current bottom line, but also affect its chances of success for generations to come.
Case Study #2: AI Solutions
A factory site I worked with previously allocated millions of dollars to deploy an AI solution that monitors equipment temperatures and vibration levels and provides statistical analysis. What they didn’t consider is that AI solutions need clean, accurate dates and need to be trained on what to watch before they can function independently. As a result, their new system generated a huge number of alerts.
In fact, when the system first went live, it was generating so many alerts that it took more than twice as many site maintenance staff to resolve all issues and acknowledge additional alarms. In addition to this, the site was looking to implement an AI solution to solve a problem rather than achieve a goal, so there is still a large amount of backlog work that needs to be completed, but management Could not complete due to non-approval. Budget needed to cover repair costs.
They naively accepted the belief that an AI digital surveillance device was a great idea, but wondered how additional condition monitoring would impact the rest of their work processes, or how the technology would impact their return on investment (ROI). I didn’t consider whether it would produce a .
This resulted in an even larger backlog of maintenance work and a huge bill from Amazon to store all the new data.
Technology is a tool, not a substitute for good practice. It can drive maintenance improvements in your organization, but it’s not a real improvement in itself. If you want to improve something, you have to do the work and do it well.
Now, we feel like the industry as a whole has completely forgotten this fact. You seem to have a blind faith in technology. From trade shows and press to subject matter experts and solution providers, we are the first to consider the latest sensors, software and applications, whether they will generate good ROI and what our facilities need. There seems to be a growing tendency to advertise indiscriminately without doing anything. to make these tools successful. Not only does this lead to partial optimization, it jeopardizes the company’s entire future.
To have any chance of successfully deploying technology, a facility must first have:
- Good work practices in preventative maintenance, planning, scheduling, RCFA and materials management
- Accurate master data such as equipment numbers and bills of materials.
Once these are implemented and part of the facility’s maintenance and reliability culture solidifies, it will be possible to evaluate whether the solution will provide a favorable ROI. Factors that determine whether an investment will yield a good ROI include:
- Increase employee efficiency.
- Reduce the number of plant failures.
- Extends equipment life.
- Reduce costs through automation.
As you begin to introduce these new technologies into your facility, remember that they are designed to be used in a way that helps you achieve your goals, not to solve a problem. It is important to keep the goal. These goals should be clearly defined and understood by all stakeholders prior to any technology implementation. Otherwise, you’ll end up spending valuable company capital on tools that only cause more problems.
Examples of facility goals that technology can help achieve include:
- Improves overall reliability.
- Reduce costs.
- Make your employees happier.
- Increases task execution speed and accuracy.
We must be careful not to fall into the trap of thinking that technology alone can solve all our problems. Before you invest time and resources, you must first implement sound maintenance and reliability practices and procedures. Technology can then be a great tool for accelerating improvement and growth. Otherwise, the capital budget left over from technology investments will need to be used to improve processes, which is often wasted.
To be a successful trustworthy establishment, you have to work like Rocky. Don’t rely on technology or digital transformation to solve all your problems. Master the basics and leverage technology as it is, as an enhancement rather than a solution.
