I also publish a job board called The Brilliant Career.com. And let me tell you - there is no lack of opportunities out in the big wide world for maitnenance and reliability professionals!

Here are soem examples of roles that were posted there recently:

Maintenance Planner / Scheduler

• Teach, coach, and direct maintenance organizations in Best Practices of Planning and Scheduling of maintenance to ensure continuous and efficient operation.
• This position reports to their assigned managing principle and functions under general management direction and policies.
• The position requires highly developed human relations skills required to direct and motivate people and to communicate effectively with all levels of plant personnel regarding planning and scheduling best practices.

Reliability Subject Matter Expert

Reliability Consulting Group is seeking a Reliability Engineering SME to provide technical and strategic expertise in terms of life cycle asset management implementation and the associated practices, to ensure maximum possible equipment reliability at minimum life cycle cost. This will be accomplished by process mapping and improvements in equipment reliability, availability, and maintainability that optimizes asset life cycle costs perform basic product design, testing and/or analysis work for a defined portion of a project.

Reliability Technician

Provide technical and strategic expertise in terms of life cycle asset management implementation and the associated practices, to ensure maximum possible equipment reliability at minimum life cycle cost. This will be accomplished by process mapping and improvements in equipment reliability, availability, and maintainability that optimizes asset life
cycle costs.

Have a look for yourself and see what you think. The board is absolutely brimming with opportunities for you to expand your career, grow your network, and to drive closer to your professional goals. (Whatever they may be)

If you are interested on posting ont he board just send me a note and I will be happy to give you a code that will allow you to do so for nothing.

If you are a career minded maintenance professional then consider joining our networking group Reliability Hub on LinkedIn. See you there!

For those of you who are (ahem) cosmetically challenged like myself, then you will be pleased to know that creating a strong presence does not depend on your looks! Its an aura you generate. Check out some of the worlds really good presenters and it becomes obvious. Alan Weiss, Seth Godin, Guy Kawasaki and Tom Peters.

Lets face it, none of these guys are famous for their looks. (Sorry guys!) But the moment they take the stage, (or screen), you immediately know they are there, and you feel drawn to hear what they are going to say.

Presence is somewhat in the eye of the beholder, and no two performers are the same. For example, I once saw Gerry Adams, the infamous leader of Sinn Féin in Northern Ireland, at a presentation in Manchester in the UK.

As we waited in the room for him to appear suddenly there was a shot of electricity that went through the room. This guy was like an incoming hurricane. He struck the room with a sudden fury that to this day has me amazed.

Another guy I saw speak was Andrew Forrest, an Australian entrepreneur and probably the nations richest person right now. He also hit the room like a hurricane, fierce with facts, perfectly timed phrases and tweaks at the emotions.

Then there’s Bill Clinton. A guy I saw speak in Northern Ireland in a stadium. Slow, smooth, and utterly convincing. Some magic is inbuilt I suppose.

So how can the humble consultant even think to parallel great speakers like that? I have found that it is down to a few techniques.

1. Establish your Authority

Okay, so these guys had a lot of inbuilt authority. People know them and they are there to listen to their point of view. You often won’t have that advantage.

But from the moment they took the stage something magic occurred. The room, which was our before they got there, suddenly became theirs! Claiming the room for yourself is not easy, but a few pointers can help.

• Start on time – no matter what! Don’t wait for anybody. Start exactly when you were paid to start and finish when you were paid to finish. The client expects it, and they should get it. Interrupting the flow for one or two late comers does not help you to claim the room as yours. It also makes it very obvious when they arrive late, and you welcome them into your room!

• Establish your right to be there talking to them! They have been sent to your seminar/course/conference or whatever. Make sure they realize that you are the person with the authority to speak to them about whatever the subject is. Who have you done this with, what are your claims to fame, what have you written, who have you helped? And so on… make it clear. You have something very important to impart to them, and they only have this time right now to listen and learn it.

• Your theme is important! Make sure that they all get this very clearly. What you are hear to tell them is of earth shattering importance. I have a line I tell my students in one of my courses, and I sincerely believe it. I tell them that they are the thin line between industry and disaster. Tends to get their attention; then of course I go on to prove that point to them.

• Set the rules. If you are there for a sales call, then forget it. The rules are their rules. But if you are delivering a one day seminar, a three day course, or a multi week workshop, then you need to make it very clear what acceptable behavior is, and what it is not. Most people in my experience will be okay with this, some won’t, but all will get the point that this is your room.

And whatever you do – DO NOT USE ICEBREAKERS! I hate these things, they tend to run a serious learning event into a juvenile get together. Particularly when speakers force me to interact personally with strangers around me. That really stinks.

The only safe icebreaker I ever use these days is to get everyone to tell me a bit about themselves, their work and their expectations. Then that generates a bit of conversation.

2. Set the expectations

• This didn’t begin today. You have been in touch with these people for a while now. Via the marketing materials, pre-event information, questionnaires, feedback sheet sand so forth. So you have had the chance to set their expectations of what to receive during this event. Stick to it.

• Make it clear what you won’t tell them. The subject is going to be bigger than what you can cover today, this week, or during this two week workshop. Make it clear what you won’t be telling them during the event.

This has the added value of setting you up as the expert who knows more than what they are going to learn. (You are going to have to prove that of course) and also makes sure that half the work of presence is already done. They should at least know what they are going to get, and they are trusting you to deliver it to them. (Woe betide you if you blow it however)

3. Make Connections

How do you treat a room full of people? Every one is different, everyone is an individual… pretty obvious isn’t it! You treat everyone as an individual person.

This means you need to be hyper sensitive to whats going on in the room.

The person who is not participating may be the brightest guy in the room but years of being held down has made her bite her tongue.

The most boisterous character in the room may actually be in fear of his job for some reason. Or worse, you may be challenging positions that are long held and hard won in their company. Meet peoples gaze, give them non verbal cues and validation, indicate to them with the back of your wrists. (Don’t point! Ever!) Be careful with generalizations and always speak directly to people, not with a sweeping gaze.

Also, remember who you are talking to. If they are middle management, be deferential but be strong in your statements. If they are senior management then it is likely that they didn’t get there without earning their stripes in the front lines. (Sometimes they do, but not often I find)

• People issues

• Recruitment issues

• Dealing with internal politics (Getting stuff done!)

• Messaging and internal marketing

• Creating momentum

Always pitch your presentation at the level you are talking to. Middle managers love tactical talks, and love issues that they can relate to directly as causes of sleepless nights for them. Higher levels love to get into the link between day-to-day and more strategic goals. Some of their “words” tend to revolve around:

• Net present value

• Talent development and retention

• Knowledge retention and usefulness

• Profitability and productivity

• Implementation and benefits realization

Lastly, if you really want to build a rapport with your delegates then relax. Easier said than done, but it gets easier with time. Remember that 99.9% of the time they want you to succeed!

• Don’t hide behind the flip charts, stand out in the open, use sweeping and inclusive gestures.

• Be conversational, talk with them not at them, and most importantly…

• Be confident. You are the expert after all. Aren’t you?

In summary…

I have found that these are the techniques required for rule #1, the Rule of Presence. You need to sweep into the room and when you do they need to realize that you have something important that they need to hear.

1. Establish your authority and credibility (It’s your room not theirs)

2. Set the expectations

3. Make connections

Secondary functions (or passive functions) are all other functions that users require of their assets not included in the primary function.

One of the categories given as a guide for defining secondary functions is that of Efficiency / Economy. It has been the experience of the author that trainee Analysts sometimes overlook this category as they struggle to understand it.

The Miriam-Webster online dictionary defines Efficient as being “productive without waste”, and Economical as “operating with little waste or at a saving”.

Efficiency generally describes the amount of effort it takes to produce “work” as compared to the effort it should optimally take, defining unnecessary additional effort as waste.

In the context of physical asset management, this specifically refers to the ability of the asset to perform its required functions with a minimum of waste in terms of energy, motion, capital, or consumable usage (i.e. Spare Parts, Oil or Chemicals).

As such, this function category can often have a significant impact on the direct costs of performing maintenance, and of operating machinery.

Perhaps the most pressing area of action on inefficiency is that of energy usage.

In 2006, the government of the United Kingdom published The Stern Review[i]. Authored by economist Sir Nicholas Stern it provided the first critical analysis of the future impacts of global warming in purely economic terms.

The 700-page review painted a frightening future, with predictions of shrinkage of the global economy by around 20%, and the creation of up to 200 million refugees due to flood and drought.

However, it also noted that there was still time to avert the potential disaster if there was an urgent global response to it.

In particular, the review highlighted the need for urgent action to address the emission of greenhouse gases, as a means of averting some of the worst aspects of global warming.

Figure 1 - The Impacts of Greenhouse Gas Emissions on Global Warming

Figure 1 shows some potential results of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and correlates these with the potential rise on temperature. As a result we can clearly see that if we continue along the present path then we are risking a possible temperature change of >5 degrees C, with disastrous results.

In the face of such forecasts, people often feel powerless to do anything about it. The problem is so big and we are merely maintainers in a plant somewhere.

However, the truth of the matter is that we have an almost unique capability to influence this issue directly. Principally through optimizing energy usage, thus driving down our contribution to CO₂ emissions.

Pumps present a particularly interesting challenge. For example, they are the single largest user of electricity in Industry in the European Union, consuming 160 TWhpa of electricity, accounting for 79 Mton CO₂.[ii]

Globally they account for around 20% of the worlds energy demand and approximately 20-25% of the energy demand from most industrial plants. [iii]

A pump’s efficiency can degrade as much as 10% to 25% before replacement, according to a study of industrial facilities commissioned by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), and efficiencies of 50% to 60% or lower are quite common. [iv]

Even at the lower levels, this represents a dramatic potential for CO₂ reductions, as well as direct cost savings in most cases.

However, these inefficiencies are not readily apparent so maintainers often overlook opportunities to save energy by repairing or replacing components and optimizing systems.

[i] The Stern Review can be found at http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk

[ii] Page 4, Study on improving the Energy Efficiency of Pumps, European Commission, February 2001

[iii] Page 3, Pump Life Cycle Costs: A Guide to LCC Analysis for Pumping Systems, a collaboration between the Hydraulic Institute, Europump, and the US Department of Energy’s Office of Industrial Technologies (OIT).

[iv] Pumping Systems Tip Sheet #4, September 2005, DOE, USA

Personally I am absolutely astounded by the continual use of criticality approaches to select assets for an improvement process. Don’t misunderstand me, I like the idea, and I believe it has a lot of very powerful uses in reliability. Just not as an asset selection process - and particularly not for RCM or any other form of maintenance strategy approach.

It goes like this… The newly trained RCM faciltiator takes the initiative to push forward the program by spending time developing a criticality ranking of his asset systems and then selecting the most critical (hence the most important) to begin the work of RCM.

He works diligently, with some of his colleagues, and maybe he takes two weeks to get it done. (Total of 10 4 hour meetings)  Then what…?

Whats wrong with this picture?

In my experience critical assets (or systems) are generally known in the first place. Secondly, they are generally the first to receive resources, cash, time and whatever else they need to make sure they are running okay. Last, they are often pretty reliable anyway!!!

So, the hard working facilitator goes to his manager and says “Here boss, you will be happy to know that this critical asset, which was running reliably, is going to keep on running reliably!”

And his boss says what? “Thanks, now get out”

I have other concerns about criticality at a system level, most of which have convinced me that it is not even possible let alone practical, but the whole issue of momentum, management support and getting projects started really tops them all.

The Political Element

Like everything else at work there is a political element to this. We (RCM Practitioners) realize that a post RCM analysed asset will bemore reliable than a pre-analysis asset. Period.But our bosses often do not…

So what are they interested in? 1. revenue increases, 2. Cost reductions, 3. Risk mitigation and 4. Knowledge increases; generally in that order.

The moral of the story? Don’t waste time trying to build support by choosing the reliable important assets, start with the unreliable poor performing assets. Go for the ones that have benefits already built in to their current levels of performance. It is far easier (from my experience) to build support for something when you walk in the door with $1 million of forecast revenue increases than with a “more reliable important asset”.

Wait.. I hear you cry “But thats reactive, we’re supposed to be proactive!” Yup, I agree. But we are where we are, and before we can start working on tomorrows problems (proactivity) we need to fix the headaches of today.

Reliability Consulting Group is seeking a Reliability Engineering SME to provide technical and strategic expertise in terms of life cycle asset management implementation and the associated practices, to ensure maximum possible equipment reliability at minimum life cycle cost. This will be accomplished by process mapping and improvements in equipment reliability, availability, and maintainability that optimizes asset life cycle costs perform basic product design, testing and/or analysis work for a defined portion of a project.

I love consulting and I have worked as a consultant now for most of my professional career. I particularly enjoy consulting in the field of reliability engineering. (Which I also love)

get your job site
at simplyhired.com

I get to travel all over the world, meet like-minded people, and talk to them about something that both of us have a lot of interest in.

So a pretty good beginning…

As a consultant, once you get the hang of it, you get to meet with companies when they have problems, and when you leave them they are better off. Sometime incredibly better off.

If you are considering consulting as a career choice I would recommend it totally, check out the posts on this site if it takes your interest.

Since about the late 80’s I think we all got the picture that job security was a thing of the past. At least I did anyway. And since that time we are seeing the relationship between people and work change dramatically. One change is in the area of loyalty.

“Old” loyalty was between the worker (you / me) and the company. This vertical, or suck up, type of loyalty was pretty focussed around the theme that if you did a great job, for many years, then your company would look after you.

Today, career last longer than most of the companies people work for. I started my career working for Robe River, a large mining company. At the end of the last century they were bought by Rio Tinto. I also worked for them for a while. They are real giants in the resource game, second largest in the world at the time. One of the titans that would last forever… well.. maybe not.

As I write Rio Tinto is trying to fend off an aggressive buy out by competitor BHP Billiton.

And so it goes… Yahoo was a great name.. once, Microsoft just decided not to buy them. I have seen many public sector workers suddenly shift to the private sector, and many private sector workers suddenly shift to a contracting company.

I’m sure (positive) your experiences have been identical, and if not then very similar. Companies don’t last forever, careers last a lot longer.

What we (I at least) see replacing this vertical loyalty is a form of horizontal loyalty. That is - loyalty to ones team mates, to a project, to a product, a managerial discipline or to a specialty area. This is the stuff that professional networks are made of.

Large groups of professionals interacting through out the world to mutual benefit. No sales lines, no pitches, no “articles” that are strangely slanted to support the consultant who wrote it, and no one trying to push anything down your throat.

The leading one of these, IMHO, is LinkedIn.com. LinkedIn has around (I think) 20 million members globally. Something like (not sure here) 30 CEO’s join LinkedIn every hour (or day, I can’t recall exactly).

I personally have used this site to conduct professional interviews, to offer my services when asked, to find resources for projects I know of or am working on, and to perform research among my peers. I recommend it to you strongly, I think every maintenance professional should have access to his peer groups.

We have formed a group here called the Reliability Hub, its free, non-commercial, and set up purely for you - the maintenance professionals in the field. I hope it is useful for you.

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Today, I regularly speak in front of hundreds if not thousands of of people every year. Training, speaking, sales stuff and a heap of conferences. To put it plainly - I love it!

Recently I was asked by my own company to start showing others how to present, so I put together a short series of slides covering some fo the basic rules that I follow when I am presenting.

It wasn’t until I started to do that until I realized that there really is an art to doing this. It isn’t just something you pick up through humiliating experience - but it is also something that you really can learn.

So this series of posts is going to be a summary of that slide set. You can download the entire thing here if you like. Like any good slide set, the detail is in the speaking, not in the slides.. but hopefully they are useful to you.

The introduction…

“Tell them what you are going to tell them, tell them, and tell them what you told them” Dottie Waters

Once I boiled it down presenting seemed to revolve around 4 basic rules. Feel free to challenge these, but in all the presentation I have ever done, these four basic principles have helped me to make just about every one (recently) a success.

The goal here is to give you techniques that can be used generally, not specific icebreakers or anything like that.
The Rules of Presence

If you can’t rapidly demonstrate your right to be there in front of them, then the game is lost. This section will look at a range of tips and trick that I use regularly to establish a prescence in front of the people I am speaking to.

In particular, how to establish the fact that you have something that they want to know!

The Rules of Attention

Getting their attention is only part of the deal. Keeping it is another thing entirely. A look at some of the common techniques used to keep them hanging on.

The Rules of Tools

The world is full of technological tools. The unfortunate thing is that when presenters discover them they tend to overuse them dramatically! How to use tools to effect, without getting into death by power point!

The Rules of Credibility

Like anything else the principle rule to making presentations that stick is to have credibility. Make sure that what you say is supported, and that they see your themes as rigorously researched, and truthful.

I will post a blog on each of these issues over the next couple of weeks or so, I hope it is of use.

In recent time we have seen SAP, ORACLE, and Microsoft rushing into this area trying to capitalize on this new trend. However, before SaaS was a global trend, eMaint was in there pioneering a new way of doing business.Since the 1980’sthe eMaint team, led by Brian Samuelson, have been building new markets in terms of making maintenance improvement more affordable.

I recently caught up with company President Brian Samuelson about this area, and about his outlook for the future. Fantastic company, great vision - and I have always loved true dedication to service int he consulting industry.

Q1. Is the area of physical asset management benefiting from the global surge in interest in SaaS?

Absolutely! The benefits of SaaS offer substantial benefits over the traditional software models and users of EAM/CMMS are no exception in wanting best of breed applications, delivered in an on-demand environment, with a pricing model that is buyer-centric.

I believe the emergence of the term Saas (Software as a Service) over ASP (application service provider) actually illustrates at a high level why there is this global surge in interest – ASP sounds like a technology – perhaps simply a new way of delivering the same old thing – and in fact, many of the early entrants into the ASP market were simply quite that – delivering legacy apps over the wire via some sharing technology like Terminal Server or Citrix.

True SaaS vendors provide software and services in a model that, if done right, provide a higher level of value through the combination of service and product. There is a sales technique which has the salesperson ask the prospect if they were presented with a triangle and the three corners of the triangle represented Service, Quality, and Price – which two would they pick? I believe the value in SaaS is that the prospect doesn’t have to pick – SaaS delivers all three!

Q2. Commentators talk of SaaS being purchased at department level rather than at corporate levels. Is this the case with on-demand maintenance management systems?

I definitely see that department level purchasing of SaaS is leading the trend in on-demand EAM/CMMS. And why not?

Corporate decision makers take way too long in making those decisions and, more often than not, don’t make the resources available to the maintenance department (financial, technical, and personnel ) to properly implement legacy-style products. In the meantime, has the maintenance organization gone into “hibernation”?

Of course not – the potential realization of benefits from a maintenance management system only increase with time. So, the ability to reduce the overhead required to get started with a SaaS maintenance system along with often eliminating the need for capital requests is a perfect match for the predicament maintenance departments often find themselves in.

Q3. In other areas on-demand technologies have also opened doors for vendors to provide more outsourcing services than they have done in the past. Are you seeing this in your field? And if so, in which sectors or functional areas specifically?

In our case, when our customers realize that our SaaS mentality and delivery means that we are a service provider as opposed to a commodity provider, the doors begin to open. Customers will naturally ask any vendor who provides exceptional service – “how else can you help us?”

Consulting services ranging from CMRP consulting for assisting clients in the areas of reliability and efficiency, integration projects tying the maintenance system into the corporate level app (SAP/Oracle/etc), and extending the desktop into the mobile arena are some of the main areas that are well suited to be driven be the success customers are able to experience with the SaaS solutions they employ.

Q4. What do you think is missing in the on-demand space for asset maintenance?

I believe this is related to the question of the department level vs corporate level purchasing. I am optimistic that the next couple of years will really present opportunities that ARE driven from the corporate level. We are now beginning to make headway with corporate level decision makers who see the value in the SaaS model.

I suspect that the cost benefits combined with the increased acceptance of hosted solutions will continue to drive SaaS into the “boardroom”. Industry leaders like Salesforce.com are paving the way and we only see the acceptance levels increasing with time.

Q5. What is the future for eMaint in terms of continued expansion and growth? Are there other markets and sectors on the horizon for you or is there still space in your natural sectors now?

The good news is that the “natural sector” for eMaint is so large that there still exist huge opportunities for growth. We have put significant energies into relationship building with other providers in the maintenance and reliability marketplace and feel that those relationships will provide significant opportunity for growth. Time and again, we see the SaaS model as really providing an excellent platform for partnering with other organizations to provide value-added solutions to our customer base.

Our solutions have been engineered from the ground up for scalability and expansion – so our main challenge will be will be keeping up with the demand from a sales and marketing perspective. So that is an enviable position to be in.

We continue to have subscription renewal rates over 90% and the great thing about SaaS is that the vendor who provides exceptional service will share in the rewards equally with the customer.
So while we are currently working on further expanding into areas such as mobile technologies and targeted consulting services – our core competency will continue to be service, service, service backed by a great software product.

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Notable in this is his time working with the London Underground, as well as his time with the ill fated Metronet contractor in the UK. Making his points of view some of the most unique in the game today.

His time in leadership in some of the worlds leading rail companies, combined with his dedication to the Institute of Asset Management and its goals easily qualify him as one of the thought leaders in the discipline of physical asset management. And, like most people in our game, he is a heck of a nice guy also.

Q1. The last time we spoke you had recently started trying to do some great things over at Metronet. Although in the infrastructure sectors, do you think there’s any lessons there for asset managers globally?

It’s been a while since we spoke! Just over two years ago I took on a lead role to develop Metronet’s Asset Management system. I had two roles – as Professional Head of Asset Management set out the overall Asset Management Strategy and advised discipline Heads on Asset Strategies and Asset Management Plans – as Programme Director for Metronet’s AMR Development programme I had overall responsibility for delivery of business and IM change and improvement projects, using both internal and external resources.

It was definitely an interesting time for Metronet, but I would say despite the bad-press the company got, its performance was within what was to be expected. We have to remember that when Metronet took over the infrastructure there was little information to base decisions on and the infrastructure was in a very poor state. I‘m not saying they did everything right, but they had at least identified the need for improvement and put in place a not insignificant programme to develop its asset management capability.

I often get asked about lessons learnt from my time in both Metronet Rail and London Underground (I was the Interim Head of Asset Management Development there for 18months). I guess the real lessons are: -

• Make sure key stakeholders are involved – we spent a lot of time in Metronet ensuring LU were on-board with our plans for asset management improvement. This really helped to gain support internally also as people could see their efforts were not wasted as the client was on board.

• Understand where you are and where your going – both in LU and Metronet, my roles were about developing a function within the company – setting out a clear future ‘blueprint’ is vitally important as it helps to drive through the change process.

• Communicate, communicate, communicate – Communication is probably the most important lesson I would pass onto clients. It is absolutely vital that every is ‘on the same page’. Communicating through newsletters, briefings etc helps to achieve this.

I’m now with Gutteridge Haskins and Davey and in my role as practice manager for the UK’s management consulting services have the opportunity to put these lessons into practice in other areas of the rail industry and other sectors.

Q2. Are there any real substantive differences between the way rail infrastructure asset management is conducted in the USA and the UK? Any crossover leading practices that you can share?

Absolutely. I could answer the question quickly (rather bluntly) by saying, in general, asset management is not ‘done’ in the US and it is ‘done’ in the UK. However, this is a little unfair.

The UK, I believe is effectively 15years ahead of the US. Many of the things I am talking to people about now, where being considered by the UK in the early 1990’s. The US has a very different regulatory framework than the UK – its safety only as opposed to safety and economic regulation in the UK. This results in different drivers for the industry – in the UK it is fair to say that regulators ‘kick started’ the asset management agenda in rail.

There’s some things we (UK) can learn from the US also. Service delivery – there appears to be more focus in the US on meeting demands from customers than there is in the UK. New York for example spend considerable time planning their works to ensure no customer is inconvenienced more than once (they have extensive modeling capability to achieve this).

The main cross over’s are learning from the Brits in terms of whole life asset management approaches to managing the infrastructure. I also believe that there is increasing interest in how the Federal Government can become more of an economic regulator, and so there is probably one or two things to be learnt there also.

Q3. Given your involvement in the IAM, and global experience with Asset Management, are you seeing any movement towards AM Frameworks like the PAS-55? Or do you think that industry over there will look to develop its own guidelines?

There are one or two industry specific frameworks, certainly in highways for example, which is more, mature and has guidelines. There is also interest in the International Infrastructure Management Manual (IIMM) and PAS-55. Some (National Grid for example) who have UK operations are seeking to learn internally from this – I know NG is looking to certify NG-USA. I guess at some point develop they will develop there own guidelines – however I would like to think that being active over there I can make the connect back to the UK and that any development is effectively advancing the subject rather than re-inventing it.

Q4. You deal with big projects and big issues, almost exclusively. What is the number one issue when trying to embed change and what tips can you offer to others for dealing with this?

I dabble with small projects also! The issue is no matter what you’re trying to change it’s always a big thing because people do not like change. As I said in one of the earlier questions the big issue with change is communicating, making sure everyone is on board and heading in the right direction (knowing the direction helps also).

He some other tips:

1. Boot Camp – Train all staff from a common starting point (from CEO down to at least Supervisor level) – and cultivate people rather than weed them out.
2. Study the past – learn from yours and other organizations mistakes
3. Create a sense of mission (the future blueprint for example) – issue a core values card (a mouse mat for example)
4. Create a CEO’s reading list.
5. Make the challenge to belong to the corporate – APPEAL

I have always used the book “Semper-Fi – Business Leadership the US Marine Corps Way” as guidance for my change projects – it sounds severe but the approach is both logic and applicable.

Q5. In infrastructure particularly we see a dramatic drive to whole-of-life asset management. What are the present constraints on this and do you see any point in the future when the skills for this will become more widely available in the marketplace? (Or is this just not the issue I think it is)

The main constraints are lack of information, and inadequate people understanding and awareness. I do see a point in the future – probably around 5yrs in the UK maybe out to 10yrs US, were these constraints are really lifted and effective decision making can happen. There is increasing interest in UK utility and transport providers on better education of asset management staff. I have already started talking to Universities around the UK about transferring GHD’s training programme which is linked to a MBA in Australia into the UK.

Q6. Every time I get involved in any really big issues related to the rail industry you are somewhere near the heart of them. A fantastic track record, whats the next couple of “wow” projects you can share with us?

Thank-you! I think its because Asset Management forefront of the rail industry for over ten years. Why? Because it brings together two major constraints – finances and condition of assets. I’ve been fortunate enough to be involved in some very interesting work working with some very interesting people and often learning as much from the process as the client.

I hope to be working for at least another 30 years – in that time I believe AM will be a firm foundation in rail businesses. I believe the biggest opportunities now are looking at business transformation in US rail and transit. There is a clear indication that organizations and government wish to be doing things better – this with increasing awareness of climate change, and the increasing costs of gas are causing man more people to re-think transportation in the US (moving away from car and air travel to greener mass and rapid transit systems).

In the UK Underground there is still much to be done, things are starting to happen and there is a fantastic interest around the place in really making it happen.

I guess my experiences to date have been quite unique – another couple of years I’ll probably follow your lead and write a book – “Making Asset Management Happen” – you heard it hear first!

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This isn’t your run of the mill “How RCM saves you money” article. But hopefully it will give RCM Facilitators and Analysts some capability to determine the value from their studies, and to use that to build momentum for change in their companies.

The ability to implement is a rare skill, and in times of rapid change it becomes extremely valuable. Showing value from work is something that is of vital importance, yet seems to be lacking in many reliability projects. As a career consultant my view of this is obviously skewed, but it seems like a lot of reliability professionals tend to outsource this to consultants. (And there are some pretty good reasons for that. Both in terms of the internal dynamics of the company, and in terms of “deny-ability” later sadly)

It is true that many RCM analyses end their life as dust gatherers or trapped inside some software program, and there are lost of reasons why. But one of the biggest causes of inaction is a failure, on behalf of the facilitator, to sell the value from the analysis effort.

Implementing RCM crosses many corporate boundaries and many managerial disciplines. Not all of whom understand what you are doing, and often they could care less what maintenance are up to. Thats not their fault, they are busy people too, and such is life.

So if you are going to get them engaged in your analysis project, then you need to have a compelling story about what you are doing, why you want to do it, and how it will “rock” their world if they help you to do it. And for that you need benefits!!

These come in two varieties, the cashable variety and the non-cashable type. Both are good, but some get more attention than others. Get used to that, you aren’t going to change it - so you might as well use it to your favor.

Cashable Benefits

The stuff that changes the bottom line. Period

Potential Revenue Increases

Activities and changes that will cause a net increase in uptime, utilization or yield rates. This benefit is most credible when you can prove downtime from this issue over a reasonable period, say 2 - 3 years, and then forecast the savings over a similar time period.

At times this change may be the result of several strategies, not just one. So look carefully for them.

Direct reductions in maintenance costs

Moubray was fond of saying that RCM will achieve “a reduction of between 20% and 70% in routine maintenance where there is an existing scheduled maintenance program.” My experience is that John, as always, was right on the money with this one. But how does this happen? Here are some areas to look for:

When you apply RCM that is compliant with the SAE JA1011 it specifically asks you to determine whether each strategy is “Technically Feasible” (Applicable) and “Effective”, therefore some obvious benefits come from:

1. Inapplicable Maintenance:Elimination of maintenance routines that are accomplishing nothing because they do not fit the criteria to be applied.
2. Ineffective Maintenance: Elimination of routines that increase rather than reduce the costs of maintenance, or they do not reduce the risk of failure to the appropriate levels, or they actually increase the likelihood of failure.
3. Maintenance Out of Context: A big one in my view. Changing operating procedures, plans and strategies to suit the operating context of the assets.

Non-Cashable Benefits

All the other stuff that RCM can give you. This is a huge list and I am only going to list some of them here.

Avoided Cost

Careful definition required here, this is one that many risk consultants play up. But if you are going to be honest about it there is a right way and a wrong way to define these.

The definition I have been using for the last 5 years or so is:

The consequences that are mitigate via any maintenance strategy applied to a reasonably likely failure mode; where there was an inadequate existing maintenance policy.

Note the emphasis on the existing maintenance policy! Often this is calculated from the estimated costs of downtime only, but you need to make sure that there was nothing in place previously.

Although this will give a quantifiable answer as a dollar value, this figure will never show up on anybodies bottom line. It hasn’t happened to date, and because of your strategy it will not happen in the future.

So it remains a valid benefit claim for the RCM team to make, but careful consideration is needed to explain it.

Knowledge increases

• Changes to procedures, work processes and related policies (such as stores policies)
• Increases in the knowledge of each participant ion the RCM process
• Changes to P&IDs
• Better understanding of the limitations and requirements of the asset base by all those who are charged with managing them

When to start calculating benefits

Don’t wait until the analysis finishes. Start to calculate these the moment that the process starts. Be conscious of the impact of every failure mode that is analyzed and of every strategy that is recommended.

Part of the reason why I truly enjoy training people in RCM is because the method lends itself to accepting responsibility for changing whats going on around the business.

• If management doesn’t get it, you didn’t explain it well enough,
• If you have no support, you haven’t lobbied correctly or hard enough
• If your analyses don’t get implemented, then you haven’t done enough to influence the implementers

And so on… great fun. Good luck!

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