OMDEC - Optimal Maintenance Decisions Inc.

1.Introduction

In Part 1 of this scope documents, we focused on where to start – the process of Assessing Current Maintenance Practices, and the steps required for doing Benchmark comparisons with other organizational units. In Part 2 of the series, we address the Leadership layer of the Maintenance Cube of Excellence (see page 2) – a development from the Pyramid of Excellence originally devised by John Campbell in 1995. This concept prompts us to take a comprehensive look at the maintenance function. On the front face of the Cube are the main functions within Maintenance – each will be addressed in turn.

On the two remaining faces are the enablers – the side of the Cube concentrating on the Maintenance People who are so critical to any maintenance operation,  and the top concentrating on the Processes and Technology which have become all important to effective Maintenance Management as the demands grow for better reliability at lower cost.

The importance of the “Cube” approach is that selecting just a single building block for closer examination (materials for example) requires us to remember that it is dependent for its effectiveness on the Enablers – People, Processes and Technology.  Also, just as in a real building, the upper levels of the superstructure are unstable if the lower foundation layers are not properly laid.   In this paper we address the foundation layer of the building blocks – Leadership – consisting of Strategy and Management.  Subsequently, we will focus on the Control and Continuous Improvement layers and finally the Enablers.

2. Strategy

There is a lot of truth to the well-worn statement “if you don’t know where you are gaping, how do you know when you get there?”  Despite being a bit self-serving, this statement does label Maintenance Strategy as one of the primary aids in defining where we are going.  A simple self-test (freely available from info@omdec.com) will help to define whether your organization will likely benefit from a Maintenance Strategy.

The starting point must always be the overall company or organization mission, objectives and strategy.  Without these in place, defining the maintenance strategy is next to impossible.  Similarly – as most Maintenance functions are supportive of Operations -  then the Operations mission, objectives and strategy will be strongly influential on the Maintenance Strategy.

Let’s take a closer look at the process and contents:

 Read the whole article here: