The 5 Levels of Reliability Culture

On a scale of 1 to 5…??

How’s the?culture of reliability?in your organisation???

Now, I’m asking this question because…??

When it comes to improving reliability...? ? Culture is KEY to your long-term success.??

Without the right culture, your hard-won improvements will simply erode over time.???

And before you know it, you’ll be back in that vicious cycle of reactive maintenance.???

Now, to help you answer that question, I?developed a Reliability Culture Ladder?with five levels of reliability culture that you can refer to:??

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Level 1 –?Toxic Reliability Culture??

Not only is the organisation reactive in its approach...?

It also doesn't really care about being reactive!?

And so your organisation doesn’t prioritise reliability.???

There is no consistent attempt to improve performance, so you're missing out on increased uptime, reduced maintenance costs, and a better, safer workplace.??

While stress and frustration are normalised, you celebrate?'overtime heroes'?who fix breakdowns quickly instead of addressing root causes. Your attitude towards reliability can be summarised as: "We don't care about reliability unless it impacts us directly."??

And maintenance takes a subservient role to operations, simply fixing what's broken instead of collaborating to prevent failures.??

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Level 2 –?Reactive Reliability Culture??

Most industrial plants are at this level of?reliability culture.???

The organisation is always fighting emergencies, with high stress, and the lack of reliability culture is causing production downtime and high maintenance costs.??

But unlike the toxic reliability culture, organisations at this level realise they are reactive and wish it were different. However, the organisation is unable to really drive improvement or sustain any improvements.? ??

Reliability is not a core value, so leadership rarely emphasises it.?And when they do, it is often misaligned with actions and rewards. Staff are still rewarded for responding quickly to breakdowns and production outages, creating an?‘overtime hero syndrome’.??

Ineffective planning and scheduling result in low productivity and high break-in work. Preventive Maintenance (PM) programs?are in place but are?usually ineffective and inefficient. And root cause analysis attempts are ineffective and don't improve performance.??

The relationship between the operations and maintenance departments is often adversarial. Where maintenance is expected to fix breakdowns fast but is frustrated by being put in this position so frequently. There is no champion for reliability within the organisation.???

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Level 3 – Effective Reliability Culture??

The organisation has turned a corner, with less reactive maintenance and an effective culture.??

Planning, scheduling, preventive maintenance, root cause analysis, and defect elimination are defined, documented, and implemented. There is still much room for improvement.??

Continuous improvement is implemented, but it is ineffective and usually done after incidents or major downtime events.??

Stress and frustration in the company have dropped. Teams know their roles, have time to follow processes, and produce quality work. Major incidents or breakdowns may cause the organisation to act reactively, but these are rare and usually self-corrected.??

And operations and maintenance now work towards common goals and recognise each other's value.??

Level 4 – Proactive Reliability Culture??

Stress and frustration levels have significantly come down. And?any?frustration that might exist in the organisation reflects a deep desire to improve further, faster.??

Not only are the core processes of planning & scheduling, preventive maintenance, root cause analysis, and defect elimination fully implemented and highly effective…??there is a structured, continuous focus on improvement.???

Improvement takes place through staff-initiated improvements identified as part of the day-to-day execution of work, as well as through structured, formalised reviews of the work processes.???

All processes have designated Process Owners who conduct these reviews and work with the teams in the business to ensure processes are both effective and efficient. A consistent effort is made to identify practices worth repeating from other peers within their industry.??

The overtime heroes syndrome has been eliminated. Breakdowns do happen, but recognition goes out when the root cause has been clearly established and eliminated.??

And finally, maintenance and operations have developed their constructive relationship into an effective partnership. They jointly set goals, develop improvements, use multi-disciplinary teams, and routinely second personnel into each other’s teams for both professional development as well as enhancing their teamwork.??

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Level 5 –?Enlightened Reliability Culture??

Few organisations achieve a Level 5 reliability culture which could be described as enlightened’ and characterised by the phrase “reliability is in our DNA; it’s just how we do business around here.”??

At this point reliability is fully reflected in the organisation’s values, behaviours, rewards, and senior leaders across the organisation consistently act as role models. People across the organisation understand that reliability is everybody’s responsibility just like safety and they know and understand their individual role in achieving and improving reliability.??

Not only do enlightened reliability cultures understand the importance of continuous improvement, but they are also actively looking at practices outside their own industries that could be adapted for use in their organisation.???

A lack of improvement is experienced as going backwards.??

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So with all that said…??

Let me ask you again.??

On a scale of 1 to 5....?

What do you think is your organisation’s level of reliability culture??

And how do you think can you get to the next level???

Let me know by adding your comment in the right side.??

If it’s something that your organisation is struggling with, then you can also schedule a call with me.?

Let’s discuss how we can move your organisation from one level to the next.??

P.S. Whenever you're ready, here are 3 ways we can help you on your Road to Reliability:

1. Want to train your team on how to improve your plant's maintenance reliability?

Enroll your team in one of our most popular online training courses:

Implementing Maintenance Planning and Scheduling—increase your maintenance workforce by 35% without hiring anyone. Reduce costs, improve safety and increase morale.

Developing and Improving Preventive Maintenance Programs—achieve higher reliability and availability whilst doing less maintenance. Acquire the knowledge and tools needed to create a highly effective and efficient Preventive Maintenance Program.

2. Want to know how effective your Planning & Scheduling really is?

Use our Planning & Scheduling Scorecard?to assess your performance and receive a personalised PDF report with recommendations on how to improve.

Use our Wrench Time Calculator?to easily calculate how much value your organisation is missing out when you neglect your Planning & Scheduling.

3. Want to start your journey on the road to reliability?

Download the Reliability Academy eBook?and discover a simple, proven framework that you can use to achieve a highly reliable plant for your organisation. Unlike other overly complicated models that use 10 to 20 elements, the Road to Reliability framework only uses 4 elements to achieve great results.