Building a reliability culture

K-IIoT hosts a monthly peer roundtable for maintenance and reliability. In the session, industry professionals come together to discuss member submitted topics on a wide range of subjects. We will post a summary of each of the discussion topics to help continue the conversation. Our most recent session we discussed reliability culture, working through the complexity of systems and technology, and how to improve data. ?

If you are interested in learning more about the roundtable, please message Adam Napolitano for more information. We’ll meet again on December 5th at 2 PM EST.

The discussion on building a reliability culture focused on a few key themes; the emphasis on it being a top-down strategy, identifying why it’s important for employees, not just the bottom line, and how you manage expectations.

Executive buy-in and support for a reliability culture is critical. If leadership fails to understand and promote the significance of leading from a reliability mindset, there will be challenges in supporting that culture within the organization. Some key elements that management need to emphasize are defining why reliability is important for the health of the business and why they put a focus on education and training for staff at all levels. Encouraging discussion about the best strategies for maintaining equipment and a particular focus on communicating why reliability is important for all departments and teams. Being able to demonstrate the positive impact a reliable facility has makes a huge difference.

Companies serve multiple constituents including customers, employees, and shareholders or owners, depending on if you are publicly traded or privately held. Employees understand without profit a company can’t exist, however, when building or sustaining a culture, we cannot simply focus on why something is good for the company. Speaking about reliability, what the benefits are for employees is important. Creating incentives to reward reliable behaviors instead of reactionary or firefighting is needed. If we simply focus on availability, often masked as reliability, we miss great opportunities for improvement. How we continue to emphasize the benefits of energy efficiency, lowering operational expenses, and improving quality and throughput through higher performing equipment helps instill the right mindset and behavior throughout the organization.

The final area is setting and managing expectations. This means clear communication and alignment between groups that are involved in any reliability efforts. Setting a baseline from the previous year’s performance and identifying the improvement targets based on previous achievement ensures that we’re working from an attainable place, not aspirational goals that may or not be achievable. It’s also important to remember that people are key to deploying the success of the program, but having processes that support personnel vastly improves success. If people leave but the process remains, new people to the team can pick up that knowledge.

Reliability-driven organizations experience higher performance, better cost management, and a healthier environment for employees. Executives should embrace building a culture if one does not currently exist. If you are working from a culture of reliability, continuous review, discussion, and reflection to improve will drive greatly value for all parties involved.