A lesson in recognizing critical issues

Sam, the maintenance man, was heading back to his office after one of his many daily walkarounds through the plant. As was his habit he kept his hearing, sight and smell on full alert during these reconnoiters.

His main purpose for the tour was to make sure that any maintenance activity was not being delayed due to self-imposed obstacles, e.g., lack of parts, instructions, necessary skills, tools, whatever he might be able to unobstruct with some personal intervention. A basic supervisor’s job.

Passing one pump and motor set he noticed that the lubricator (this particular pump used a glass oil bottle to maintain reservoir level in the bearing housing) was nearly empty and definitely not maintaining the bearing housing’s lubricating oil at the proper level.

Sam got on his phone and called the area’s lubricating technician. No response. Sam tried again with the same results. He waited a few minutes, standing by the pump then called the maintenance clerk, who told Sam “I don’t think Mary is in today, in fact I believe she is on vacation.” 

“Thanks, so who is covering Mary’s duties?” 

“Sam, this is Ernie. I was standing here when you called. Mary’s territory is uncovered this week due to her vacation. I’m a little short handed, so we’re taking emergencies only.” 

“Well, Ernie, if we don’t take care of the oil level in the lube bottle on the 2nd stage filtrate pump, we will have an emergency. Will you send someone over here right now? I’ll wait.” 

Muttering to himself, Ernie calls, “Harold, can you meet Sam at the 2nd stage filtrate pump?” 

“Yep, on the way,” came the response. 

Harold approached Sam at the filtrate pump. “Do you know which oil we use in this pump?” Sam asked. 

“Hell no. Sam, I’m a mechanic. I don’t keep track of that stuff.” Harold responded in his usual straightforward manner. “I’m just filling in, and then only for emergencies. I don’t have the faintest idea what needs to be looked at and what doesn’t while Mary’s on vacation. I’ll have to run up to the office and find out what they use and then go find some, somewhere.”

“Okay, Harold, ‘preciate it.” Sam motioned, as he turned to continue his journey.

Later that day Sam had the maintenance supervisors, engineers and planners in the office for their weekly planning meeting.

“Let me ask a question.” Sam said as his eyes surveyed the room. “What is one of the most important objectives for people in this mill?”

This rhetorical question caused some general fidgeting among the group sitting around the table as no one really wanted to be the object of another one of Sam’s point-making exercises.

“Well let me answer that for you.” Sam was warming up. “Keep the place running, that’s what.”

“So, using that as a criteria for importance in this place let’s ask some more questions,” Sam said.  

Again, there was a murmur and fidgeting because everyone knew that Sam was about to embark on another one of his ‘example’ stories and one of them would be the object of that story. The problem is, who will be in the ‘hot’ seat today? 

“Let’s say Sandy (the mill’s manager) takes a week’s vacation and no one really replaces him, just some cursory PO signings and so on, you know, ‘urgent’ things.” Sam’s eyes darted about the faces looking at him.  

“What do you suppose will happen to this place.” He expanded his arms as if to embrace the room, tilting his head ever so slightly for effect.

Ernie raised his hand. “Yes, Ernie?” 

“I expect it to run better actually.” Ernie chuckled. Everyone at the table joined in.

Sam, smiling, said, “I agree, probably not much risk of anything happening that the rest of us couldn’t help resolve in his absence. Now what about me?”

“You mean if you were off and no one replaced you?” Ernie asked. Sam nodded his head.

“Well, I expect pretty much the same results as with Sandy.” Again, everyone chuckled. 

“And what about you, Ernie. If you were gone for a week and no one replaced you, how well would this place run then?” Sam’s eyes smiled. 

“You guys might limp by.” Ernie responded amid a chorus of barks and grunts from the others at the table.

“We just might get by.” Sam agreed.  

“Now what if Mary (referring to the lube tech for the pulp mill) is gone for a week and no one replaces her?” 

“Now there we got a problem.” Jimmy, the reliability engineer responded. “We miss one of her routines and we could be flat on our butts in no time.”  

There was a general nodding of heads in agreement among the participants in the room. 

“So, what I’m hearing you say is that Mary, an oiler, is the most important person in this mill, based upon ‘keeping the place running’? Is that right?” Sam looked around the table. Not seeing any disagreement, he asked “Then why the hell don’t we have someone replace her when she’s off for a week or two or three?” 

Sam looked around the room. “And the other point, where is the information for lubricants, amounts, inspection routines for the equipment in her area?

“How would one go about finding out which grade of oil we use, for example, on the 2nd stage filtrate pump?” Sam again looked around the table.

“Mary may be a lube technician and Harold may be a mechanic, both working with their hands and with tools, but they are also both ‘knowledge workers’.  

“Mary may be a lube technician and Harold may be a mechanic, both working with their hands and with tools, but they are also both ‘knowledge workers’.

“They both have knowledge, they use knowledge, they seek knowledge. I found out earlier today that we don’t do a very good, or should I say, ‘efficient’ job of providing storage and access to knowledge.”

Sam continued, “First, we don’t replace one of the most important positions in this mill during extended absences.

“That’s one issue and we’ll discuss that separately.

“To me the bigger issue is the lack of or difficulty getting information pertaining to the task at hand.”

“I know,” Sam raises his hands, palms forward. “The information is in the maintenance shop, or someone’s locker, or somewhere here onsite in a database.

“That’s the way it was done in the old days, and that’s the way we do it today. Well this is no longer the old days, and that’s not the way we’re going to do it today.

“That’s the way it was done in the old days, and that’s the way we do it today. Well this is no longer the old days, and that’s not the way we’re going to do it today."

“We’ve got to change the way we do things. We’ve got to improve, or we don’t stand a chance in this business.

“Now I didn’t mean to pick on Ernie today.” Sam continued. “What happened with Mary, and with Harold can be multiplied by the number of people we have working here. There are inefficient processes and inadequate information for everyone of us and that causes mistakes, errors and loss of value adding effort.  

“What happened today is a little thing. You add up all the ‘little’ things that occur around here and pretty soon you will have a ‘big’ deal, so what we’ve got to strive for is to resolve the little things while they can be resolved, easily.” Sam stopped for a moment. 

“We’ve got to think and act differently then we have in the past. We’ve got to question why we do the things we do, and the way we do them. Every time we encounter a situation we must stop and ask ourselves, is there a better way?  

“In some cases, we might ask, should this be done at all?”

“You’ve all seen the embroidered picture hanging on my office wall, the one that says, ‘Question Authority’. Too me that says it all.

“Many, maybe even most times ‘authority’ has it right, but unless you keep questioning, you are never going to know when ‘they’, including me and you, have it wrong. 

“Harold’s having to go to the office to ‘try’ and find information about the oil used in that pump is wasted time, precious time, non-value adding time. There are better ways of handling that information than slips of paper and word-of-mouth, or traveling to search a database.  

“Ernie and I are going to solve that ‘little’ issue.

“What I need from you,” Sam points his finger at everyone in the room, “is to solve other ‘little’ problems as they arise, or at the very least record the problem and get it out in the public domain. 

“The important distinction here is to recognize a problem and not to ignore it, or shrug it off as ‘that’s the way we do things around here’. That kind of indifference will eventually cost all of us our jobs.” Sam paused.

“And, Ernie? I’m not going to tell Sandy that you think he’s worthless.”

Sam started a list, hung it off a nail in the maintenance office. It was called the “Issues List” and anyone could make an entry (as long as they identified themselves as the originator).  

Pretty soon there were a lot of issues to address and each one was handled, individually, as time and resources permitted.  

Very crude, but effective.  

More importantly the ‘culture’ was changed. People felt more involved solving problems. More than likely if you were an originator of an issue you were part of the team that developed the solution. That had the added benefit of reducing the number of ‘bitchers’ and ‘complainers’ among the workforce. The standard response whenever a habitual complainer spoke up now is “You don’t like it, go put it on the Issues List.”

The effect was an increase in positive results, not negative finger pointing. 

Sometimes simple, unsophisticated tools can change a culture, although to maintain the change, in this mill’s case at least, they required an information system that everyone could access, from nearly everywhere. Sheer volume of relevant information demanded a system full of knowledge accessible by anyone, with permissions.