Part 5. Trust is the key

This is the 5th in a series of articles that further explore the key concepts raised in “Simplifying Mine Maintenance” by Gerard Wood.

In his book, Gerard states that

“It is essential to have empowered tradespeople to make decisions”

He goes on to say

“Crew members need to own the solution. If you just tell them what to do without enabling them to decide on the solution to the problems, it takes the ownership away from the people who have to implement the solution. Removing ownership this way makes the leaders' job more difficult because now they must hold crew members accountable for something the crew members may not see as necessary.”

The concepts of empowerment and ownership for tradesman, while fundamentally sound, can be very difficult to put into practice. There are many reasons for this, but for empowerment to occur, there must first of all be trust. Trust that the tradesman knows how to do the job properly. Trust that the tradesman knows the importance of what they are doing and how it relates to the business objectives. And trust that the tradesman will actually care enough to do the job right.?

If there is no trust, then it is necessary to monitor, measure and supervise to ensure accountability. This is the usual “management” model. But the problem with welding is that it is often perceived as a “black art” that cannot be measured and controlled. This is further compounded by the fact that there are very very few people in leadership roles that actually know enough about welding in order to even know what to look for.??

Traditionally, welding is based on a “policing” model, whereby a Welding Procedure Specification (WPS) specifies the exact parameters to be used, the Welder must have a relevant Welder Qualification, the Welding Supervisor will monitor the work and inspect quality at each step, and there is strict policing of critical parameters such as pre-heat and interpass temperatures. Unfortunately, we have decades of proof that the “compliance” based approach does not work for routine maintenance welding of crack repairs - it is simply just not practicable, feasible, economical or relevant in most cases. Departing from the traditional model is hard. This is because there is no standardised alternative (more on this in a future article) and there has so far been no way of adequately determining whether there can be confidence in a welder’s abilities.??

Once trust is established - that a leader or supervisor can trust that a welder can do the job properly - then this is the key to unlocking empowerment and ownership. Trust and confidence in a welder’s ability is provided through demonstrated competency. That’s why the Maintenance Welder Competency (MWC) was developed for . The MWC takes the?approach of upskilling and empowering welders with the knowledge and skills to autonomously tackle common crack repairs,?rather than needing to police them with lots of paperwork and/or welding supervisors. It also allows mines to set a higher benchmark for the competence of welders who carry out their repairs, and provides a simple means of allocating the right welder to the task based on the nature of the repair.?

Ultimately, once trust can be established, empowerment and the sense of ownership and pride in work done can only come if the right culture is in place. In my next article, I examine the importance of culture and alignment in relation to crack repair management.