Posted by Marshall Institute on Wed, Jan 25, 2012 @ 09:46 AM
As the U.S. and other countries are moving forward to deal with today's challenges, more leaders are becoming enlightened to the fact that we are no longer in an arms race, but actually a skills race. The countries with the most advanced skill labor pools will be able to retain and attract companies, leading to economic growth.
A challenge associated with developing and retaining talent in companies is what I like to call the "training paradox": when money is plentiful, time available to send people to training is scarce. Conversely, when money is constrained, time is often plentiful to send people to training. Making the commitment to send workers to training in either scenario is hard, but it must be done, as you can see after reading some of the alternative training programs below.
To save money, many companies have resorted to “go get 'em tiger” on the job training where the new workers basically fend for themselves and figure out how to do the job. Another frequently adopted tactic is “F.J.A” (follow Joe around): teaming-up new workers with experienced workers. However, the good experienced worker does not necessarily make a good, experienced coach. Using this approach, certain good practices do not get taught, while undesirable work practices and habits may also be passed on. The veteran staff member may not be motivated to fully train the new worker for fear of losing their own prestige or job.
Without funding, companies have to be creative to advance their workforce development. Several companies have been experimenting with new techniques that deserve emulation and implementation. A chicken processing plant in Portland, Maine, asked vendors for their new automation equipment to not only provide short concentrated courses on the equipment, but also videotape the classes so that future workers could learn how to run the new equipment. After building a library of content, they purchased a flat screen monitor, and a computer for the break room. As opposed to tuning into the latest sports or news events, they broadcast their equipment training videos for workers to see during their lunch and breaks, thus constantly refreshing them on the best practices for running their new automated equipment systems. Also, whenever they experience a production line or equipment breakdown, they prioritize the videos so that everyone gets more exposure and can overcome those issues and prevent future failures. I call their program Breakthrough Training and encourage other companies to consider this type of on-site training program.
What are you doing to ensure that your organization has a solid training program? What are you doing to make sure viable workforce pipelines are being developed? What are you doing to overcome the training paradox?
Posted by Marshall Institute on Thu, Jan 19, 2012 @ 11:35 AM
What does an organization have to do in order to take the first step to achieve sustained reliability improvement? Here at Marshall Institute, we believe that this is to assess the organization's current state and gain consensus on strengths and opportunities.
Greg Folts covers this topic in the second video in our Sustaining TPM series. He discusses the importance of gaining consensus in sustaining TPM improvement and identifies proven methods to achieve consensus. These are:
- Map your processes: identify gaps in your processes by comparing your current processes against an ideal state.
- Ask your employees: speak candidly with employees about what they view as the company's strengths and opportunities for improvement.
- Get Data: nothing is more objective than data. To understand strengths and reliability improvement opportunities, find key data such as: cost, equipment availability, mean time to repair, and mean time between failure.
- Benchmark: compare your key performance indicators with the best of the best. Identifying performance gaps between you and best-in-class organizations will help to build your improvement strategy.
The key with these methods is to objectively gain consensus of vital areas to achieve reliability improvement. Gaining consensus makes sustainability more possible. Try these tactics and I'm sure you'll be amazed at how effective they are in building consensus. In the next video in the series we look at Building a Case for Change.
Thanks for reading and best of luck with your improvement.
Posted by Marshall Institute on Tue, Jan 10, 2012 @ 01:33 PM
In industry we are very aware of the plight of skilled trades. To compete companies have been cutting back their staff, deferring maintenance almost to chronic levels to save money and have been adding automation systems thus increasing the complexity of the environment. With the average age of the skilled workforce reportedly in early 50’s, a mass exodus is upon. However, to backfill these very valuable skill sets the next generation are clouded with negative stigmas of these often lucrative career paths and thus do not pursue the education needed to be qualified to fill these positions.
U.S. companies find themselves in the awkward situation; despite 10% unemployment rate and plenty of bodies to fill vacant or soon to be vacant jobs, there are very few with the skill sets needed to run their equipment, manage their maintenance performance and deliver reliability consistently. More companies are beginning to realize that they no longer operate as pirates - by acquiring others talent - and having to become farmers and grow their own talent pools. That is why companies like the Marshall Institute with their fast track training curriculum are so valuable.
For years as I spoke, screamed, sang, and even begged for attention to these issues, finally companies, government, and academia are finally taking notice. Listen to my recent interview on evening edition of NPR station WVTF to hear more of the activities to resolve the maintenance crisis.
The Council for Competitiveness is starting to take notice of the maintenance and manufacturing crisis. Please download and review the suggestions that the council is now sharing in hopes of garnering more support and resources to advance manufacturing.
Stay tuned as I will be sharing more solutions to the maintenance crisis in future blogs. If you have any suggestions or questions please leave a comment below.
Thanks for reading!
Posted by Marshall Institute on Fri, Dec 16, 2011 @ 10:15 AM
Change is inevitable, just like death and taxes :). Accepting this is the first step to successfully managing and sustaining change.
Successfully managing and sustaining Total Productive Maintenance / Total Process Reliability implementation in a manufacturing environment is difficult, but there are proven steps that will guide your journey and, if followed, will support your success. In this asset maintenance management video blog series, Greg Folts discusses four key steps necessary for managing a successful TPM implementation.
The steps are:
- Gain consensus on strengths and weaknesses
- Build a case for change
- Develop internal expertise
- Develop a strategy
Greg will go into more depth on each of these steps. Watching this series will support your TPM implementation effort or any other change initiative at your facility.
Posted by Marshall Institute on Tue, Nov 29, 2011 @ 12:34 PM
With more than 17 years experience I feel that I have accumulated some useful Total Productive Maintenance/Total Process Reliability (TPM/TPR ) tips. In today's blog post I want to share a few of these tips with you. They should provide valuable ways to improve and optimize your TPM/TPR process.
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4 Effective and Quick Tips
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- Conduct a safety walk-through before the start of any Basic Equipment Care (BEC) workshop. Also conduct a safety and lock-out review before hitting the floor each day.
- Cleaning is inspection! With over 17 years of TPM/TPR implementation experience, it still amazes me how effective cleaning is at exposing defects. I have learned that if I see dirt, I will find defects when we clean.
- 5S is a great preparation activity for Total Productive Maintenance (TPM/TPR). It is fairly easy to implement and generally does not require a lot of maintenance resources. It can help show visible results and demonstrate that change is possible within the current environment.
- Quantify the improvements in your Total Productive Maintenance (TPM/TPR) process by documenting improvements in parts cost, equipment efficiency, quality, and reduced oil consumption. Partner with safety and environmental programs by demonstrating the impact of Total Productive Maintenance (TPM/TPR) on safety and the environment. The more value you highlight, the more support you'll receive.
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If you have any Total Productive Maintenance/Total Process Reliability tips you want to share please add them to the comment box below.
Thanks for reading!
Posted by Marshall Institute on Thu, Nov 17, 2011 @ 04:02 PM
In today's video I cover a cost-effective and quick-to-implement tactic that extends the life of equipment labels.
Often equipment labels become unfixed, scrapped and tattered due to the daily wear of plant life. These labels are important visual aids for operators and maintenance technicians and must be easy to read and clearly visible. Extending the life cycle of these labels becomes an important element of equipment reliability. Applying clear boxing tape over the labels will increase the adhesion surface area to protect labels from oil, lube, moisture; anything that could contaminate or destroy the labels. These are the two quick steps to improve the life cycle of your equipment labels:
- First clean the label and surrounding area
- Then apply the boxing tape over the label
That's enough talking/reading; watch my latest video on TPM visual controls. If you have any comments on my video, or related TPM visual control tips for your peers, please share them in the comments box below.
Posted by Marshall Institute on Fri, Nov 11, 2011 @ 10:09 AM
Defect Tags are great tools and visual aids for both operations and maintenance to use to identify equipment defects.
The 2 key advantages of Defect Tagging are:
- Other operators and maintenance people can see that a defect has been identified and that a work order has been created.
- When a work order has been made, and the repair planned and scheduled, the maintenance mechanic can see exactly where the defect is located on the piece of equipment.
In addition to Defect Tags, there are Opportunity Tags. These tags, colored differently from Defect Tags, highlight areas of improvement on a piece of equipment. Opportunities are not issues that are a concern for equipment reliability; they are ways to optimize the equipment for maintenance work or operation.
Defect and Opportunity Tags represent a continuous improvement practice. Such a practice is necessary for implementing and embedding the practices and philosophy of Total Productive Maintenance, or as we call it Total Process Reliability.
Posted by Marshall Institute on Mon, Nov 07, 2011 @ 02:56 PM
TPM colored transparency sheets are great tools to identify normal equipment operating conditions from abnormal.
My short instructional video outlines how to use TPM transparency sheets as a visual control to mark the normal operating range for a gauge. The value of the gauge marking is that it provides a very clear and quick way for operators to identify if equipment is running properly or not. This knowledge allows an operator to act quickly in the event that equipment is not running properly. Such as fast response may prevent a large failure from occuring.
If you are not currently using TPM transparency sheets as visual controls you should strongly consider it. For such a small investment the results can be significant. Check out the video below and start using transparency sheets today!
Posted by Marshall Institute on Thu, Oct 20, 2011 @ 12:52 PM
I’ve been in attendance at the 2011 SMRP conference in Greensboro,NC. Marshall Institute has an exhibitor booth set up and I have had the pleasure of manning this booth at various times when not attending the many training sessions offered this week. I have really enjoyed getting reacquainted with clients and friends I have had the pleasure of working with in the past as well as meeting new friends and acquaintances who share my passion for maintenance and reliability. If you are not an SMRP member, I highly recommend this organization. SMRP is a great recourse for improving your maintenance knowledge and skills through training, literature, networking, and support. Some of the highlights of this conference have been; really interesting papers, workshops, and breakout sessions given by many of the “Who’s Who” of the maintenance and reliability world. The exhibition hall was also packed with leading industry companies offering products and services specifically related to maintenance and reliability.
The NASCAR theme of this year’s conference has really 'driven home' the fact that NASCAR shares many parallels to the maintenance and reliability world. NASCAR must also continuously improve their processes, maintenance plans, and equipment life in order to be competitive. They accomplish these tasks by striving to be the best. They depend on improvement efforts that are driven from the top and supported from the bottom and vice versa. In other words, they have the support of top management to solicit ideas and suggestions from mechanics, drivers (operators), engineers, vendors, and customers to make them competitive. This is the same philosophy we teach at Marshall Institute for you to make your improvement efforts successful. NASCAR teams are the ultimate practitioners of MRO Stores; they absolutely must have the right parts at the right time in the right quantities in order to make necessary repairs to be competitive.
Well, I have to go, Greg Folts - President of Marshall Institute - is presenting at 1:30pm and I want to attend.
Till next time, Cheers.
Mark Jolley, Greg Folts and Andy Gager talking with a friend at our booth
Greg Folts delivers a paper with Don Beatty of Rock Tenn in a packed session
Tom Furnival speaks with Holcim's Kelly Broad
Tom Furnival hands over the iPad 2 (C) survey winner Dennis Nolan
Posted by Marshall Institute on Tue, Sep 27, 2011 @ 08:30 AM
Defect Elimination is the third and final recording from Marshall Institute's and facilitiesnet.com's webinar. Senior Consultant Mark Jolley delivered the webinar for Trade Press Media, the operators of facilitiesnet.com and Maintenance Solutions Magazine titled "7-Steps to Implementing Basic Equipment Care." The two previous posts covered the 7-Steps and the 5S'.
Today we'll cover Defect Elimination.
Click the video image below to play the short recorded webinar snippet covering the main elements of defect elimination.
If you have any comments we would love to hear from you. Leave a comment below.
