Knowing the importance of organizational vision, mission, goals and objectives is vital in order to become a world-class maintainer in terms of safety and quality of work. The process requires the clear setting of goals for achieving strategic and operational plans and, ultimately, to deliver optimal productivity from the boardroom to the shop floor.
Create a vision statement
As strategic goals are set by the top executives of the organization, turning those goals into reality requires the clear definition of what the organization wants to become as well as where it will be in the future. What maintenance departments are required to do in order to achieve those goals means measurable steps must be clearly defined and understood by all involved. Targets regarding equipment uptime, schedule compliance, work planning effectiveness, and cost efficiency and work force productivity must be agreed upon and clearly communicated to maintenance teams.
In order to achieve that, a clear understanding of the current situation is vital so maintenance managers and their teams can visualize the disparity between that situation and the strategic objectives to better understand what is needed to bridge the gap. Once that has been established, areas such as preventive maintenance and active supervision goals should be analyzed and steps toward those goals laid out in detail.
Managing objective clashes
No one subsystem alone can deliver the organization’s ultimate objective of profitability. Every subsystem is needed to deliver on customer-supplier requirements efficiently and effectively in order to get there. However, objectives for different departments can, and often do, clash. For example, production may need extra hours to meet its production target by a certain time and be denied all access to the equipment, meaning agreed and committed maintenance work cannot proceed. If it is to be rescheduled then a ripple effect is created and it may be expedient to cancel the work order. Management must resist this temptation as once done, the entire schedule can be thrown into disarray and threaten the planning integrity.
In such cases, communication and commitment to the schedule are the keys to preserving planning integrity. Changes to production plans must be communicated to all stakeholders to provide sufficient time to revise the maintenance schedule, reducing disruptions to plans and eliminating lost time. Early understanding and acceptance that the customer-supplier model exists between operational cells within an organization will greatly enhance delivery to a set of agreed objectives.
Equipment availability
Maintenance objectives must be aligned to its mission and support production’s strategic and operational plans established above. The No. 1 objective should be that of maintaining equipment availability because any delays in obtaining the right tools can mean the correct maintenance cannot be performed on time, causing schedule break-ins and an increasing work order backlog. That also goes for the reliability of equipment; managers must make sure tools are fit for purpose.
Sticking to a committed schedule of work and ensuring the availability of material support will positively contribute to reducing unplanned downtime. Emergency breakdown situations and conditions will occur but so long as the optimal response has been planned and is efficiently carried out, the knock-on effect should be limited.
Progress from top to bottom
Once the above steps have been implemented, an evaluation process that tracks progress and is communicated at all levels is vital. Providing meaningful management information via the consistent and regular measurement of performance — for example, using a Performance Management System and holding frequent review meetings — will go a long way in securing continuous improvement. In doing so, translating overall company vision to enhanced productivity on the shop floor will turn that vision into reality.
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