Shon Isenhour

Recent Posts

Maintenance Planners: Are they focused on the future or pulled into the present? Their boss decides!

Tuesday, 18 July 2017 by Shon Isenhour
How does organizational structure dictate focus? This week I am working with a client that is building their future state organizational structure to support reliability improvement. The question they ask was should the planners report to the maintenance supervisors for the area they plan for? My response was a sometimes controversial one but I truly believe it based on my experience and...

Are Your Reliability Efforts Haunted by the Lack of an Effective Plan?

Wednesday, 12 July 2017 by Shon Isenhour
So many facilities struggle with timely results and expected return on investments within their reliability improvement efforts. One of the demons that continuously shows it's face is the sequencing within the improvement plan. Sites tend to want to pursue the exciting and fun things and forget many of the foundational elements that support the shiny stuff. For example a site will purchase...

Confucius say: Planning and Scheduling Cause Confusion

Monday, 10 July 2017 by Shon Isenhour

The topic of planning and scheduling and what each one means has been a big discussion point. The Chinese appear to have only one word that means both planning and scheduling but in reality everywhere I teach from Europe to the Middle East and all across the Americas there is confusion  on the difference so today I thought I would share planning and then scheduling as the topic of the week....

Are You Forgetting Your Hard Earned Lessons? Could it cost you the war with your competitors?

Thursday, 06 July 2017 by Shon Isenhour

This video shows what would have to be called a best practice in the world of archery and, for that matter, war, that was forgotten and lost over time. Lars Andersen has rediscovered the technique through careful study and practice. An archer with this skill set, as you will see, could devastate the competition and possibly change the outcome of both battles and wars. Take a look and then think...

Reliability Engineering: Glorious Work or Laborious Work?

Monday, 03 July 2017 by Shon Isenhour
When you think of reliability engineering, especially in manufacturing, does your mind conjure up images of the glorious work of a Reliability Rockstar or the laborious work of the forgotten few? I think we all wish, at least sometimes, our day included marching as the Grand Marshall in the Uptime Parade followed by an afternoon writing your acceptance speech for the CMRP of the Year Award ; but...

FMEA: Its Not Just for Maintenance Anymore

Friday, 30 June 2017 by Shon Isenhour
I find it very interesting how many of the tools we reliability and maintenance engineers use within our jobs apply in a much broader sense. The obvious one is root cause analysis or RCA as it is known. It could be applied by anyone to solve nearly any problem. In fact in my workshops I have had operations, human resources, and even information technology folks learning about the processes and...

Do You Need More Wedding Planning in Your Plant Outage?

Monday, 19 June 2017 by Shon Isenhour

So lets talk about really solid outage planning and scheduling. Not the half-hearten effort that I sometimes see organizations pass off as planning and scheduling, we want to see the good stuff.

The Unsustainable Improvement Strategy: Three ways to ensure you fail.

Wednesday, 07 June 2017 by Shon Isenhour
Over more than ten years of consulting and training globally, I have watched a lot of companies spend an incredible amount of money to go after an organizational change in a very unsustainable way. Today's post will list three of the most frustrating and ineffective ways to make unsustainable change. Don't set out with failure as a goal or a likely destination. Problem #1: Asking consultants...

6 Questions About Your Reliability Vision That You Need To Answer.

Friday, 26 May 2017 by Shon Isenhour
Is your reliability vision driving you forward or is it just something you hang on the wall or put on the back of your business card? Here are six questions you might use to bring your vision to the forefront and driving effective change in your organization. 1. First have you created a reliability or asset management vision? Is it clear, concise, memorable, and easily explained to anyone in...

Quick Thoughts on Leadership

Monday, 24 April 2017 by Shon Isenhour
The following are just a few thoughts on leadership that I keep discovering... Feel free to add your own in the comments. Be Prepared:  If we as leaders show up without preparing or with the appearance of being unprepared then we create a bad experience for the team or group from the start. Do not let thank you be a set of words heard only once per year: They are simple words that mean a...
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