Three reasons why I detest "wrench time" as a benchmarking tool.

Tuesday, 01 August 2017 by Shon Isenhour

Ranting about Reliability:

Wrench time and wrench time studies are two of the most misused, misunderstood, and painful to deal with elements of maintenance benchmarking for three reasons:

  • different definitions and standards
  • data that is skewed by the act of collection
  • overzealous comparisons of dissimilar metrics from different locations

We all like the implications of knowing the amount of non...

3 Reasons Why Operations Does Not Support Maintenance and Reliability

Monday, 31 July 2017 by Shon Isenhour

One of the most common things maintenance folks say is that operations does not support maintenance and reliability. It sounds like this:

"If it weren't for operations we would be reliable"

"They think their job is to break it and then it is our job to fix it... and fast"

"They will not let us have the equipment for PM and they wonder why it breaks down"

Want to know what operations has to say?...

Your Master Plan Meets My Needs! Let me tell you how.

Friday, 21 July 2017 by Shon Isenhour
Master planning our change initiatives is not always our favorite part of a new project but today I am going to show you why it is crucial to success when people are involved. You can forget this blog if your project does not affect people... which is approximately nearly never. So the master plan or project plan is simple a list of task that need to be done to complete the project and reach the...

The 10 Traits of High Maintenance Manufacturing Organizations:

Thursday, 20 July 2017 by Shon Isenhour
Seeing the Forbes Article on  The (Unlucky) 13 Traits of High Maintenance People it made me think. What are the traits of a high maintenance manufacturing organization or facilities? So let’s look at 10 of the 13 categories from the article but in the context of manufacturing and reliability. 1 -They have urgent “needs.” To a high maintenance sites, everything is urgent. All the repairs and...

68 Percent Infant Mortality: Not in my plant!

Wednesday, 19 July 2017 by Shon Isenhour

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...