Prioritise People Eliminate the Not-invented-here Syndrome
End of Year is a good moment to evaluate the past year and think about how things could be done differently in the year ahead. Let's call these - appropriate for the times - New Year's resolutions. Some examples: prioritise people, focus on continuous improvement, increase the efficiency and reliability of your assets and learn from others. Too much for one year? Not if you integrate this in an improvement programme.
Certainly, the range of tasks of a maintenance or asset manager is extensive. Challenges arise sooner than you can eliminate them. What certainly helps is “support within the organisation”.
– When both management and the shop floor are “on board”, you are already halfway to your goal, says Remco Jonker, Partner at Mainnovation.
Share successes
Maintenance & Asset Management is actually primarily about people.
– People are the most important assets of a company. You can think of anything and pursue many things, but they need to implement it. Do they have the right skills, good tools, clear work orders?, says Jonker.
But also: are results shared and successes celebrated?
– This is the only way to create support, says Jonker.
– Then continuous improvement becomes a joint mission, in which everyone has and takes their own responsibilities.
Multi-site improvement
In small companies with one site, one production line and a relatively small team, this is easy to organise. But how do you tackle this in a multi-site environment? A company with multiple plants, perhaps even in different countries with central management on another continent. Is, in this case, improving together and sharing successes a utopia? Certainly not!
– But, it is necessary to take a very structured approach. Present a company-wide improvement programme with knowledge exchange, a standardised work process and focus on best practices, which are already successfully applied at certain locations, says Jonker.
Not-invented-here
For this approach to succeed, there are a number of pitfalls to consider.
– There are obviously differences to overcome between sites. Language differences and cultural differences. But market demand and SHEQ legislation may also differ between countries or regions. Or the IT landscape is not yet standardised says Jonker.
This could lead to clashing interests.
By sharing knowledge and implementing structured improvements, companies with multiple production sites can tackle challenges and achieve significant progress.
– For example: something is prescribed centrally, but locally there is no support to implement it. They say “That doesn't work here!” or “We already do it very well here!”
– This is called the not-invented-here syndrome. Other working methods are imposed without looking into the specific situation per location. This will lead to zero support, Jonker explains.
Improvement programme
By introducing an (inter)national improvement programme with clear objectives and a joint kick-off, it certainly is possible to develop new standards based on current best practices.
– Give this programme a catchy name and organise Knowledge Exchange Meetings. Here, let the ‘local hero’ tell their story and share results. This way, you can copy smart practices from good to less good plants. Also use internal competition to keep each other on their toes. This way it becomes exciting, it becomes fun and that too helps to create support, says Jonker
That this works has been Jonker's own experience at large companies such as Cargill, Royal Friesland Campina and DS Smith.
– Companies with ten or more production sites that share knowledge in this way and implement multi-site improvements. Then, as a maintenance manager, you are not alone, and it is suddenly feasible to tackle challenges in 2025. We wish you a valuable and successful new year!
Text: Laura van der Linde, mainnovation
Photos: mainnovation, freepik
