It sounds cliché (and it is), but the keyword of the century is “speed“. Everything happens fast, spreads fast, changes fast, grows fast, dies fast. We live in an amazingly dynamic, unstable, and evolutionary society.
In the blink of an eye (or the click of a mouse,) everything can change. And it may be that the change in progress has nothing to do with what is changing or being changed. Adapting to this reality will increasingly be a matter of survival.
Business Centered Maintenance demands some changes
If the scenario is one of extreme changes, the right attitude from people and organisations should also be one of constant change.
Ability to adapt to this reality of dynamism, instability, and evolution is fundamental to the success of any person or organisation.
Instability arises due to three factors: technology, globalisation, and massification. Together they imply shortening the lifespan of products and services.
Technology has stopped walking and now it’s leaping. Globalisation has brought into the world economy more places and people from the countryside where novelties took time to arrive. From (almost) anywhere on the planet, we are accessible and connected. And massification has thrown down prices and increased the number of humans connected by this incredible thing called the internet.
That being the case, nothing and nobody can consider themselves outside global competitiveness.
Okay, that’s great, competitiveness is global, but what does Maintenance have to do with it?
Everything!
Companies launch new TVs, new smartphones, new cars every 3 months. A new app is released at Apple’s online store every 30 seconds.
What used to last years and years can now last months or even days. If we change, the customer changes, the companies change… why wouldn’t Maintenance, which is part of the companies, change at the same as well?
Business Centered Maintenance
If your facilities, your product or your processes haven’t changed, then why should Maintenance?
The answer is that Business Centered Maintenance is tuned to that “vibe” of instability, of mutating technology, of competition with those on the other side of the planet, of massification of access to information, at a speed beyond the control of those in command.
Every day, we need to break paradigms, review concepts, practices and mentality approaches in face of the demands of such a competitive world.
Even if there’s no apparent need for change, Maintenance, as a corporate role and integrated to the efforts for survival in the face of world competitiveness, must proactively anticipate the facts and no longer be the field that only moves when needed.
How Business Centered Maintenance should be done
Yes, we have to take care of prosaic and routine matters such as maintenance controls, documentation, indicators, failure rates, equipment availability, reliability, and so on. But when Maintenance is really in alignment, entered in the business, we can move further.
Every respected company has a well-established Mission, Vision, Goals, Objectives, and Values. Thus, those work in it, who from it, who relate to it, they all know who they are dealing with. Business Centered Maintenance (BCM) should be the same.
There are the 12 crucial points of good internal service, according to a Business-Centered Maintenance approach:
- Organisational Alignment
- Effectiveness and Reliability
- Costs and Budget
- Planning and Management of Information Systems
- Quality, Safety, and Environment
- Internal and Foreign Relations
- Personnel Management
- Logistics and Supplies
- Internal Organisation (Functional structures, resources, outsourcing contracts)
- Continuous Improvement
- Risk analysis
- Compliance
Business Centered Maintenance cannot be static. There are no analyses nor endpoints, but the practice of constantly identifying changes in possible scenarios and trends.
