How to build a reliability-focused re-engineering team

by Clair D. Urbain

Brad Peterson of Strategic Asset Management Inc., based in Burlington, Conn., helps industrial plants throughout the United States become more focused in reliability in their operations.  He offers these tips:

• Don’t start without top management commitment.  “It’s not a project or program.  It’s a way of life that requires a change in plant thinking,” he says.

• The first problem tackled should be visible, important and solvable.  In Showa Denko Carbon’s case (view "Breaking the bottleneck"), the gulpers were very visible and had the reputation of going out of service often.

• Put together the best team possible.  Cross all functions in the plant and use the best people in those functions.  “Having the corporate management representative from marketing on the committee brought a certain dynamic to the group.  He learned quite a bit about the production process of the product he sells.  He could also question certain processes because they were new to him and he had no ownership of them,” Peterson says.

• Don’t try it without training and creating a charter for the group.  Training gives the team skills ( the tools) to do the job.  At Showa Denko Carbon, the team training for all members as well as the root cause failure analysis training for two of the members helped them tackle the job at hand.  Making them write a charter crystallized the team’s goal.

• Require regular reports and keep everyone involved.  Requiring regular reports to management keeps the team on task and shows management’s commitment to the process.  It’s also important to keep plant departments informed, which aids their buy-in when changes are made.

(For more information on Showa Denko Carbon, view "Team focus: This isn't another 'flavor of the day'".)

This article appeared in the April/May 1998 issue of MRO Today magazine.  Copyright 1998.