Making the case for maintenance initiatives

Addressing three requirements will help you win over upper management

by Steve Stall

In an age of company downsizing, justifying major expenses to the keeper of the checkbook is a fact of life. Whether you’re buying a new computer or expanding/kicking off a maintenance department initiative, a compelling argument must be made.

Many maintenance managers struggle to communicate the benefits of their department’s needs in terms that upper management understands. In addition to knowing what drives market demand for a company’s products, making a business case for maintenance initiatives requires mutual understanding and communication, strategic planning and performance measurement to show return on investment (ROI).

Mutual understanding
In the manufacturing world, limited resources and management’s limited understanding of maintenance strategies are most often cited by maintenance department managers as the reasons for not implementing new initiatives and programs. The fact is, upper management holds the checkbook. And if they don’t understand the impact maintenance can have on an organization, it’s difficult to justify the additional expense.

The situation can be greatly improved by viewing the situation from upper management’s perspective and adopting four simple rules:

1) Eliminate the “us” vs. “them” mentality: To achieve maximum success within any organization, all departments must be united on their business objectives. The adversarial mind-set must be removed because it undermines the success of the whole organization.

2) Speak front-office language: Naturally, each group has its own lingo and communicates and pursues business objectives from different perspectives. In many cases, distinct differences in manufacturing terminology and front-office language leads to misinterpretations and a general lack of understanding among both maintenance leaders and top managers. Maintenance managers should avoid focusing too deeply on the technical aspects of a project.

3) Remember that it’s not a “management only” problem: Obviously, mutual understanding is a two-way street and, just as top managers often don’t completely understand the maintenance department’s view, the maintenance staff often doesn’t fully understand upper management’s perspective.

It’s up to the maintenance department to overcome this communication gap. One way to do this is to educate upper management on the value of maintenance, which involves helping them understand metrics such as ROI, overall equipment effectiveness (OEE), return on net assets (RONA) and uptime. Then, as maintenance functions become more tightly coupled to company profits and corresponding metrics, management increasingly can see the maintenance department as an important “contributor to success” rather than simply providing a “support role.”

4) Link to business goals: Effectively articulate — in management terms — what you hope to accomplish with your maintenance department initiatives and how these relate to the underlying business goals. For example, how does your need to improve machinery diagnostics relate to the overall organizational goal? When making your case, it is vital to stay objective, keep emotions out of the discussion, stick to the facts of the opportunity and the required investments, understand the business trends that drive the need and project ROI.

When providing specifics on the activities and tools, continue to relate the anticipated results back to the business drivers as they pertain to upper management goals and customer demands. For example, position the condition-based monitoring program as a method to improve equipment uptime and reduce expenses related to lost production and scrap, thereby improving the price per product ratio and directly linking business initiatives to top management goals.

Strategic maintenance
Once a company’s maintenance value has been aligned with the organization’s business goals, the next step is to develop a strategic plan that identifies exactly how the proposed initiatives will support the business. An effective maintenance department strategy outlines what you want to achieve as well as how the strategy will be implemented (the specific tools and technologies that will be used).

To avoid pitfalls, your first step is to conduct a broad-base assessment of the maintenance and engineering processes, as well as any activities that support the manufacturing process. This will also identify any factors that inhibit equipment or operator performance. It’s often the case that the root cause of a performance issue is hidden by how problems manifest themselves in the process.

The assessment process identifies performance issues, establishes baseline metrics and outlines recommended corrective actions that can be implemented through maintenance department initiatives (such as increased machine availability, reliability and safety). This methodology also provides the metrics needed to illustrate maintenance’s value to management.

Measure with metrics
Developing a set of methodologies for measuring and communicating the ROI is the final step in any well-built maintenance department program and will further support your case for new initiatives. Know what your weaknesses are and what should be overhauled first. And, determine what you need to fix and how much it will cost. Be sure to communicate how you plan to show results.

It’s also important to know who sets the expectations for ROI. Is it upper management? Or, do customers set the course? ROI can provide the closing rationale upper management needs to support your efforts (philosophically and financially).

You may want to find a common ground that both management and maintenance can use for evaluating project success by considering the metrics that will measure performance. For example, while upper management and maintenance may both measure equipment availability, inventory turns, uptime and meeting production goals, management alone may focus on production per unit of maintenance and RONA. On the other hand, plant-floor metrics that typically measure performance most likely will include schedule compliance, maintenance cost reductions, budget compliance, mean time between repair (MTBR) and mean time to repair (MTTR).

To show success, agree with upper management up front on how you will measure performance.

Conclusion
As manufacturers continue to align maintenance department activities with company goals and profitability, the value of maintenance initiatives will increase, as will the role of maintenance managers. More than ever, maintenance managers must effectively communicate the value their department brings to the organization, and ultimately the customer, and why investment in its initiatives makes solid financial sense.

Maintenance managers can learn to bridge the communication gap and be an effective translator between the front office and the plant floor. In the end, it’s about tying maintenance activities to the organization’s business goals and performance measures. s

Steve Stall is the business manager of plant services for Rockwell Automation. To learn more, call him at 414-382-4272 or e-mail him at sjstall@ra.rockwell.com. 

This article appeared in the December 2003/January 2004 issue of MRO Today magazine. Copyright 2003.

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