Asset maintenance excellence

Common issues and opportunities

In the journey to improve asset management and maintenance performance, clients commonly face issues and opportunities such as:

• Reversing ineffective practices in areas such as team capabilities, business planning processes, work management systems, communication and problem-solving
• Improving how data is identified and used to drive decision-making, including the selection of the right key performance indicators (KPIs)
• Developing more effective maintenance and equipment condition monitoring strategies and techniques including maintenance-based parts and materials management systems
• Mobilising the use of advanced approaches such as reliability centred maintenance
• Improving equipment performance in areas such as poor design or selection, breakdowns, excessive planned maintenance and a lack of parts or specialist support
• Embedding lean processes such as work menus and visual management systems
• Addressing a lack of discipline around planned maintenance (eg equipment not available, lack of correct parts or equipment, equipment not isolated for maintenance etc)
• Strengthening reporting structures and roles, and improving performance management, training and succession planning
• Being unclear about how to apply safety best practice efficiently and effectively in a way that integrates with operations
• Addressing low workforce productivity, whether from poor organisation and leadership, a misaligned culture, a lack of performance management, or a disconnect with broader goals
• Coaching and upskilling personnel in their roles and wider continual improvement planning, including leadership coaching in techniques to encourage high-performing teams
• Enabling digital transformation including an effective transition from paper-based to digital work management and support functions
• Converting the safety (and environmental) gains of digital transformation and automation initiatives and managing change during these transitions without a loss of safety performance.

In seeking improvement, it’s all too easy to overlook, undervalue or under-resource areas such as the impact of structure, roles and culture on asset management and maintenance, including the unique priorities of specialist roles (eg a reliability expert versus a maintenance engineer). We also find that clients typically focus on equipment and the related performance gap, which is almost always the symptom rather than the cause. Similarly, work productivity and quality are not important if unnecessary or the ‘wrong’ work is being performed. Taking the time for that analysis is critical. Linked to this is the powerful reality that observation of workgroup productivity in the field under normal work conditions is known to provide the ultimate indicator of the effectiveness of all work management systems – another trained but ‘simple’ pathway to improvement.

Our approach

Minset offers a comprehensive range of improvement services specifically focused on asset management and maintenance. We start with defining or understanding what’s happening by using audit tools and experience to determine the recommended scope of services. For asset management, we take a structured approach that focuses on people (eg reporting structures, role definition, expertise, motivation), role requirements (eg facilities, tools, equipment), work processes (eg role-related work systems, platforms) and management systems (eg KPIs, reports, performance measures). We critically balance strategies that drive efficiency with equal priorities around quality, effectiveness and safety.

For maintenance performance we usually start with a pre-visit assessment of the reporting organisational structure and role descriptions, move into an assessment of the strategy and tactics employed, followed by ‘time use’ observations to determine productivity performance against industry benchmarks and provide insights into the types and scale of waste. These early diagnosis activities inform a tailored approach to, and the structure of, each improvement program. A key differentiator is our ability to combine personnel capacity building with more traditional business improvement process systems and tools.

Delivering practical, accountable, shared value

Minset’s work delivers practical value to clients in areas such as:

• Leveraging proven business improvement techniques (eg Lean and Six Sigma) and our significant volume of asset management and maintenance-specific material for assured value
• Ensuring fundamentals are in place and sustainment mechanisms developed to maintain momentum
• Fast-tracking decisions around the right scale and speed of improvement through our focus on strategy, systems and people
• Achieving faster team buy-in by engaging a provider with direct experience in asset management and maintenance leadership roles, ensuring credibility and the ability to influence quickly
• Empowering workgroups to better identify and eliminate waste in all its forms
• Enabling more effective communication based on visual management techniques
• Enhancing a team’s ability to accurately measure performance against business requirements
• Extending a team’s understanding and effective application of advanced techniques as well as general maintenance work management skills
• Improving work levels and ultimate asset performance with a stronger understanding of roles, including unique roles such as reliability personnel
• Strengthening workgroup leadership and role management and the effectiveness of decision-making and issues management, supported by improved data management.