As I’ve discussed reliability with many folks around North America, I continue to hear about the difficulty in getting buy in for a healthy, aggressive reliability program to be put in place. So if it’s so important, why is it so difficult?

The trick continues to be getting senior management to understand what reliability is and what it can do for bottom line corporate performance. Since it’s not easy to get the ear of senior folks much of the time, there is another way to consider going about this…

If you can identlfy an asset or process in your area of responsibility that fails a lot and matters a lot when it fails, that might be a great place to try a pilot. If it is truely a problem area, and given you and the team you work with can make a significant difference in how it’s performing, it’s got to receive serious attention. Once you’ve achieved that, the natural question asked is “what made such a difference”? There lies your opportunity to show how your team made this happen. The fact that it was a team effort, proven successful and not too hard to accomplish has got to start getting the attention of others in your organization. What better way to get a program to take hold then to show success and value for all to see. 

Give it a try, it just might make a ‘big’ difference.

May 25th, 2010   Al Weber   Strategy & Leadership   Leave a Comment »