Hang On To Your Passion and Principles!

Are economic conditions improving for your operation? If they are not already improving, they will! Hang on to your passion and your principles for doing things right!

The downturn has been wreaking havoc on common sense management within heavy industry. In my visits with clients over the last two months, I noticed that many of the hard fought battles to establish disciplined maintenance were being surrendered. Maintenance departments are surrendering to corporate management's request to spend almost nothing.

Absolutely No Training Allowed

One client at a very complex plant told me that he would probably be found face down floating in a nearby river if he asked management for a budget to build some troubleshooting job aids that he needs. In response to my queries he said "not only are we not conducting maintenance training, we're not even doing basic maintenance". He went on to tell me that they will gamble on maintenance for the next six months and pay the price later. He said that he knew that the price would be very high.

Did this client really want me to believe that there was a threat to his life for proposing an investment in skills and performance? Of course not. But he was making it very clear that a serious edict had come down from above. He was also making clear that maintenance management progress was now in reverse.

Stay in the Game!

I have to wonder, does this mean that many of us who earlier fought hard to make progress in maintenance, have now let go of that passion? I can understand that if the company is nearly out of cash, that gambling on the maintenance of the plant might mean the difference between continuing to operate versus shutting down and laying everyone off. I suppose that like anyone else, a maintenance manager is thinking of his own family needs and his grocery bills and mortgage payment. If the company then instructs you not to spend on anything, you have to go along. Who wants to get laid off?

Another client who directs maintenance training and development for a large organization told me that his new game is tennis. He told me that serious liabilities come with the ball when it lands in his court. He told me that as soon as the ball arrives, he now hits it hard to get the ball as far from himself as possible. While describing the troublesome politics that plague his work I asked him to just imagine what the ideal solution might be. He told me that retirement was only a few years away now. Clearly he has removed himself from constructive and optimistic participation.



Basic Skills

This final story is a brain warper. I visited a client where we are producing job aids for a complex machine. I was there to gather additional data. The superintendent sent me out on to the plant floor with a supervisor. The supervisor first had me stop off in the machine shop. He had me help a group of tradesmen with a problem completely unrelated to the purpose of my visit.

They were struggling over a problem with a hydraulic cylinder that was creeping when it should not be. It was causing a lot of problems in the plant. After a few minutes of discussion in the machine shop it became apparent that the tradesmen were struggling with basic directional valve and hydraulic cylinder knowledge. I taught them what I could in the time I had during my visit. I took them online to show them where our free training resources are kept on our website. They were very grateful for the help.

When I got back to the superintendent's office I mentioned the discussions in the machine shop and that a two-day seminar that we provide would be very helpful. I was told that even though the plant was operating at near capacity, upper management had insisted that no training take place at this time as a cost saving measure.

Training Budget Trimmed?

Should expenditure on training be looked upon as a burdensome cost of production? Is it realistic to treat training and human development budgets in the same way as office supply and freight budgets? In the end a plant full of machinery only runs, or only runs well if a sharp and skilled crew is looking after it. In fact, if the plant cannot hire more help for the maintenance department, then you have to do better with the people you have. If the market has put pricing pressure on the plant's products, then the machinery has to run better than ever.

Fight - Put it on The Line!

Is training and development still at the forefront of your plant's operating philosophy? In the end it's all about people isn't it? We may once again have to fight for the good stuff,...the training as needed in our respective industrial departments.