I first met Ron Moore in the early 1990s. He is known as an icon in the reliability community and is the author of an excellent book entitled What Tool? When? This book tackles a delicate subject that is both difficult and controversial.

Moore examines and contrasts the world’s most notorious and respected philosophies in the field of maintenance and reliability. These include lean manufacturing, kaizen, total productive maintenance (TPM), Six Sigma, reliability-centered maintenance (RCM), root cause analysis (RCA), predictive maintenance (PdM) and others.

Which of these philosophies does a user organization really need? Is there a priority order or logical sequence to their use? Which produces the greater benefit or return for the lowest risk or investment? How sustainable are they? These are all great questions that require an answer, especially for those seeking a major transformation in their maintenance and reliability programs.

For those of you in the reliability field, this book is a must read. Lectures and interviews with Moore can also be found on YouTube and in the “Rooted in Reliability” podcasts for an abridged understanding of his main themes.

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You may not be surprised to know that most companies need a culture intervention – something like a 12-step program. This column will discuss behavioral issues that are often at the core of a culture of neglect and mediocracy. It borrows much from management science and leadership principles.

Over the years, we have had hundreds of conversations on this topic with individuals working in the field of maintenance and reliability. Some come from organizations infected with culture problems, while others represent businesses that have emerged from a successful transformation. Then there are those organizations that achieved transformation but regressed to their bad habits and past addictive practices.

Of course, the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. Past behavior establishes reputation, which many people use to judge others. You can judge culture in a similar way to help predict future maintenance and reliability performance. Behavior, values and decisions are all components of employee engagement. Engagement sharply impacts individual and business performance.

A positive, nurturing maintenance culture is a critical plant asset. Consider that when people do good work, they feel good about themselves and their job. When people do bad work, they feel bad about themselves and their job. Feeling bad is a serious morale problem that multiplies and spreads. The simple solution is to enable people to do good work that is recognized and celebrated.

This is both problem and solution. Culture drives behavior. Behavior influences quality of work. Quality work is fundamental to plant reliability and the cost of reliability. Why do we care? Reliability fosters job security and builds shareholder value.

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We’ve all seen change that was well-intentioned and purposeful. Yet most examples of change are not sustained over time and sadly cycled back to the ways of the past. The cause of this seems to resemble a powerful magnet that’s imbedded in every organization.

This magnet fights the positive forces of change. As soon as these forces weaken or lose focus, the magnet powers up and takes over. Before long, the business-as-usual beast has made its return.

Does this sound familiar? I’ve certainly seen it, and you most likely have, too. Remember those New Year’s resolutions? We know that all progress depends on change, yet change is not really change without a fail-safe plan to sustain it over multiple business cycles.

The need for this is especially true for transformational change due to the scale and magnitude of the effect on an organization. The process is often referred to as change management. Change must be enabled, and so does sustainability.

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People resist change not because they love the status quo but because they fear the uncertainty of what lies ahead. Yet, without change we are destined to repeat the past. After all, machines that are operated and repaired the same way will tend to wear out and fail the same way. And, for most organizations, what’s needed is not the tweaking of existing practices but rather throwing them out and starting over. Like people, organizations struggle through the transition period (denial-anger-bargaining-depression-acceptance). We all have vivid memories of change–even small things like the seatbelt law can cramp our style.

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