Mark Twain has been credited with a quote to the effect that the owner of a book who won’t read it has no advantage over a person who cannot read. We would call such a person an “analphabet,” and he or she surely would not feel flattered by the moniker.
Today’s enlightened managers are immersing themselves in results-oriented managing. Suppose a reliability manager desires his or her team-members’ individual weekly working hours not to exceed 42, but aims for work efforts to result in a progressively higher ratio of value-added work to time-wasted work. That manager will need to institute a reading program, and the following details sum up a good way to proceed.
To begin, the manager would select a book containing not even one consultant-conceived generality. He or she would pick a text written by a subject matter expert (SME) with reasonable credentials. By the way, to have reasonable credentials, SMEs in equipment reliability must—I believe—have the following three important ingredients in their mix of professional genes:
1. They must understand the underlying principles of physics that govern the equipment.
2. They will have applicable practical backgrounds or field experience.
3. They should display a temperament that causes angry outbursts in the purveyors of flim-flam and slander.
Reliability managers interested in such books should hand down mandatory reading assignments to their reliability engineers and technicians. Each would be asked to read a 20-pg. chapter over the coming 60 days and report back on what specific steps are advocated in the chapter, but not practiced by the manager’s staff. That would be Step 1.
Step 2 would be to compile a ledger. On the left side of the ledger the staffer would write down work practices and procedures that are wrongly advocated in the book. On the right side of the ledger, the staffer would list work practices and procedures that are superior to the ones presently practiced at the reader’s site.
All subsequent steps would simply follow common sense.TRR
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Heinz Bloch’s long professional career included assignments as Exxon Chemical’s Regional Machinery Specialist for the United States. A recognized subject-matter-expert on plant equipment and failure avoidance, he is the author of numerous books and articles, and continues to present at technical conferences around the world. Bloch holds B.S. and M.S. degrees in Mechanical Engineering and is an ASME Life Fellow. These days, he’s based near Houston, TX. Email him directly at heinzpbloch@gmail.com.
Tags: reliability, maintenance, training, professional development
