Now
days the Operational Reliability improvement process is laying on team
work. RCM, RBI, RCFA, TPM, etc. all of these techniques need teamwork on
long term basis. In this article you may find some useful guides about how
to implement them in a good way. They are personal experiences acquired in
big projects, so they can not be taken like 100 % "fail-safe"
rules.
Teamwork
Nature:
Cross-functional, highly proactive, and self-motivated team. Integrated by
people of departments of Maintenance, Operations, and Specialist (invited
by special requirements). These people will have to be highly familiarized
with subjects that they are incumbent on to them. The team will be
directed by a facilitator coming or not from the named departments.
The
improvement of the performance implies contributions in attitudes,
organization, knowledge, cultural patterns and results.
Functions:
Make
activities of continuous improvements in the company activities. These may
be grouped in two front of work:
Reactive
Activities: Root Cause Analysis
Proactive
Activities: Reliability Centered Maintenance, Risk Based Inspection,
etc.
Previous
Activities:
These
analyses allow us to set an implementation order so that we can use the
techniques named above.
Lost
Opportunities Analysis: i.e. before Root Cause Analysis (RCA)
Criticality
Analysis: i.e. before Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM), Risk
Based Inspection (RBI).
Activities
to perform:
Set
the work teams. Select personal of the right profile according to the
project nature. Select natural replacement for each team member. It is
important to avoid problems related with vacations, transfer, etc. of
the team members.
Prepare
an inventory of systems or opportunities to analyze.
Perform
the criticality and/or lost opportunities analyses.
Prepare
an implementation order for the techniques to be used.
Estimate
the possible impact for the company in each system/opportunity.
Select
the systems/opportunity with bigger impact and the best probability to
succeed.
Define
the work objectives. Define clearly the systems functions and/or the
nature of the opportunities.
Prepare
the activity schedule. The nature of this schedule depends on the team,
and limits/needs of the team. The program may include meetings in a
weekly, daily, two-weekly or full time dedication (i.e. per system).
The
work program will have to arrive until the implantation from activities
and its pursuit. NOT TO FALL IN THE SYNDROME OF SOLUTIONS IN PAPER !!!!.
Prepare
a contingency plan avoiding any delay due to foreseeable reasons, i.e.
vacation, sickness of the team member.
Obtain
consensus with the management previous points.
Begin
the analysis. Starting off a simple but concise documentation of
previous points.
Complete
the analysis.
Suggest
solutions.
Evaluate
the economic feasibility of the suggested solutions.
Document
the whole process, make small summaries/presentations for management
purpose.
Turn
into realty the suggestion propose and justified by the work team.
Track
the activity implementations and their results.
Verify
whether the results are applicable in other areas of the company.
Perform
a workshop to analyze how the total process is working, make the
corrections. CONTINUO IMPROVEMENT IS REACHED HERE.
Perform
the next analysis only IF THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE LAST ANALYSIS HAS
BEEN COMPLETED.
Facilitator’s
Role
The
facilitator is the team leader, will have to facilitate the implementation
of philosophies and techniques to use, taking advantage of the different
skill from the personal who work in the teams. Facilitators will have to be
competent enough in the following areas:
Techniques/tools
to use
Analysis
Managing
meetings
Time
keeping
Administration,
logistic
Communications
The
typical functions of the facilitator include:
Organize
and to direct all the inherent activities to the project.
Planning,
programming and direction of meetings. Guarantee the execution of the
meeting in any case. Therefore must handle alternatives to resolve any
problem with the team member.
Select
the level, define the borders and the work scope, and besides consider
the impact, the duration and the resources required for the same.
Guarantee
the understanding of every step to take.
Guarantee
the right order of implementation; avoid giving methodological jumps
that affect the process integrity.
Assure
that the project fulfill within the plan with a margin of error
acceptable.
Co-ordinate
all support material for the teamwork (drawings, diagrams, etc.), as
well as, documentation keeping and sharing it in line with the team.
To
be the focal point of communications of the team, centralizing the
information related to the work. Keep the management aware about every
plan and progress of activity, generating high quality reports.
To
be the technical voice that clarifies every doubt (methodological)
presented by the team.
Transcript
the data generated if it is needed.
Research
deeply on the treated subjects and not to admit uncompleted
information, in many cases verify the information generated in the
meetings. So, he/she must have judgment enough to know if specialists
are needed.
Assure
that solutions surpass the level of technical reports, be say be
implant real.
Recognize
training needs of the team members and lend it when be required and be
to his/her level.
Assure
the consensus reaching of the decision making.
Encourage
the team.
Manage
the problems: personal relationship, interruptions, etc.
Who would
have be Facilitator?
Facilitators
are key people in a project performing. Better results are possible with
facilitators on a full time rather than part time dedication. The good
facilitator has a wide sense of ownership on the assets. Must have a
reasonable knowledge about the process, but should not be necessarily an
expert.
Based on
assuring the long-term commitment in the project the use of facilitators
coming from the company and in a full time dedication is recommended.
About the
Meetings:
The
team must have common objectives, good methodological knowledge, and
an action plan/program.
Special
care must be taken with specialist invited in order to provide them
with enough and clear information before and after the meeting.
The
work session must not be longer the 90 min. 15 min. breaks between
sessions (if journeys longer than 90 min. are planned).
Remember
that the meeting are social events should be pleasant events (these
projects sometime last years).
Of
not been possible to reunite all the team, could be made sessions of
work by specialty, assuring the participation of operations
representatives.
The
facilitator will prepare an agenda with objectives to fulfill in the
meeting and they should be verified at the end of the same.
Never
to suspend a meeting without fixing the next meeting.
The
meeting environment must be blameless.
Avoid
bad critics about team member opinions. The team should solve the
internal problems without external comments.
The
facilitator will have to animate to the participation of all the
member of an enthusiastic way.
The
time should be used in an intelligent and effective way.
The
key information should be validated before taking further steps.
Work
based on facts and not on suppositions.
Work
on solutions for problems instead problems for solutions.
Assigned
and no completed activities produces serious problems. The facilitator
should assure the ways to allow the team member to do the work.
Differ
big subjects for when enough information is had about them.
Communications
Communication
is the vital sap of this kind of big project.
The
facilitator could channel communications.
Communications
should cover the all organization.
The
facilitator should be a good salesman of the project and results, so
that could allocate resources for them.
Billboards
with allusive information about the project and results are invaluable
help.
A
graph with result ($$ Vs. Time) obtained could be useful.
About the
author:
José
Durán is Electrical engineer with a Master Degree in maintenance
Engineering. In the last years He has been working like consultant engineer
in Operational Reliability for oil companies in Venezuela and Colombia,
consulting, training, and facilitating in activities like: Reliability
Centered Maintenance, Industrial Risk Management, Maintenance Optimization,
Maintenance Project Management, etc. Covering different fields of oil
industry like extraction, pumping, oil refining, service like power
generation, gas injection, etc.More
information: please contact him by:Email:
jduran@ieee.orgFax:
(011)58-74-446159 (Venezuela)
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