7th July 2008
Reactive to Predictive Maintenance - The Cultural Change
Michael Wood - July 2008
The increasing need for organisations to be responsive and competitive requires a new approach to leadership, one that considers managing the capability of both the hard (plant) and soft (people) assets.
The maintenance function is typically a technical environment, the realm of engineers and tradesmen. When implementing improvement, it is quite often an incomplete understanding of the complexities of culture and how to change it, that undermines improvement efforts.
Culture is actually quite complex, it operates across many levels and is largely intangible (see figure 1). Unless it promotes the behaviours necessary for achieving success, it can become a liability.
Figure 1: The Onion Model of Organisational Culture
The following table briefly compares the features of a reactive maintenance culture with a predictive maintenance culture across some of the levels shown in figure 1.
| Levels | Reactive Cultural Features | Predictive Cultural Features |
| Environment | Fluctuation between crisis and calmness | In control |
| Behavioural Norms | We play cards until we get the call everyone drops everything and we work hard together in a crisis
Work overtime to get breakdowns fixed |
PM’s are done on time and given priority
Clear lines of escalation are followed for a breakdown Everyone works to Work Orders |
| Capabilities | Crisis management
Able to make at least a temporary fix to all but the most serious breakdowns Quick martialling of required resources |
Detailed and accurate planning, scheduling and execution of planned maintenance activities
Able to control maintenance budget in line with optimal equipment availability and reliability |
| Shared Beliefs | If it isn’t broken, don’t fix it
Teamwork in a crisis We don’t need systems and measures |
The best way to maintain is to work out and then systematically apply individual equipment strategies. (PM’s)
We manage by systems and measures |
| Mission | We fix breakdowns our, mission is to do this as quickly as possible | We work together to systematically eliminate defects from an equipment system |
You can bet that there is a significant shift required to move from reactive to predictive maintenance. It also becomes obvious why an improvement strategy like “let’s just send all the planners to some training and then they can put in place the predictive maintenance system” is almost certain to fail.
Successful cultural change involves aligning all the stakeholders impacted by; their identity (what is my role), values (what is important), beliefs (what is the best way to maintain our equipment), knowledge and skills (know-what and know-how) and ultimately their behaviours to be successful.
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