The Key Roles in Maintenance

Some years ago as a young engineer thrown into a Reliability manager's role, working on a site's reliability strategy, immersed in re invigorating a CMMS and stores system, engaging the trades in improving plant reliability and driving equipment effectiveness, I soon gained a real appreciation of the value of the people in the key roles in Maintenance. This appreciation was further enhanced when later attending a seminar run by South African Maintenance guru Roland Bergh. Roland talked about the Maintenance Manager's role being all encompassing and the key roles of maintenance being those of the Reliability Engineer, Maintenance Team Leader and Maintenance Planner. His thinking was that these three roles were interlinked as you could imagine in a Venn diagram with some overlap and yet also still quite distinct.

Last year, talking to maintenance leaders in companies I support across Victoria and Tasmania, it was highlighted that the people aspects in these key roles are still pivotal and for many quite a gap still exists between ideal and actual. This prompted us to plan for 2018 a series of  separate workshops across the region bringing people in those key roles together to share knowledge, expertise and their challenges, to understand what is needed to add value and very importantly create a support system of peers they can tap into across the region.

This year's  workshops include :

•  Role of the Reliability Engineer - Feb 21st - Yallourn Power station
•  Role of the Maintenance Planner - Mar 7th - Campbell's Soups
•  The Role of the Maintenance Team Leader - to be held Aug 8th - Bell Bay Aluminium
•  Maintenance Manager's tool box 1 day conference to be held Sep 20th - Mulgrave Country club

As indicated, we kicked off the year with a workshop on the Role of the Reliability Engineer kindly hosted by Energy Australia's Yallourn power station . The workshop brought together 29 people from 14 companies and across Victoria and Tasmania together to share knowledge and expertise.

 Shane Browne, Reliability Engineer shared his very own perspectives, capturing some insights from the well-established role of the reliability engineer at Yallourn power station. This workshop also provided some opportunity for focused group discussions on key topics. The key learning that to be successful it needs a dedicated person, there for the long term, removed from day to day but able to be pulled in as needed to support. They need accurate data and trades buy in, a good working understanding of the various tools (RCA, Criticality, PMO etc.) and very important  to highlight and celebrate wins to create and sustain momentum.

We next headed to Northern Regional Victoria at Campbell's Soups in Shepparton who kindly hosted a workshop on The Role of the Maintenance planner. The Maintenance planner can impact heavily on the productivity of the maintenance work force and make key contribution to the quality of the work delivered. The role can be wide ranging to include planning, scheduling and coordination of all planned maintenance works.

Campbell's Soups has over the years explored a few possibilities with the role of the Maintenance Planner with some good learnings and they kindly shared their perspective on the key aspects of this role. Particularly how with their current approach of not having a trades person in the role that means they are less distracted by reacting to events, but also more reliant on the Maintenance team leader and trades that creates some more shared aspects to the role.

We had 21 people attend this workshop from 13 companies and it gave the opportunity to share each other’s experiences with the role and also some focussed discussions on kind of things needed for the role. With specific learnings on the tools and analysis, kind of person needed (organised, attention to detail, good communication, flexibility), the training and processes required and how to tackle reactive, breakdowns and production pressures.

Our next workshop in this series on The Role of the Maintenance Team leader is kindly being hosted by Bell Bay Aluminium on 8th August. The role of the Maintenance Team leader is a key one in Maintenance that can be quite a challenging role as brings together not only balancing teams activities in preventative, corrective and predictive maintenance, but doing them in a safe manner and to a quality standard. There is a strong need to satisfy operations requests and needs, but also dealing with team and people issues, solving the problems and tackling the day to day challenges the role can bring.

At this workshop, Bell Bay Aluminium will share their own insights and learnings on a role they take quite seriously, as will also other companies present, making for a good opportunity to share knowledge and expertise on this important role. For more Info and to book on just follow the Link. Bell Bay is a short drive from Launceston which is a short flight across the Bass Straight, so certainly whether in Victoria or Tasmania look forward to seeing you there on what should be a great workshop.

The culmination of this series is the 20th September Roundtable meeting (1 day conference) on what I am calling The Maintenance Manager's Tool Box. The Maintenance manager's role is an all-encompassing one and this Roundtable will have presentations and opportunity for Round table discussion on the things a Maintenance manager can grab out of their tool box to put to their advantage in delivering strong value and benefit to a business.

The Roundtable meeting is on 20th of September at Mulgrave country club. With presentations on the Reliability Engineer - one of the most powerful resources a maintenance manager could have access, Strategy, KPIs, Leadership, systems and technology and optimising maintenance systems and strategies plus the opportunity for Round table discussion. For more info and to book on follow the Link