If one takes a moment to review the breadth and depth of
the paradigm shift implicit in the foregoing paragraphs, it
soon becomes apparent just how far most organisations
have to move in order to adopt the new maxims. It simply
cannot happen overnight.
Nonetheless, RCM2 enables most users to put into
practice most of the changes described in this paper in less
than a year, and to recoup the associated investment in a
matter of months (if not weeks). However, so great is the
obsession which many businesses have with quick results
that even this is just not quick enough. Financial, regulatory and competitive pressures all conspire to make peo-
ple want lasting change now. As a result, people tend to
fall into the last and often saddest trap of all – the quest for
shortcuts.
Unfortunately, in the experience of the author, this quest
is invariably counterproductive. Firstly, the development
of the "shortcut" itself takes time – time which is spent
reinventing perfectly round wheels instead of getting on
with the job of improving asset performance. Secondly,
shortcuts nearly always end in sub-optimal solutions – so
much so that they often result in little or no change at all.
In fact, people who seek an effective, enduring maintenance program which has universal support should not
lose sight of the fact that improvement is a journey, not a
destination (the essence of the Kaizen philosophy). In the
field of asset management, this means that we should turn
away from the search for a silver bullet which will blow
away all our problems in an instant – the 1 x 100%
solution. Success is far more likely to be assured if we
think in terms of a silver shotgun shell, and set out to blow
away our problems one pellet (or one failure mode) at a
time – the 1000 x 0.1% approach which virtually guarantees 100% success to those with the patience to try it.
Thank you – and good hunting!