Routine Maintenance Chain of Success that models the process steps required to drive financial results. If a process is working, we could expect that the number of work orders completed would go up and hours per work order would go down, while equipment uptime improved and material usage went down. The resulting business impact would be better financial results via improved product throughput, along with cost savings from reduced operations and maintenance expenses and fewer recordable accidents.
Frequently, managers 1) confuse the human learning curve for resistance to change; and 2) don’t consistently utilize metrics to direct work. Therefore, ensuring full process installation and sustainability requires extensive coaching of first-line, middle and senior executives as the organization learns how to adjust to new process expectations and to productively use metrics to improve.
In short, the Chain of Success defines and illustrates how a process creates results. As noted previously, processes exist not as an end in themselves, but for a specific purpose. For plant managers, performance success rests on operational and maintenance processes resulting in the achievement of annual revenue and safety targets; for supervisors, articulating a clear rationale for matching behavior with procedure helps transcend any one individual’s process preferences and working habits for the overall enterprise good. Moreover, having metrics provides teams with required improvement feedback. With compliance to procedures, operators understand that what they consistently do on the job is the difference between a thriving, growing enterprise and one with a wider opportunity for equipment failure.