S3:E1 Training New Maintenance Technicians with Ricky Smith

Ricky is the Expert in Residence at UpKeep, where he teaches our internal team and wider community more about maintenance and reliability! 

Summary

[Embedded content: https://anchor.fm/upkeep/embed/episodes/S3E1-Training-New-Maintenance-Technicians-with-Ricky-Smith-evbp6v]

Episode Show Notes

• What traits should new maintenance technicians possess?

• What metrics help gauge technician performance?

• What is the role of a great manager? 

Podcast Platforms

• Anchor FM

• Apple Podcasts

• Spotify

• YouTube

Transcript 

0:00:05.0 Ryan: Welcome to the Maintenance Community Podcast, a podcast for the people who absolutely love the industry that we're in, maintenance and reliability. I'm your host, Ryan, I'm the CEO and founder of UpKeep. In each episode I'll be meeting with an expert in the maintenance community to take a deep dive into the topics that help elevate this entire industry. Our topics are always sourced from the maintenance community Slack group, which is the largest online community of maintenance professionals all around the world. And today I'm super excited to kick things off with the one, the only, Ricky Smith. [chuckle] Ricky Smith is an expert in residence here at UpKeep and he also teaches a ton of internal teams, both here at UpKeep and also around the entire world, more about maintenance and reliability, so welcome back to the show, Ricky.

0:00:52.2 Ricky Smith: I'm excited to be here.

0:00:53.7 Ryan: For the listeners that might be new, could you start us off by sharing a little bit more about your background and how you were first introduced to this field of maintenance and reliability? 

0:01:02.4 RS: Started out in the US Army as a technician working on heavy equipment, bulldozers and graders and stuff like that. Went to work at Exxon and I worked at a refinery for a number of years, and finally got hired by a company, Alcoa Mt. Holly, and it was Alumax, one of the few plants in the world ever certified as world-class maintenance, having world-class maintenance. We had one of the first fully functional CMMS in the world at the time. Been a maintenance manager, maintenance supervisor, now I'm a consultant and trainer. I love education, I love training people.

0:01:35.2 Ryan: You've really dedicated a huge part of your life now, it seems like, to just helping educate others in this space, and a lot of it you do for absolute free, which I couldn't thank you enough for doing that, Ricky. So today's topic is really about training, discussing new technicians entering the workforce. What are some skills and traits that new maintenance technicians should possess? What do I need to have if I wanna become a maintenance technician to grow my career in this industry? 

0:02:08.2 RS: You have to have knowledge, first. So if you're electrical or mechanical, whatever it is, or you're multi-craft, you gotta have knowledge and knowledge comes from books and knowledge comes from training. The more you have experience the better, especially if you're ex-military, especially Air Force. And then the other thing, we want people that are dependable and know how to come to work every day, because we have a problem with this, and it's been around a long time when people just say, "Yeah, I don't really feel like going to work today." No, when you come to work for a company, you pledge allegiance to that company and you do whatever they need you to do.

0:02:42.1 Ryan: Where do you go for education experience? What are your thoughts around trade schools? What are your thoughts about, "Do I read books or do I go get a job and learn on the job?" [chuckle]

0:02:53.1 RS: The best thing to do is start in a technical college. I did start in technical college, believe it or not.

0:02:58.2 Ryan: Oh, really? 

0:02:58.2 RS: Yeah, Trident Technical College in Charleston, South Carolina is where I started. It gives you the foundation. In fact, I really started mine in trade school when I was in high school.

0:03:08.1 Ryan: There is a potential for a big, lucrative career in this space, but a lot of roles, it's like, "Okay, cool, we want five years, 10 years of experience." How do you get over that hump? 

0:03:19.3 RS: If you can't... If you find yourself you got the knowledge, you got the experience, you gotta have those things in your bag, in your tool box, let's put it that way, your tool box, attend workshops and training. All those certificates that you have when you go to workshops or even these webinars we do once a week, those things add up. They mean a lot to people, to companies. They wanna know that you're... Not just you're competent, but they wanna know that, "Are you a learner?" In maintenance, you've gotta be a learner 'cause you'll learn something new almost every day.

0:03:50.5 Ryan: Yeah, funny that you mention that because we actually have an internal thing here at UpKeep, it's not about what you've done in the past, it's about what you'll do in the future.

0:03:58.6 RS: That's right. Exactly.

0:04:00.2 Ryan: So it's not about how many years of experience that you have, it's about like, "Are you gonna be a constant, continuous learner to continue getting better the next five, the next 10 years ahead?"

0:04:12.0 RS: Yeah.

0:04:12.5 Ryan: So if we take that same conversation around getting your first role in maintenance and reliability, what if you flip that over into the manager side? If you were to advise a manager to go hire their first team, what would you advise them to look for in a group of maintenance technicians? How much do you care about experience? How much do you care about being a generalist versus being a specialist? How much do you care about educational background or worked on this particular industry vertical in the past? 

0:04:49.0 RS: I just want a minimum high school education, the minimum so that I know they have the fortitude and the caring about at least going through high school. I want people to come to work on time. If I'm a maintenance manager, I want people to come to work on time. It's a big problem.

0:05:04.6 Ryan: So show up, put the effort in, and it sounds like that's really what you're looking for.

0:05:09.8 RS: And don't complain.

0:05:11.2 Ryan: Don't complain.

0:05:12.4 RS: Don't complain.

0:05:13.5 Ryan: What about the specialist versus generalist, how important is that? I'm guessing it varies by role, by industry.

0:05:23.2 RS: Multi-craft technicians are important, they're critical. If you can get a multi-craft technician, the thing you gotta do, here's my common theme with a multi-craft technician, keep them. Okay, if they're good, they come to work every day, I don't care if they're the best multi-craft technician or not. If they come to work every day and they're competent, I'm good 'cause they see the whole picture.

0:05:47.0 Ryan: Yeah.

0:05:47.3 RS: When there's a problem in the machine, you don't have to call an electrician or call a mechanic, they see the whole picture. Multi-craft technicians are definitely... That's where we should be in most of the organizations, unfortunately, we don't. What I tell companies, if you have electricians, you have mechanics, but add a new position with some pre-requisites to it. They gotta attend training, they gotta... And typically, what I've done in the past when I was a maintenance manager, my technicians went to technical college during normal hours.

0:06:15.9 Ryan: They get the ability to see everything versus just one thing, and I can absolutely see how that's so important having a mechanic versus an electrician or having someone that can see both components, so important.

0:06:31.3 RS: See both sides, yeah.

0:06:33.7 Ryan: Yeah. Is there a good mix on the team where you want specialists, you want single craft technicians versus multi-craft technicians? Do you look for sort of a balance? 

0:06:46.4 RS: I wanna make sure I got balance in the crew. With me, we had some advanced hydraulics so when I hire new technicians, I made sure I hired someone that had at least some basic fundamentals of hydraulics, because we had Servo controls and variables placement pumps and all that most companies didn't have, so I had to make sure that I set it up the right way, get the right people, and then advance them forward.

0:07:10.5 Ryan: And then you also talked about this continuing education almost in their own time, it seems like, where, "Hey, yes, I might be a specialist in mechanic or hydraulics," but it also sounds like people were continuing to learn more about different trades and different industries, different components. Was that pushed by the company, by their boss, was it self-motivated? Just curious how that came about.

0:07:35.9 RS: The combination, combination of it. I mean, one of the things I used to do too, with my technicians, I'd bring salesmen in that I bought V-belts from and oil from and stuff. Bring their expert in and let them teach my maintenance people 'cause they know, these guys know, they know a lot, even though they may be a lubrication engineer we have from Exxon, and I'll tell you what, he was so good. He come in, my guys loved him, he taught them a lot. But it was only 30 minutes, that was it. That's all I needed.

0:08:05.9 Ryan: And that's actually a really good point, Ricky, because yeah, you can bring in these sales guys, they're happy to do it.

0:08:12.0 RS: Absolutely.

0:08:12.7 Ryan: It help builds a relationship, you might not need the products today, but they come in, they teach, you learn about it, you're exposed to what it can do and maybe once that issue does arise later down the road, now you actually have a team that understands what's possible, what's not, who's out there. What are the appropriate metrics to gauge a maintenance technician's performance? How do you know if they're doing a great job, a good job, an okay job, a terrible job? 

0:08:40.1 RS: One good when is rework. When you keep going back to the equipment again and again, you either didn't troubleshoot it correctly or you didn't make the repair correctly. Be able to say when I've got technicians working on certain jobs if rework is always showing up with Billy, then Billy is the one I need to have a conversation with privately and find out, what's going on? Is he having a problem at home or something else, "How can I help you?"

0:09:03.6 Ryan: And when you're talking about all these different metrics, but it always comes back to rework because that's something that is kind of like this mutual contract between you and the team. It's like, "Hey, when we send you out there, we expect that you will do it correctly." And rework is essentially the opposite of that. And what we also talk about quite a bit is how do you track that, how do you measure that? A lot of people and teams that we've talked to, don't have the best infrastructure to really look at, track, and measure rework.

0:09:36.8 RS: If you were to sort it by technician, on jobs you had to go back to within 30 days, then that tells you that we probably either didn't troubleshoot it properly or maybe they didn't have the right time to do it. I don't know, and that's why I need to do a root cause analysis of it, but I want the technician involved in that, not me telling them to do it. I want them to wanna do it. 'Cause you don't blame anybody, it's typically not a technician intentionally wanted to do the wrong thing. They wanna do the right thing, but if they are part of the discovery process of it then they won't do it again. And if they do, they go, "Oh my gosh, I'm a knucklehead. I gotta start over."

[chuckle]

0:10:22.5 Ryan: What is the role of a great manager? How does a great manager both share their experiences, mentor, train? What have you seen from the best mentors in the space, the best managers in the space? What do they do that other people don't? 

0:10:41.3 RS: Number one, lead by example. Don't ask someone to do something you wouldn't do. The other is if you have a manager, what things are you willing to accept and not accept? Like with equipment problem, but if it repeats itself over and over again, then I can't accept that. You gotta track the information, but I want the manager to be humble, I want them to be a true leader. I want the manager to respect everyone, including production, even though production might get a little crazy sometimes, that's okay. You have to use what I used to do called walk the plant, go outside and walk around outside of the plant, cool down, then come back and finish the conversation. If you have someone that is an officer in the Army Reserve or National Guard, they're an officer, they got the leadership principle. They may be a technician on the floor, but you wanna put them in a leadership position and it could be a lead person or something 'cause they've gone through the training, I mean, training that we could never imagine.

0:11:39.7 Ryan: Some great, great leadership qualities come out of, yeah, some of the most intense training that the military, the Army goes through so some of our best people here at Upkeep are vets themselves. Where do you go to continue learning more about the industry? Where do you go for new ideas? [chuckle]

0:11:58.4 RS: One is with Upkeep and the things you're doing all the time. That's a great place to go 'cause you got the webinars, what else you got? 

0:12:08.3 Ryan: We got everything. The podcast right now, we got...

0:12:10.8 RS: That's right, exactly, exactly. The podcasts are good, especially when you got one like this to deal with leadership. Let them understand, sit down and watch it together. Say, "Okay, what two things did you learn out of this podcast today?" "I didn't learn anything." "Okay, never mind."

[laughter]

0:12:32.3 Ryan: Well, hopefully our listeners learn a few...

0:12:33.7 RS: No, they wouldn't be saying that, they wouldn't be saying that. And then the webinars that we do every week. LinkedIn, if you're not a member of LinkedIn, you need to be on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is the number one for maintenance and reliability professionals. I don't know there I got 23,000 people, followers with me. They're not on there just to show up every day, they're there just to follow and learn, 'cause it's not just me, I tag other things like from you guys, I put it on my posts so they can see it. I don't do it because I'm just trying to make myself look good, I'm doing it to help them find new ideas, create new ideas and concepts.

0:13:12.1 Ryan: Alright, last question for me. I think I know the answer that you'll probably give Ricky, but where can our listeners follow you on your journey and connect with you? 

0:13:21.5 RS: LinkedIn.

0:13:22.4 Ryan: That's what I thought. [chuckle]

0:13:23.8 RS: LinkedIn. Ricky Smith CMRP.

0:13:26.1 Ryan: Thank you for joining us. Thank you to all of our listeners for tuning in to today's episode of the Maintenance Community Podcast. My name is Ryan, I'm the CEO and founder of Upkeep and you can also find me, I'm pretty active alongside Ricky on LinkedIn. Lastly, you can also find both me and Ricky in the Maintenance Community Slack group. Feel free to follow up with any questions from today's episode, future topics. You can sign up for our Slack group on Upkeep.org. I hope to connect with everyone soon and thank you again, Ricky.

0:13:54.4 RS: Thank you, everybody.

Be a part of the world's first Slack Group solely dedicated to those in the maintenance and reliability industry! 

Connect and network with over 4,000+ professionals working across 20+ different time zones, attend and receive recordings of free webinars and workshops, ask questions and engage in live discussions with industry experts, and so much more!

Sign up now and meet with maintenance and reliability professionals today!

Join The Maintenance Community Podcast!