Gestión de operaciones de activos | Establecer objetivos claros

If you’re sold on the idea of implementing an asset operations management (AOM) program and reaping the many benefits to your maintenance, reliability, and operations functions, as well as to the overall performance of your company, it’s time to get started. This next series of blogs will clearly outline all the steps you need to take to begin.

The first step is simple: establish clear objectives for your AOM program. Like any successful initiative, you’ll want to understand where you want to go in order to figure out how to get there. With something as powerful as AOM, it can be easy to get wrapped up in the potential improvements across so many areas that it can be challenging to focus on your biggest pain points. However, that’s exactly what you need to do to optimize AOM performance, see substantial and rapid return on investment, and obtain management and employee buy-in to continue investing in the system in the future.

Common Objectives to Consider

Some organizations may be able to immediately identify their most significant maintenance or asset problem while others may have a more difficult time selecting top priorities. To help you discern where to focus your efforts, here are some common possibilities:

• Reduce equipment breakdowns. If mission-critical assets are routinely breaking down, causing unplanned downtime, and leaving your workers with nothing to do, that’s a clear indication that finding a way to reduce those breakdowns should be the primary objective of AOM.

• Ease administrative burden. Some businesses find their documentation system is cumbersome and time-consuming, requiring as much or more time to record preventive maintenance tasks than to actually perform them. AOM can help reduce this administrative burden, freeing up more maintenance time for repairs and proactive work.

• Support predictive maintenance processes. If you have reactive and preventive maintenance under control, the next level of performance comes from predictive maintenance. AOM can help better support and manage sensors and alerts as well as analyze the data that comes from such tools.

• Improve MRO inventory management. The inability to effectively manage MRO inventory can be a huge waste of time and labor. If you find that your team is unable to locate the tools, equipment, and supplies necessary to maintain productivity, this may be an excellent objective for your AOM system.

• Track maintenance data. The amount of data is overwhelming today. The key to better decision making is to not only be able to gather all data in a centralized and comprehensive way, but to be able track it over time and then extract insights that can help a company take effective action.

Regardless of whether you select one or more of these or other objectives, you’ll want to be sure you establish clear goals that are based on your specific business’ needs. 

Tips on Selecting Objectives

Although the executive spearheading the AOM initiative may have some ideas of which objectives would be most appropriate, remember that the AOM model is based on a transformation of culture that must permeate all levels of the organization.

As such, it’s critical that you incorporate all levels and personnel in this initial step of setting clear objectives. Take time to discuss the question with technicians, supervisors, and managers. Find out what is making it difficult for them to succeed in their individual jobs and on their specific teams. Chances are the same type of issues will surface for many.

Once you select and articulate objectives, be sure to tie the AOM effort back to the input you received during the inquiry phase, so all employees feel part of the bigger effort. If technicians, supervisors, and managers feel heard and believe their own issues are being addressed through the AOM initiative, they will be much more likely to actively participate in the new program.

After your organization has made the final decision about initial goals, you can determine which tools or modules you may want to purchase, as well as identify workflows and processes that may need to be established or changed.

It’s also important to periodically check in with your employees to gather feedback on how they perceive objectives are being met. This information will not only help you share progress and small successes along the way, but also give you data to help you adjust and tweak the AOM system as you move forward to have an even greater impact. Establishing clear objectives will help you determine and measure the extent of your AOM implementation success.