Gestión de operaciones de activos | Centro de costes a controlador de ingresos

Most companies view maintenance, reliability, and operations as simple necessities for doing business. Often, these departments are not considered revenue drivers; instead, they are seen as functions that “cut into” profits. Yes, they are needed, but no one really appreciates them in terms of contributions to the bottom line.

Unfortunately, this underlying belief can fuel employee conflict and infighting because departmental goals from that perspective cannot be achieved simultaneously. For example, an operations team may strive to minimize downtime to reach production goals for the day or week while, at the same time, a maintenance team wants to perform preventive maintenance, and a reliability team wants to explore root causes to a problem–both of which require shutting down that same production line.

This blog in the series discusses the eighth and final pillar of Asset Operations Management: Maintenance, Reliability, and Operations Are Revenue Drivers, Not Cost Centers. Let’s explore this further.

Shift and Align Department Objectives Under North Star Goal

Traditionally, maintenance, reliability, and operations tend to measure inputs and activity, not output and results. Hours worked, the number of work orders closed, or mean time between failure are common examples. The first step is to better align these functions under a system of objectives and key results, also known as an OKR system. The idea is to align departmental incentives through cascading goals that support a single company-wide North Star goal. 

Instead of beginning with departmental goals, the business as a whole has a main objective like production targets or revenue goals. Only then do departments set their own objectives that cascade from that North Star goal. For example, if a production goal is selected, the maintenance team may measure uptime while the operations team calculates the amount of materials per item used. The first objective supports efficient production and the second serves as a measure of asset performance and can help signal required repairs or inspection.

Expected Benefits

While it’s obvious that having all employees and teams aligned under a North Star goal should be more effective and efficient purely from a production and revenue perspective, there are many other hidden benefits that can also accrue.

Working for years in a department that’s viewed as a necessary evil can be somewhat demoralizing and have a negative impact on employee morale. No one likes to see themselves as simply a drain on company resources. At the same time, departments that are constantly fighting to achieve their own goals at the expense of a different department adds to that negative culture and environment. It can feel impossible to succeed both on an individual and departmental level. Both of these can increase employee dissatisfaction and attrition and, therefore, contribute to rising recruiting and training costs.

By shifting the belief that maintenance, reliability, and operations are important to the revenue generation efforts of the company, these employees get a seat at the table and a place on the team. When this is executed successfully, the company culture changes, employees are happier and more fulfilled, and internal knowledge and experience increase. This, in turn, contributes further to the bottom line.

A Balancing Act

When companies use an Asset Operations Management system, they arm themselves with the philosophy and tools to make this shift successfully. It will no doubt take some trial and error for each business to find that “sweet spot” between maintenance, reliability, and operations goals. It’s the classic challenge of balancing short- and long-term goals. Setting these goals over a time period of one year is often ideal as it’s a long enough time period for things to balance out, yet short enough to see and celebrate results. As departmental “eyes” stay focused on that North Star objective, everyone will work together to optimize overall performance, moving the company in the same focused direction.