A challenge facing any new breakthrough is learning how to communicate it. This is because our antennas are not yet tuned to pick it up.
A maintenance director may have put a finger on what I was missing. He said that a representative case would clarify for him how the practices explained by the book, Maintenance Reinvented and Business Success, are brought to bear by human activity and what is achieved. I think most of us have always thought in terms of laying out steps for methods and projects. His is a good idea because ultimately things are done by people working with each other.
Running with his idea, the first of three planned cases titled, The Road Traveled to Executed Returns, is now available [Click here].
Does the director’s idea and the first representative case work for you? Is there a situation for which you would like me to write a representative case to be shared with our profession?
Reference: See book Maintenance Reinvented and Business Success.
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January 4, 2010
December 9, 2009
Hottest search words on the internet
It’s a sign of the time; and also a much deeper problem. For some time now, our website has seen many visitors from searches for budgeting and variance reporting. Rather than just maintenance professionals, they are the searches of different professions in enterprise operations.
It’s a sign of the time that worries me because it will further tarnish the perspective of budgeting and variance reporting. At the same time it has exciting implications because our profession is now positioned to be one that keeps its firms out of the problem these desperate searches reveal.
The ability to plan and guide a business with effective budgeting (article available), and variance reporting (article available) and forecasting is an organizational skill. Furthermore, it is a skill that serves a purpose far beyond merely cost management.
An effective budget is a build-up from nonfinancial details connected to “what is success” with respect to the firm’s business strategies (article available) for the year. The nonfinancial details are transformed to dollars as they rollup along multiple paths through interface measures and the financial statements to returns. In turn, variance reporting gives the firm the skill to know if it is succeeding at its business strategy by measuring against the nonfinancial details and accordingly steer itself to the planned success.
Now I fear that traditional budgeting and variance reporting methods are being used as a tool of the devil. Consequently, I also fear that any current spark of interest to build the organizational skill for effective budgeting and variance reporting will be abandoned when good times return.
Firms that have effective budgeting and variance reporting would have used the skill to make the business better during these tough times. In turn, they would also use the skill to make the business better than it will otherwise be once good times return. If such firms were widespread, we would not see firms desperately searching the web for advice on budgeting and variance reporting.
I have a dream; one that is now at hand. It is that our profession soon becomes recognized in the executive suite as one of the few that have the knowledge base to make effective budgeting and variance reporting an organizational skill.
Reference: See Chapters 3, 6 and 8 of the book Maintenance Reinvented and Business Success.
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It’s a sign of the time that worries me because it will further tarnish the perspective of budgeting and variance reporting. At the same time it has exciting implications because our profession is now positioned to be one that keeps its firms out of the problem these desperate searches reveal.
The ability to plan and guide a business with effective budgeting (article available), and variance reporting (article available) and forecasting is an organizational skill. Furthermore, it is a skill that serves a purpose far beyond merely cost management.
An effective budget is a build-up from nonfinancial details connected to “what is success” with respect to the firm’s business strategies (article available) for the year. The nonfinancial details are transformed to dollars as they rollup along multiple paths through interface measures and the financial statements to returns. In turn, variance reporting gives the firm the skill to know if it is succeeding at its business strategy by measuring against the nonfinancial details and accordingly steer itself to the planned success.
Now I fear that traditional budgeting and variance reporting methods are being used as a tool of the devil. Consequently, I also fear that any current spark of interest to build the organizational skill for effective budgeting and variance reporting will be abandoned when good times return.
Firms that have effective budgeting and variance reporting would have used the skill to make the business better during these tough times. In turn, they would also use the skill to make the business better than it will otherwise be once good times return. If such firms were widespread, we would not see firms desperately searching the web for advice on budgeting and variance reporting.
I have a dream; one that is now at hand. It is that our profession soon becomes recognized in the executive suite as one of the few that have the knowledge base to make effective budgeting and variance reporting an organizational skill.
Reference: See Chapters 3, 6 and 8 of the book Maintenance Reinvented and Business Success.
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December 7, 2009
Comments on articles
Comments on book: Maintenance Reinvented and Business Success
December 6, 2009
Introducing the blog and its purpose
We have all heard many times the lament that maintenance is only regarded by management as a necessary evil, that management just doesn’t get it (which they do) or that getting a firm to improve and sustain maintenance efficiency and equipment uptime is like pushing a rope.
These are symptoms of a central problem. Our profession has not had in its bag of tricks (knowledge base) the MBA-type practices that would clearly align its programs to measurably move the line items and accounts of the firm’s financial statements (income statement, balance sheet and statement of cash flow).
The good news is that this is no longer a problem. The MBA-type practices to bridge the gap have finally been developed. They are identified and explained in the book donated to our profession titled, “Maintenance Reinvented and Business Success.”(1) You could say it is the business textbook for maintenance which we never had before. Just as important, senior managers find the practices and how to apply them to be spot-on. It only remains to put them into effect.
The purpose of this blog is to provide a forum to explore the practices. This is especially important because exploration has a powerful spinoff of building our collective ability (including mine) to communicate the practices and, in turn, successfully engage management in the boardroom-type of discussion they need with us before they can trust that any excellence program our profession offers will make the business better.
Therefore, let me put a first point of discussion on the table. In your view, are the above statements of problem and purpose on target? In your words, what should we collectively seek to accomplish at this blog site? Are there topics you wish the blog would address sooner rather than later?
(1) The link will present you with options to acquire the book: eBook (free) or paperback (at cost to produce and distribute). Also visit our website for articles and web pages that focus on the book.
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