Meeting Increased Market Demand Through Reliability Excellence

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0:11–0:22
Hello, my name is Randy Heisler, managing principal at Life Cycle Engineering. Today we will discuss meeting increased market demand through reliability excellence.

0:22–0:27
Thank goodness the recession is over.

0:27–0:37
There’s increased product demand. People want our products. And now the champagne problem is, can we make them?

0:37–0:54
Now, if we look back in history and we go back all the way, let’s say, to 1990 and we progress forward to today at 2011, a pivotal year was 2008. We’ll put that in there.

0:54–1:16
What occurred is that back in the 90s, if we look at our production, things were going along fairly good, up and down somewhat, but life was good until all of a sudden in 2008, the bottom dropped out. Panic set in.

1:16–1:25
Cost cutting occurred, harvesting of sorts in some cases of our assets just in order to survive.

1:25–1:49
But as we’ve come out of the recession, slowly starting, as the experts say, in 2009 things started to get better, although slowly and somewhat jerky. But now what is happening is that suddenly in 2011 we’re spiking back up.

1:49–2:15
How will we address that? Are we ready? Have we done the right things? Have we looked at all the key success factors around how we will now achieve this new increased demand? Let’s hope so. But let’s talk about some things that could be some key success factors in achieving today’s market.

2:15–2:24
Some questions to ask around if we’re ready or not. Let’s look at best practice processes.

2:24–2:36
Do we have those in place? Do people know what to do, when to do it, in the most efficient and effective manner, with waste removed?

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How about the condition of our assets? Have we kept those in good shape?

2:47–2:56
Have we maintained them? Has cost cutting put them into a less than desirable position?

2:56–3:09
What about parts? If we haven’t spent money, what do our quantity-on-hand numbers look like? Do we have what we need? Will we have what we need when we need it?

3:09–3:21
How about SOPs, standard operating procedures, or as some people call them, standard work instructions? Are those in place? Are they current?

3:21–3:35
Do people know how to start the machine, how to shut it down, how to operate it in the most effective way? What metrics are in place?

3:35–4:07
Are we measuring the right things? What about things like PM compliance? That will give us an indication that we’re taking care of our assets properly. Schedule compliance. Are we doing the right work when we need to do it? Are we shutting the equipment down to make the necessary repairs or PMs that need to be done in order to make that asset as reliable as possible?

4:07–4:34
Are we measuring it regularly through overall equipment effectiveness, showing that the availability, the quality, the run rate is where it needs to be in order to achieve the production rate that we desire. Once again, a champagne problem. But one more question to ask, who’s leading your reliability effort?

4:34–4:45
Is it operations? Some would question, well, why is that? I would ask this question again.

4:45–5:15
Who owns the reliability of your car? You or the mechanic that you take it in for service? The obvious answer is you as the operator. So if operations owns reliability and cares about these metrics, we’ll drive our operation into the right place in order to meet this increased market demand. If you want more information about this subject, go to www.lce.com.

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