RCM Success - Difficult Decisions

There is nothing I enjoy more than getting a new customer started with a successful Reliability Centered Maintenance effort. The work and instruction that goes with setting a solid foundation that one can build on over time to improve reliability, reduce costs, and reduce the likelihood of health, safety and environmental incidents and accidents is well worth the reward as we see RCM drive a change in business culture.

What some companies fail to recognize however is setting this solid foundation requires a fair amount of expert level leadership, a proven plan or methodology and unrelenting trust in the people and methodology you have selected to help your company create this effort.
In my fifteen years of providing RCM Blitz™ to customers around the world the one thing our most successful customers all have in common is the ability to recognize that when it comes to providing RCM facilitation services as well as training, mentoring and certifying RCM facilitators, it is our people who have the expertise in RCM and it is their people who are the experts in business we are working in.

Building a world-class RCM effort requires a partnership between the company hiring the service and the company providing the service and the process will only work if the two companies work together to achieve a common goal. At GPAllied we understand that each customer we work with has a unique culture and for each company we work with to create a successful RCM effort we take the time up-front to work with their people to build solid foundation based on proven RCM principals. Good RCM is all about discipline, from defining how you intend to identify assets for analysis, to implementing and managing your new maintenance strategy.
Building a reputation of success not only comes with customers who have proven and sustained RCM efforts, your reputation also comes from what you refuse to do. While the consulting business can sometimes look easy, the toughest decisions we have to make are those where we elect to walk away from a potential customer based on their unwillingness to work as a true partner. At times there is nothing more difficult than stating the facts and refusing to move forward based on your own guiding principles.

Some of our most successful and long standing customers I'm sure can relate to times they have requested to begin a new RCM analysis only to hear me ask the question “How much of the last RCM we just completed has been implemented?” If the answer is less than 80% I will refuse to schedule the next event. Others have scoffed when I call a week prior to their planned analysis and remind them that if the information requested in the RCM contract is not available when I arrive, the analysis will not start.

But, for the growing number of companies who now understand what solid RCM foundation looks like and what a world-class RCM effort brings to their business, they celebrate the values, principals and discipline that are delivered with success.

If you’re looking for short cuts, you’re knocking on the wrong door. If you’re looking for a methodology that delivers proven results, give us a call!