Transparency and Understanding of the Turnaround, Project or Maintenance Vision

Being involved with a team that is, in my opinion, in charge of empowering a major cultural shift I have found the most useful tools are honesty, a firm ethical foundation and transparency regarding the goal that will facilitate good relationships and confidence in our processes and vision.
It also has been my experience that any change that effects the current status-quo is subject to some anxiety and resistance.
With these things said, many organizations have a good idea of the challenges of Facility Maintenance, Turnarounds and Projects. However sometimes each functional group makes assumptions that we are all in the loop with the who, where, what and when things are being done. This is where developing a process to ensure clear common understanding and being of service. What does this mean… from the functional discipline perspective.
Although the thoughts below apply to Turnaround events it does not take much work to expand to Maintenance and Project environments.

Ensuring a clear and common understanding:

Making sure everyone has been presented with and know where to access the latest versions of the communications plan (stakeholders identified, Organizational Chart, roles & responsibilities, RASCI chart, contact list, distribution matrix) and how to use it.

Ensuring stakeholders whose scope was not included in the TA understand they will not receive scope from the TA group - example: Software Upgrade Project

Making sure all functional managers have the latest copy of the schedule
Ensuring managers receive Status Reports

Making sure stakeholders understand who is responsible for providing Schedule Activity updates, expected format, when and frequency.

Ensuring all divisions are required at the daily TA Progress Meeting to communicate support, critical tasks, forecasted high risk activities, safety events as outlined within the agenda.Being of Service:

Utilizing the Schedule and Daily TA Meeting to ensure stakeholders know about information that will affect them. Utilizing the Daily TA Meeting to provide a platform for the management of potential roadblocks Utilizing the Daily TA Meeting to review risks and develop options

Essentially from a high level effective changes require buy-in. Stakeholders need to be informed, introduced gradually into new changes, have some involvement and control. This requires a concerted effort from the team introducing the change.

There are considerable impacts of poor communication processes including, misunderstandings, assumptions and missed opportunities. The resulting consequences are realized through loss of productivity, rework and confidence. These factors precipitate when the Turnaround, Project or Maintenance function encounters budget, time, scope and quality losses.

Continuous Improvement - Do you mean business?

For those who know me understand I am part idealist and part pragmatist. The idealist would say, the standards we develop and agree upon, once established should be designed to never be changed. Thereby negating the need to update or change the products or services we use. The pragmatist would say, standards will always need refining and challenges are to be expected.
At some level we all struggle with balancing our environmental needs to, essentially, maintain the status quo. However, every once in a while a new technology or process allows us to re-imagine and revolutionize the way we work. This is especially appealing when it resonates with both the idealist and pragmatic parts of us. When a person or company is able to provide goods and services that truly delivers a safety, cost and time savings that is sustainable, then we have achieved true value. That means creating real value; not simply selling blanket statements and illusive promises. The value happens when we deliver on the objective of customer satisfaction.

With this said there is a new kid in town with the name of "PERI" Scaffold. As far as I can see they have redesigned and re-engineered the Scaffold as we know it today. Believe it or not, they are also the largest and most distinctive Scaffold company in the world. Being in the Oil & Gas business for most of my adult life, I am, somewhat embarrassed to tell you I have not heard of this company. I wonder if I have been living in a vacuum watching B&W TV while my neighbours are enjoying 3D LCD's. The worst part is they are, ultimately, paying less and getting more value.

Although it may seem that I am endorsing a company, this is not my sole intent. However, I do believe the tools we use enable us to realize the continuous improvement initiatives we all endorse.

Ask yourself the question..."Are your Shoes Tied?

"There are only 10 kinds of people: those who understand binary; those who don't"

Organizational Turnaround

Before we get too far... the Turnaround I will alluding to is the tweaking of a maintenance organizational structure that was operating in fire-fighting mode. The turnaround respective has been the journey from reactive maintenance to proactive planning, scheduling and reporting; essentially, maturity.

During the past few years I spent a significant amount of time reading many technical manuals, SOP's, procedures and theories focusing on facility maintenance, turnarounds and project management. An equal amount of effort spent on developing and maintaining procedures, work processes, estimating and reporting functions tailored to meet the specific requirements of the management group. Yet the greatest challenge was getting everyone on the same page and building confidence in a systematic approach that ensures reasonable outputs.

Rewind a couple of years...
As a maintenance contract company we were launching into a new relationship with an owner we had no real experience working with... all we really knew is that we were asked to provide more than we were accustom to delivering; as we were primarily a resource provider with a limited management infrastructure. The environment was suspicious and resilient to what we were offering. Our plans for change were clear, however our framework was not as defined as we didn't fully understand the cultural boundaries and thresholds. With this we experienced limited buy-in by most all stakeholder groups, both from our newly adopted folks as well as other contractors and customers. Struggles were a daily occurrence as the overriding philosophy was..."we fix things that are broken...we fight fires, that's it". The ideologies we prescribed seemed to be perceived as a risk to the environment, individual freedom, control and security.

Our mandate was simply to effectively manage our contractual obligations and perform to a level of competence we promised.

To be successful we needed to integrate our corporate methodologies...then establish and maintain a framework tailored that would meet our goals. First was to establish an organizational structure, develop communication, and responsibility outlines. Once the resource management framework was determined the Planning, Scheduling and Reporting configuration process was formulated. This platform would allow us to qualify base resource requirements, decrease safety incidents, decrease over-time and increase productivity. The greatest hurdle seemed to be the decreased overtime and the reconfiguration of crews to meet the objective needs of the facility. The next step was to understand the current work system and mentor an improvement initiative. This included a detailed work prioritization matrix, work order approval methodology, planning templates, re-usable job plan database, scheduling management plan, a reporting structure and a backlog management plan bolstered by thresholds and triggers. We also knew, in order to be effective it was important to map out the process which craft crews functioned. This defined process ensured the planner received required information to develop an efficient work plan that could utilize support and lead disciplines effectively. The craft resources now have time to review the scope for the week, gather materials, tools and safely manage work activities without the risks associated with emergency situations. However with all of the changes we are conscious that, in order to truly be successful we need to maintain and update the organizational framework components and supporting elements as our stakeholder group changes and grows.

Finally what I have learned is, with the right tools in place along with a well trained and efficient base craft team utilizing the approved processes maturity will be achieved.