Reliability is not the sole responsibility of the reliability engineer but results from nearly everyone in an organization making decisions that move toward the desired product reliability performance.
In a previous posting (#51, posted on June 13, 2014), I discussed product reliability, reliability engineering, and reliability management. As a reliability professional, I often find it necessary to explore ways to leverage my knowledge of these areas to change the culture within an organization to create a sustainable program that achieves reliable products time and again.
Every organization or product is different. The markets, expectations, and environments are all different.
The organization that incorporates reliability into its internal processes starting from the design phase will inevitably experience fewer failures and make more efficient use of its design team. This cultural aspect is but one factor impacting reliability.
The organizational structure of the business is another factor. There is no single organizational structure that leads to improved product reliability performance over any other structure.
Both centrally and distributed reliability teams have successfully created reliable products. Even the presence or absence of reliability professionals on staff is not an indicator of reliability performance.
Top-performing organizations use a common product reliability language and possess a culture that encourages and enables individuals to make informed decisions related to reliability.
Individuals across the organization know their role to both use and share information essential to making decisions. There is an overriding context for reliability decisions that balances the needs to meet customer expectations for reliability along with other criteria. Alignment exists among the organization’s mission, plans, priorities, and behaviors related to reliability.
Product reliability is not the only element that benefits from a proactive culture.
Whether top-performing organizations enjoy a proactive culture that naturally includes reliability activities to make decisions or evolved while improving product reliability to become a proactive organization with collateral benefits for other areas of running the business remains unclear. The latter is more likely, since it takes leadership to build and maintain a proactive organization, although some organizations focus on building a proactive reliability program and develop the benefits later in other functions of the business.
Moving the organizational block around the organizational chart may have some value, although it is not directly related to improving product reliability. It entails a more fundamental change than developing the reporting structures to transition from a reactive to proactive reliability program.
Once a group of people get settled into a routine way of accomplishing something, it is not a simple matter to change the process. Doing so requires overcoming organizational inertia. For reliability professionals to implement reliability improvements, overcoming this inertia entails working closely with key influencers, making the current reality visible and accessible, and celebrating successes.
Although every organization is different and every situation warrants its own approach, these three paths to overcoming inertia may facilitate implementation of any proposed changes.
Overcoming organization inertia is one crucial aspect of changing a reliability culture. Some organizations tend to react to reliability issues. Prototype testing and field returns continue to surprise the team.
The worst organizations fall into a cycle of always finding someone to blame. Better organizations set out to work to understand the problem and quickly resolve the issue. Some have better ‘fire departments’ then others. However, responding more quickly is often not the best way to deal with reliability.
The very best organizations prevent issues from creating surprises in the first place.
If you are in an organization that tends to react rather than prevent, consider how you should set about changing the culture. Effecting change by itself can often be difficult, and I offer a few ideas that can be useful as you confront this challenge.
1. Reflect the current situation back to the organization.
An assessment that examines the current way the organization includes reliability in its discussions and decisions creates a picture of the process, tools, and attitudes that form the current culture concerning reliability.
Is the organization simply saying ‘reliability is important’ and then focusing on other priorities? This often occurs when reliability is difficult to measure whereas cost is directly measured. How are tools such as FMEA and ALT being used in the organization? Are they used to just satisfy a checklist or to prioritize work and understand specific failure mechanisms? In either case, the degree to which the organization selects and uses tools to make decisions reflects its overall culture.
By creating a short report that includes what the organization does well, areas for improvement, and specific recommendations, you can make the current program visible and available for examination.
2. Create a vision of what could be.
With respect to changing a culture, what would success look like? How would you know that the culture has actually changed? You need to be specific and include concrete examples of what customers are saying, market share graphs, comments from co-workers, etc.
By painting a strong sensory image of what it will feel like when the culture has changed, you make the need for change compelling.
3. Map the steps needed to attain the goal.
A compelling vision is the goal, but it is insufficient to motivate change across your organization. A roadmap or plan detailing both obstacles and milestones can help. The idea is to show how to get started.
Explain the first step and how that will lead to the steps necessary to achieve the objective. For changes to an overall reliability program the steps may include improving data analysis, changes in ways you make data request from vendors, creation of a reliability/availability model, and starting to use HALT or FMEA.
4. Set expectations.
Within a larger organization establish expectations should be set for key individuals (e.g., change agents, respected individuals, and community links). This creates a very clear connection between their role in the organization and the proposed changes.
A handful of influential individuals working together to achieve change can very likely achieve success in effecting change.
5. Provide support and encouragement.
Change is hard work. It involves personal risk, learning new processes or techniques, and moving away from the known to the unknown.
Change does not occur with a single meeting or announcement and is an ongoing process. Some best practices include continuously encouraging attempts to move along the proposed path; answering questions, providing training, and shoring up confidence, checking in regularly with key change agents; rewarding successes, and highlighting value obtained along the way.
The improvement resulting from a change in a reliability program today does not immediately reduce warranty, for example. Often, a significant delay ensues before the benefits are realized. Providing tools and processes to estimate future value is essential. Changing reliability culture may take the coordination of one person and the support of a small team. The change of the conversation to include data, value, and customer reliability expectations may be sufficient to significantly prevent reliability problems. Effecting change will not be easy and will take some time to accomplish. Often, several cycles of product development are needed to create permanent change.
With a clear assessment of the current situation, a vivid vision for the future, a basic guide to get everyone started, and the regular addition of your energy to continue making progress, change is possible.
Bio:
Fred Schenkelberg is an experienced reliability engineering and management consultant with his firm FMS Reliability. His passion is working with teams to create cost-effective reliability programs that solve problems, create durable and reliable products, increase customer satisfaction, and reduce warranty costs. If you enjoyed this articles consider subscribing to the ongoing series Musings on Reliability and Maintenance Topics.