Influencing Change

Abstract

Chris and Fred discuss what it means (as a reliability engineer) to try and change something … even though the organization that thinks they are open to change really isn’t. What can we do?

Key Points

Join Chris and Fred as they discuss how reliability engineers help organizations actually change … especially when they don’t realize that they aren’t open to change. Perhaps you are asked to reduce downtime on a production line, but the line manager rejects all your recommendations because they only ever wanted you to reduce repair time. Perhaps you are asked to improve supplier reliability, but the organization says there is no time to implement your recommendations. What can we do?

Topics include:

Sometimes we need to do a better job at relating outcomes with inputs. Reliability engineers can sometimes be guilty of presenting graphs, charts and data that aren’t related to the metric that matters. You might be able to have data that suggests that optimizing the servicing interval increases the MTBF by 10 % … but if the organization is focused on uptime then this is not enough. Instead, try and relate servicing interval directly to uptime (or availability).
Sometimes data analysis is not enough. Especially for ‘fire-fighting’ organizations who are so used to being good at responding to field issues and simply aren’t used (comfortable?) with tackling the number of fires that start in the first place. So you need to appear credible. You need to be able to come up with good answers to questions asked by skeptics.
Know your audience. It doesn’t matter if you think your amazing report or data analysis is so good that it should stand alone … you need to know what sort of information they value and need to hear.

Enjoy an episode of Speaking of Reliability. Where you can join friends as they discuss reliability topics. Join us as we discuss topics ranging from design for reliability techniques to field data analysis approaches.