271 – Developing Operational Standards with George Williams and Joe Anderson
Welcome Joe Anderson and George Williams back to the podcast. They are the founders of ReliabilityX and are consultants as well as trainers.
Briefly about them and Reliability X:
Reliability X covers all aspects of reliability; both operational and maintenance, coaching and currently creating online classes.
Joe Anderson has been in the pharma and food industries for 25 years before moving to consultancy.
George Williams has a background in pharma and medical devices rising from a technician over the years to a global reliability manager.
In this episode we covered:
- What are operational standards?
- Why would we need operational standards?
- Who develops standards?
What are operational standards?
It is a measure of excellence; what is currently being measured against the best practice in the industry then implementing changes needed to improve.
Is it creating benchmarks across a variety of areas of the company?
Every facet should have a standard in the organization.
Why would we need operational standards?
Needed for consistency and repeatability for growth in achieving the best results.
It also makes business sense so that we do not only maintain machines for their sake but for the business’ sake.
Are standards required in traditional companies or just in those embarking on TPM?
- It is just a question of whether you are doing well or poorly- all organizations need operational standards.
- Reliability helps in finding and naming the losses such as machine failures and process losses.
- Shows the prevailing conditions and the standards needed.
What is included in making operational standards?
Depends on the standards being developed; one-point lesson, single point lessons, knowledge standards.
If it is about a piece of equipment’s operations, then make procedural standards. Make the standards visual using pictures instead of using words to describe the pictures. Also ensure that simplicity centers the standard making process.
Who develops standards?
It ought to be a cross-functional exercise-
- Maintenance
- quality
- safety
- The entire operations teams
Get pieces of excellence across the shifts and transfer the knowledge of how these are achieved.
Why is maintenance involved yet it is an operation?
Maintenance need to be involved because:
- They cover gaps that would otherwise be missed by the operations team alone.
- Natures good relationship between operations and maintenance
- A chance to share and learn for all the departments.
- Maintenance can only succeed with a good operations team
- Maintenance needs to understand operations and not just fix and adjust pieces of equipment. They need to understand the impact of quality materials in machine adjustments and centers.
How do we make sure that a standard improves and evolves?
- They should be reviewed frequently and updated accordingly.
- Have a feedback loop
- Audit- Get all the functions in auditing the standards
- Building relationships with operations to quickly identify and solve issues.
What improvements should we expect after implementing the standards?
- Quality of products
- Reduced safety issues
- Efficiency will improve
- Cost reduction
- Producing more units in a day
However, change management is needed.
What advice do you have for those starting out?
- Develop a simple standard for a simple problem at first, apply and replicate
- Understand the business reason for the installation of the line.
What makes the biggest difference?
- Discipline and sustainably
- Continuously auditing the process to drive sustainability.
- Do the simple things first. ] They make the biggest difference
Key takeaways.
- Do it now and audit for improvements and to identify what works and what does not.
- Find a simple problem, create a simple standard, and solve it.
- Work with other departments, see a way to improve the business.
Eruditio Links:
George Williams and Joe Anderson Links:
- ReliabilityX.com
- Joe Anderson Linkedin
- George Willams Linkedin
- Past Episodes with Joe and George
- SMRP.org
- Reliable Plant Conference
- Book: TPM for Process Industries
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