Empty The Ocean: What Can One Person Do To Create a Reliability Transformation?

by Terrence O'Hanlon, Publisher and CEO Reliabilityweb.com and Uptime Magazine

The journey from a typical reactive maintenance context to a proactive reliability based context is a long difficult journey.

Resistance seems to exist in every corner of the organization ranging from the maintenance team, the operators, the plant manager to top company management who are the fiduciaries of the plant assets and do not fully understand or are not willing to support the journey.

So what can one person do?  

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.~Margaret Mead

• Find others who think like you do and cement the commitment to proactive reliability actions. 
• Make a declaration to yourself and others that you will apply proactive reliability strategies and techniques where ever and whenever possible.  Your word and declaration hold great power.
•  Use specific words consistently so others will follow your example.   Misuse of words creates misunderstanding.  The last thing you need is a muddled story.
•  You can ask others who have made the journey what they did (meet them at online discussion groups, focused conferences, etc…).  Learning from others experience is powerful leverage and this is a sharing community.
•  Educate yourself on proactive reliability – the more you know – the more you can do. 
•  Read more than one book about proactive reliability.  There is NO one way to do things.
•  Tell stories to your co-workers and managers about what you are learning…OFTEN.  Stories have been around since caveman time and are a powerful change tool.  Make it a goal to hear others retelling the stories you told.

Remember that the Reliability Transformation journey takes place one step at a time, and you can surely make some steps all by yourself.  Hopefully your steps will gain momentum and others will join you to build on that momentum and create sustainability.

One person may not be able to change everything single-handedly, however one person can start a Reliability Transformation by changing how others think, the words they use and then, then way they act.

Think John Adams, Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi.  Your job should even be easier than theirs because you are not trying to change the world, only your small part of it!