Decision Making with Rob

Decision making is a major part of maintenance and reliability. The engineers have to make decisions all the time regarding assets, budgets, and risk analysis. There are some decisions that don t really have serious consequences but when it comes to asset management, every decision is important. They need to be economical and there should be a good balance between cost, risk, and asset performance. Most of the time, the managers are making all the decisions and they either do it based on their experience or they just go with their gut feeling.

In a more practical environment, the decisions should be made by involving everyone and the all the risks should be identified and addressed before proceeding with anything. Intelligent decision making is always based on solid data and it doesn t just focus on return on investment. All the other factors should be taken into account such as safety, environment, and potential risks. When the data is good, there s always uncertainty in the decision making and it should be acknowledged by the managers before they make any decision. The overall cost for an asset s lifecycle is very important to consider as it directly effects the asset management and ROI.

Some companies use logic trees and diagrams to predict results and they work well for some of those organizations. There are a lot of variables and questions that need to be taken into account before going with such approaches, so those are not the best solution on a larger scale. Predictive models where you can assign a financial value to every factor involved is the best way to go with asset decision making. It helps you get those numbers right that are needed to make an informed decision. It can be difficult to assign value to everything but cost benefit analysis can really help you determine the impacts of all the various factors involved.

It would become a standard practice over time and you can make the results consistent over the period of time by aligning that model to the organizational goals. There can be different models for operations and financial decision making but you need to come up with a way to fit them into your asset management program. It would take time and effort but getting it right is very important here. Not all the decisions will be high level and some would be very easy such as definite repairs and replacements.

The organizations should always be thinking long-term and shouldn t just focus on the financial side of things. Not all the decisions need high-level involvement and can be left to the experts but whenever you are making major decisions, all the concerned personnel should be made part of that decision. Once the decision is made, it should be put into action and communication is the key when you are executing it. It is very important to have that buy-in with the upper management or even the CEO. If what you are doing isn t working anymore, it s time to change it.

Eruditio Links:

• Eruditio
• HP Reliability
• James Kovacevic s LinkedIn
• Reliability Report

Rob Kalwarowsky Links:

• Rob – LinkedIn
• Linchpin by Seth Godin
• Rob’s Reliability Project
• Rob’s Reliability
• PEMAC
• Maintrain
• Asset Management Manitoba

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