Budgeting is upon us, so it’s a good time for setting goals and reviewing strategies.
I thought I’d share what I consider dangerous asset management objectives and practical tips on how to stop them from slowing you down.
Danger 1: Misaligned Asset Management Objectives
I’ve been called into plenty of sites where misalignment of objectives is generating major problems.
Over time, misalignment slips in to negatively impact the organisation’s ability to hit operational targets. Examples include a disconnect between asset management objectives and budgets or organisational capabilities and processes.
As a result, the organisation is wasting time and money on multiple fronts, like:
- Duplication of work between teams or colleagues.
- Gaps in workflow and data, generating re-work, unplanned breakdowns and productivity issues.
- Resourcing issues and low team morale.
- Day-to-day activity not contributing to overarching production goals.
The definition of asset management requires a ‘coordination of activity to deliver value from assets”. Therefore, if uncoordinated or outdated, asset management objectives become the source of activities, roles or data that don’t deliver value and consume precious organisational time and energy.
To avoid this, asset management objectives should be reviewed on a regular basis. And they should be assessed for alignment vertically and horizontally.
Vertical alignment refers to the coordination of strategic, tactical, and operational objectives. This way, day-to-day activities and mid-term projects translate into strategic value for the business. I covered how to address this in a previous blog “how do we achieve the strategic plan?”.
Once vertical objectives are laid out, it becomes easier to align objectives horizontally. This refers to a coordination of objectives across the business. An example would be the integration of cross-functional departments like supply, finance, and maintenance to ensure materials are paid for, delivered and installed to satisfy production targets.
Danger 2. Business Structure Can’t Facilitate Asset Management Objectives
The business must enable asset management goals by optimising its structure, processes, and systems to do so.
I’ve seen this achieved via enterprise or business architecture software such as Qualiware or ARIS. These tools help you to generate an organisational blueprint that will effectively build the business capability and capacity to fulfil objectives.
Integrating business processes, business information and a governance structure, these applications allow you to attach strategy items and the processes required to achieve them. Then, you assign lower-level Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and Performance Indicators (PIs) to low-level processes which will give you a line of sight on the health of the strategy being performed at a higher level.
Alternatively, you could manually define processes in a document or via a simple process map. In so doing, you should:
- Map management and control processes.
- Assign the appropriate personnel or skills to these requirements.
- Define the data required for decision-making and processes such as approvals of funding and changes to business practice.
Reconciling this without an enterprise architecture tool, however, can become tricky. Qualiware is one tool available to simplify this. There’s more on this and how it can help you to implement ISO550001 in a previous blog or for more on our work with Qualiware, click here.
Danger 3. Set and Forget Asset Management Objectives
It’s important that asset management strategy objectives become a living, breathing part of the organisation, rather a vague statement, or the focus of only those higher up in the company.
One way to ensure objectives remain front and centre with all levels of the business is with asset management analytics.
Exception based reporting and live graphical analytics dashboards or traffic light systems are also very effective for communicating priorities. They also generate a healthy sense of achievement by tracking success and encouraging the right behaviours amongst teams.
We’ve performed this work with many different sites helping to not only measure performance, but to define those metrics that drive the right behaviours and proactively highlight matters before they become an issue.
Using this experience, we’ve built a pre-packaged set of work management KPIS which can be deployed into your selected application. For a demo of the tool, contact me.
Danger 4. Irrelevant Asset Management Objectives
Ideally time for a review of asset management objectives is committed with each new budget or any shift in strategy.
It’s important to assess their alignment to make sure they aren’t generating unnecessary work and deliver value. An asset management health check is the most effective way to get a holistic view on how objectives are working for, or against the organisation.
Otherwise, instil a culture that prompts everyone to always ask about the value a process or a role. This is very effective for way to build cohesion, streamline processes and remove inefficiencies or unnecessary tasks.