Society has become increasingly intolerant of industrial incidents, particularly in the areas of safety and environmental integrity. It is no longer considered acceptable to cause harm to either the environment or to people and the communities that they live in.
In the past ten years this has been reflected in various changes in legislation and regulation in countries around the world. Some of the recent developments in these areas include:
* Changes to the regulations governing electricity providers in the United Kingdom—now providing a high degree of focus on risk management and mitigation.
* Wide ranging fraud legislation by the federal government of Canada in response to the Westray disaster
* Legislation in response to the Longford disaster in Australia
It is becoming obvious that in the future those responsible for the management of physical assets will be more likely to be called to account when there is a failure, and as can be seen by recent history, it is likely that it will not be companies but individuals.
In extreme cases incidents can also mean irreversible damage to a company's public image. Think of such disasters as the Exxon-Valdez environmental incident, the Union Carbide disaster in Bhopal in India or more recently the linking of Powergen to the New York blackout. All of these incidents have remained chained to these companies in the public mind.
Heightened Level of Understanding
The publication of the report Reliability-centred Maintenance, prepared by Stan Nowlan and Howard Heap, has enabled a quantum leap in the way in which we understand how maintenance should be managed.
Many of the findings of this report fly in the face of long-held, "common-sense" type beliefs and have exposed the true complex nature of asset management. They also force companies to look at their physical asset base in an entirely different manner. At a high level these can be summarized in the following points:
* Changes to our understanding of how maintenance contributes to a company's strategic advantage
* Changes to the way in which we understand equipment failures
* The maintenance department alone is not capable of developing a sustainable and adequate maintenance strategy regime
* Maintenance is not about preventing failures, it is about preventing the consequences of failure
* An understanding of the ability of operational maintenance to drive capital expenditure
* More protection is not necessarily better
* An understanding of new ways of maintaining items, particularly those that don't fail according to long-held views
* Extensive data is not required to take decisions on maintenance policies
Many of these new ways of thinking have challenged long held industry views. So much so that they are often difficult for industry professionals to easily assimilate. They are even less likely to be understood by those outside of the field of asset management.
In the past ten years this has been reflected in various changes in legislation and regulation in countries around the world. Some of the recent developments in these areas include:
* Changes to the regulations governing electricity providers in the United Kingdom—now providing a high degree of focus on risk management and mitigation.
* Wide ranging fraud legislation by the federal government of Canada in response to the Westray disaster
* Legislation in response to the Longford disaster in Australia
It is becoming obvious that in the future those responsible for the management of physical assets will be more likely to be called to account when there is a failure, and as can be seen by recent history, it is likely that it will not be companies but individuals.
In extreme cases incidents can also mean irreversible damage to a company's public image. Think of such disasters as the Exxon-Valdez environmental incident, the Union Carbide disaster in Bhopal in India or more recently the linking of Powergen to the New York blackout. All of these incidents have remained chained to these companies in the public mind.
Heightened Level of Understanding
The publication of the report Reliability-centred Maintenance, prepared by Stan Nowlan and Howard Heap, has enabled a quantum leap in the way in which we understand how maintenance should be managed.
Many of the findings of this report fly in the face of long-held, "common-sense" type beliefs and have exposed the true complex nature of asset management. They also force companies to look at their physical asset base in an entirely different manner. At a high level these can be summarized in the following points:
* Changes to our understanding of how maintenance contributes to a company's strategic advantage
* Changes to the way in which we understand equipment failures
* The maintenance department alone is not capable of developing a sustainable and adequate maintenance strategy regime
* Maintenance is not about preventing failures, it is about preventing the consequences of failure
* An understanding of the ability of operational maintenance to drive capital expenditure
* More protection is not necessarily better
* An understanding of new ways of maintaining items, particularly those that don't fail according to long-held views
* Extensive data is not required to take decisions on maintenance policies
Many of these new ways of thinking have challenged long held industry views. So much so that they are often difficult for industry professionals to easily assimilate. They are even less likely to be understood by those outside of the field of asset management.
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