My father is an industrial engineer/ manager (retired). He spent his career in maintenance and operations management, and growing up, I absorbed a principle so fundamental that it shaped how I see the world: if you want something to last, you have to look after it.
It wasn’t complicated philosophy. It was watching him maintain the family car religiously—not because it was broken, but because he understood what neglect would cost later. It was seeing him make sure the wooden fence always had a healthy coating of Carbolineum and the gutters were cleared before the rainy season arrived. The lesson was simple: care for things before they demand it, and they’ll serve you well. Ignore them, and they’ll fail you at the worst possible moment.
This principle is obvious to anyone who’s grown up around machinery. Yet somehow, in the complexity of industrial operations, it gets lost. Maintenance teams fight for resources, justify their existence, and struggle to communicate their value to organisations that measure success in tonnes and throughput. Production teams, under relentless pressure to hit targets, see maintenance as a necessary interruption at best—and an obstacle at worst.
The root of this disconnect isn’t ignorance or bad intention. It’s something more fundamental: the success of maintenance is invisible. [Read more…]
