Real Life Metrics with Rick Clonan

It is my pleasure to welcome back Rick clone into the podcast, the implementation and training manager at era DCO.

What is a metric to begin with?

It’s any kind of quantitative assessment use to compare or track or measure performance or production of a process. This is about processes, not about people.

Why do organizations really use metrics?

The purpose of metrics ideally is to understand where we are today. You must know where you are today. And when you count all those ‘today’s’, it’s going to show a trend in one direction or another. You then decide whether do you need to intervene or not. Seeing that different metrics and how that one thing impacts many different things is always interesting.

With all these challenges, how do organizations either pick the right metrics or use them properly?

First and foremost, it’s what do you want to improve? Know the maintenance cost per unit, the availability of primary critical systems, or the most common asset classes, the big asset. Know the uptime and downtime. If you are doing planning and scheduling, you should be tracking. Start with the SRP metrics. Ask yourself what the holy metrics for the organization are.

How does maintenance contribute to that?

You must understand the language and the maturity level of your organization on the other side of the fence, and the operation side. Understand how you can explain to them so that everyone understands uptime versus downtime. One of the biggest mistakes people make is they not communicating what the objective of the metric is and what it means. You know, schedule compliance doesn’t necessarily mean your planner didn’t plan well, or schedule correctly. It could mean that your operations maintenance relationship is not very good. Look at availability, schedule compliance, stockouts, whatever you want to look at, there’s going to be several sub metrics underneath those that drive it. Pick the metrics that are important to you, but at the same time be willing to change them if something else is more important. If they’re not working, don’t be afraid to change.

Is there anything that you want our listeners to take away from the conversation today?

Don’t set lofty targets. Understand where you are today. Don’t be afraid to show that you’re not meeting your target, what an opportunity for maintenance departments to get better. Collect data and don’t be upset about where you are. If you’re tracking everything and your tracking looks good, try to figure out why that is.

Eruditio Links:

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

Rick Clonan Links:

• Eruditio
• Rick Clonan LinkedIn
• SMRP
• SMRP Best Practices Guide
• Reliable Plant 2021
• SMRP Annual Conference
• Past episodes with Rick

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