Top Performance in Maintenance & Reliability: Proven Strategies for Long‑Term Success

In this reliability article, I share insights from my work with organizations that consistently outperform others in maintenance and reliability. The difference? They implement, rather than merely plan, proven strategies that become ingrained habits.

Most companies spend excessive time drafting plans, while the leaders focus on rolling out reliability and maintenance programs over the long haul.

How long is forever?

During a keynote at a reliability conference, John Crowe, Vice President at Buckeye Cellulose in Perry, Fla., shared a revealing anecdote. An employee told him, ‘In our plant, forever is eight weeks long.’ The employee explained that successive managers launch new maintenance programs and promise they’ll run forever, yet none last beyond eight weeks. ‘So, for us, forever is eight weeks,’ he said.

In many firms, “forever” might stretch to 12 weeks or even a year. The three top performers I’ve recently worked with, however, are now in their 24th, 10th, and ninth year of maintaining the same core program. Their practices have become a way of life.

Continuous improvement

Göran Eriksson, maintenance and engineering manager at Korsnäs AB in Gävle, Sweden, presented a recent project that deepened reliability and maintenance practices. Korsnäs is internationally known for both its products and its performance. After his talk, many attendees remarked, ‘I’ve visited Korsnäs; it’s impressive. Why would a mill need an improvement program?’

In high‑performing mills, there is a clear starting line for improvement but no finish line. ‘If you stop becoming better, you are no longer good,’ a well‑known adage reminds us.

The mobility disease

Dr. W. Edwards Deming warned that frequent turnover of top managers is one of America’s most serious industrial maladies. A new manager typically introduces a new program, but employees often give only lip‑service, skeptical of promises of permanence.

For new leaders, breaking through this reluctance is a challenge, especially when they have held multiple positions in the last four years and are driven to deliver rapid, but often short‑lived, results. Common “quick fixes” include cutting maintenance staff or toggling between centralized and decentralized structures, which rarely yield lasting benefits.

Best performers

High‑performing plants understand that organizational change must be anchored in robust, front‑line‑owned maintenance systems. Whether centralized or decentralized, success hinges on the processes themselves.

These plants maintain a fully documented maintenance system, continuously refining and executing it. New hires are selected with the expectation that they will thrive within this system. I’ve helped many organizations develop these strategic documents, but the real value lies in the process of creating and owning them.

After three to five years of consistent implementation, up to 80% of the workforce becomes productive followers, leading to sustainable results. Cutting staff before establishing essential processes can generate only 6‑18 months of savings and may incur 6‑60 months of subsequent losses.

Torbjörn (Tor) Idhammar is partner and vice‑president of reliability and maintenance management consulting at IDCON Inc. He specializes in training and implementation support for preventive maintenance, condition monitoring, scheduling, spare‑parts management, and root‑cause problem elimination. Idhammar authored the ‘Condition Monitoring Standards’ volumes 1‑3. He holds a BS in industrial engineering from North Carolina State University and an MS in mechanical engineering from Lund University, Sweden.

Contact Tor at 800‑849‑2041 or email info@idcon.com. Visit www.idcon.com for more information.