80:20 or 150:50

Have you ever heard someone saying that 80% of the result can be obtained by 20% of the effort, but the last 20% result will cost you 80% effort?

Let’s explore this concept as a maintenance philosophy. In an economic climate where cost pressure are always present, we need to review our need for a planned maintenance philosophy, at all cost. If you can achieve 80% design capability at 20% of the maintenance cost – will that work for you?

Yes, your plant will have ‘latent’ capacity, but that latent capacity comes at 80% of the cost. 

The problem I see in today’s Maintenance Environment, is that a decision is made to pursue 100%. Robust maintenance regimes, condition based monitoring, PM inspections based on OEM recommendations. SAP is procured, as this is the “be-all” of Computerised Maintenance Management Systems (CMMS) and a lot of effort is spent on implementation. 

100% (and sometimes more) is spent to ensure 100% output. And then reality strikes. SAP, like any CMMS is a system, fundamentally based on binary logic, 1’s and 0’s. Someone once told me a computer can not make a mistake as it is based on binary logic. The system does exactly what the system is told.

So why do we keep on aiming for 100%, when 20% effort can deliver 80% of the output?

I have seen plants deliver 100%, after the right people, spent the right amount of effort, on the right things. But even that was not sustainable, as the 100% effort start to decrease due to budget pressures. 

The problem I see, is that operations spend 150% effort, for 50% delivery. Because in reality, 50% of the effort is spend on the right things, and the other 100% of the effort is spend on the politics of the “right” things, to justify that the “right” things are right. And hence the delivery of 50% result.

Honestly, if you want your plant to perform, you need to critically evaluate:

1.    What are the 20% that will deliver you 80% result?

2.    How much resources do you have left (time, personnel, money)?

3.    Again, evaluate what are the next 20% that will deliver the proportionate 80%

4.    Keep going, until you either run out of resources or problems

If you honestly review and then apply these steps, you will be amazed at the result.