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Publisher: Industrial Press Inc., New York

Author: Don Nyman

Title: The 15 Most Common Obstacles to World-Class Reliability: A Roadmap for Managers

Year of Publication: 2009

Pages: 152

ISBN-13: 978-0-8311-3381-8

 

The table of contents comprises the following:

 

Prelims	Preface, Introduction, Acknowledgment, Supplemental Reading	Xvi Pages
Chapter 1	Creating a Culture for Reliability	27 Pages
Chapter 2	Structuring the Maintenance Organization for Reliability	8 Pages
Chapter 3	Clarifying Required Asset Capacity and Associated Maintenance Resources	7 Pages
Chapter 4	Balancing Maintenance Resources with Workload	9 Pages
Chapter 5	Maintenance Skills Required to Maintain Advancing Technology	10 Pages
Chapter 6	Materials Support	17 Pages
Chapter 7	Preparation of Maintenance Work	13 Pages
Chapter 8	Coordination, Scheduling and Supervised Work Execution	17 Pages
Epilogue		1 Page
Appendices from A to M		22 Pages
Index		14 Pages

 

The author of this hardbound (5.13”x 7.25”) book has been an experienced plant engineer, corporate executive and management consultant and during his 50 years career had helped several organizations improve maintenance effectiveness and operational reliability. The book is primarily written as a guide to managers to improve reliability or system effectiveness. In Appendix M, the author summarizes 15 commonly encountered obstacles related to cultural and environmental habits that must be overcome by the managerial leadership for developing a proactive environment in an organization in order to achieve World-Class reliability. The author’s main emphasis in the book has been on improving reliability through maintenance excellence since he advocates that most operational improvement and reliability initiatives are maintenance dependent. Proactive maintenance minimizes reactive emergency response. Outlining the first obstacle in chapter 1, the author states that reliability is not achieved by rapid response to daily problems but by pro-active maintenance designed to eliminate or minimize daily problems. Outlining organizational responsibilities, such as purchasing, stores, receiving, maintenance planning and supervision Inventory, plant engineering and maintenance /reliability engineering, the author underlines the need for reliability centred maintenance; total productive maintenance and root cause failure analysis etc without discussing them in details. The author then lists the steps that must be addressed to overcome the obstacles.  One of the obstacles outlined is the insufficient organizational stability to sustain reliability mission, which the reviewer believes can undercut the pursuit of a wellintended reliability improvement programme. The commitment chain should not be broken. The author also suggests the type of organizational structure to achieve reliability.  Practically, all aspects of the problem have been touched upon by the experienced author.  Much of the executive summary of what the author has to say is contained in Appendices.  The index running into 14 pages provides an easy look up table to locate an item of interest. Lastly, the book has an affordable price and should prove to be a good help to managers. In nut shell the reviewer believes that the book by Nyman must be read by all managers who wish to improve operational reliability and maintenance effectiveness.

- Krishna B. Misra