By Farshad Bakhshi
Introduction:
Even in organizations with advanced CMMS platforms, well-defined KPIs, and structured workflows, recurring failures continue to appear. The missing element is often not technical; it is cognitive.
In much of the literature and many lessons learned in Maintenance and Reliability Engineering, factors such as data quality, integrated CMMS implementation, reliable key performance indicators (KPIs), and standardized workflows are commonly presented as the fundamental building blocks of effective maintenance and high asset availability in industrial operating sites. However, practical experience shows that in some organizations, maintenance outcomes remain unsatisfactory despite the presence of all these elements, and equipment continues to show recurring performance issues.
A deeper analysis of these situations reveals that the core challenge is not necessarily technical or data-related. Instead, it lies in decision-making under complex, critical, and uncertain conditions. In such conditions, accurate data alone does not guarantee effective decisions.
The human brain, as a highly complex and reliable system, makes critical decisions in both life and work not by following rigid, predefined rules, but through learning from experience, operational context, and changing conditions. With this understanding, the article explores how insights from neuroscience can be applied—without overstating the role of AI—to support decisions related to safety, production stability, and reliability through simpler and more intuitive maintenance systems.
How Does Neuroscience Improve Maintenance Decision-Making?
Neuroscience shows that the human brain has a limited capacity to process large amounts of information at once and, under high-pressure and stressful conditions, naturally tends toward fast and reactive decisions. While reliance on experience-based patterns is often beneficial, in certain situations it may lead to cognitive bias and the repetition of suboptimal decisions. Common cognitive biases such as confirmation bias (favoring familiar explanations), availability bias (relying on recent experiences), and escalation of commitment (persisting with failing decisions) frequently appear in maintenance environments, particularly under pressure.
From this perspective, many decision-making errors observed across industrial operating sites are not the result of individual weakness, lack of experience, or insufficient tools, but rather a consequence of the brain’s cognitive limitations when operating under noisy, critical, and uncertain conditions.
If the cause of the issue is related to how the brain functions, the solution cannot be reduced to “better tools” or “more and higher-quality data” alone. Approaches based on neuroscience demonstrate that improvements in decision-making can be pursued through two complementary paths.
The first path focuses on revising and structuring key performance indicators (KPIs) and system dashboards made available to managers and decision-makers. In this approach, system analysts and designers should develop simple, focused, and decision-oriented dashboards matched to different decision-making levels within the organization, helping managers quickly understand the situation and take more appropriate actions.
In addition to this path, the quality of decision-making remains a critical factor, as the decision-maker plays a central role in real maintenance situations. Neuroscience does not aim to tell maintenance managers and engineers “what the right decision is”; rather, it explains how the brain operates under real decision-making conditions and how decision quality can be practically improved by addressing time constraints, stress, and feedback.
The table below illustrates how concepts from neuroscience, when applied to real maintenance situations, can practically improve the quality of decision-making.
|
Real Decision-Making Situations |
Natural Brain Response |
What Happens in the Decision-Maker’s Brain |
Recommended Action for the Decision-Maker |
Resulting Improvement |
|
Sudden equipment failure with severe impact on production |
Reactive decision-making |
High-stress conditions trigger more reactive responses, reducing analytical processing. |
Take a brief, deliberate pause (≈30 seconds) and ask: “If this decision is wrong, what is the worst possible consequence?” |
Reduced emotional reactions and more deliberate decision-making |
|
“This looks like the same recurring issue” |
Reliance on familiar, past patterns |
Experience facilitates pattern recognition but may introduce cognitive bias and overlook new signals |
Ask: “What if conditions are different this time?” and verify one critical indicator or data point |
Reduced errors caused by bias from past experience |
|
A critical decision at the end of a work shift |
Decision fatigue |
Cognitive resources are gradually depleted over time due to continuous mental effort, leading to a decline in decision quality. |
If possible, defer the decision; otherwise, simplify the choice or involve another person or department |
Lower risk of human error during high-risk periods |
|
Dozens of repetitive decisions throughout the day |
Continuous mental energy consumption |
Repetitive decisions consume cognitive capacity and weaken higher-impact decisions |
Convert repetitive decisions into checklists or predefined procedures |
Reduced mental load, allowing clearer focus on higher-priority decisions |
|
Closing a key decision after execution |
Decision patterns remain unchanged without feedback |
Without feedback, the brain is less likely to update decision patterns |
Short review: “What happened? Why? What will I change next time?” |
Strengthened learning and improved future decision quality |
The practical examples in the table above show that developing the decision-maker’s mindset is essential for making important decisions, especially in critical situations.
Conclusion
Improving maintenance performance cannot be ensured solely through more data, more advanced tools, or more precise KPIs. Experience shows that decision quality in real-world conditions depends not only on systems, but on how the decision-maker thinks under pressure.
By clarifying the cognitive limitations and mechanisms of the human brain, neuroscience explains why certain decision-making errors are unavoidable and how they can be managed. From this perspective, strengthening executive functions—core cognitive capabilities that support effective decision-making, such as managing reactive responses, maintaining focus, prioritizing effectively, and learning from feedback—plays a critical role in effective decision-making. Ultimately, combining brain-compatible systems with decision-makers who are aware of their own cognitive mechanisms paves the way for a shift from purely data-driven maintenance toward decision-driven, human-centered maintenance. In the end, reliability is not only engineered through systems. It is exercised through human judgment.
About the Author
Farshad Bakhshi is a Maintenance & Reliability consultant and CMMS implementation specialist with over 20 years of experience in asset-intensive industries. He helps organizations improve reliability performance through maintenance strategy, data governance, preventive maintenance optimization, and root cause analysis.
