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Operations and Maintenance - Mortal Enemies, Will their conflict end ?

  • 1.  Operations and Maintenance - Mortal Enemies, Will their conflict end ?

    Posted 03-18-2007 05:22
    Dear All,

    Have you ever wondered which I'm sure most of you have the feud that exists between operations and maintenance. When productivity for the day is not met, operations first and most basic reason for the delay will be to pinpoint maintenance as the cause of the problem for having so much failures and downtime for the day and maintenance retaliates that their PM schedule for equipments have not been met since operations will not give the equipment's for PM and will waive the PM. Have you been in a meeting with both operations and maintenance very close to mixing it up in the boxing ring, lots of coffee mugs tipped off, people shouting and forcing one another to resign. I have seen the worst, is there a stop to this feud most specially when most of them belong to the tradisional old school with masters degree in BS101. Why do operations think they are more superior and important than maintenance which is they often considered as 2nd rated people ? Is there really an end to this feud or this will go on till the next maintenance generation ? And can we do something about this ?

    My Warm Regards,


    Rolly Angeles
    Teacher


  • 2.  RE: Operations and Maintenance - Mortal Enemies, Will their conflict end ?

    Posted 03-18-2007 13:47
    Well, I just had to reply to this one!
    Where on earth have you worked with such an unrealistic and hostile relationship between Maintenance and Operations?
    In the three large refineries, and several other institutions where I ran the maintenance group, more specifically on the machinery side, we always had a most cordial relationship. I made sure of it by keeping operations fully appraised of our schedules (daily get togethers to coordinate and plan) and, in the event of a major breakdown (very few and far between I might add thanks to a good predictive maintenance programme), again keeping them fully appraised as to exactly where we were and giving them constant updates as to our progress, and "realistic" completion times.
    I think this "us and them" syndrome is created mainly by attitudes. It has to be accepted that Maintenance basically "work for" operations, not the other way round, and I know that's a hard pill to swallow for some people. Us, as a maintenance group, are there to keep the "system" operational for them, whatever it might be and whatever it might take.
    Operations job is just that, to operate and meet production schedules. When something goes wrong you, the maintainer has to understand their frustration at possibly loosing a schedule or production quota. Yes they will jump up and down, but as long as you keep them fully informed, it is most likely that they will appreciate your efforts.
    Mind you, if you run a scrappy maintenance department, which constantly lets them down with poor planning and completion times, yes you will develop a bad relationship.
    As a matter if interest, when I ran machinery training sessions, I also included the operations department to give them a better understanding of their machines and what they could do to help us keep it running.
    So involve them, don't alienate them!


  • 3.  RE: Operations and Maintenance - Mortal Enemies, Will their conflict end ?

    Posted 03-18-2007 15:21
    I agree with Caveman, the relationship is about people not machines. Often it is about getting an undertsanding of the other person's perspective.

    Indulge me a moment.
    As a young engineer I started life doing project work - new capital installations and upgrades and so on. This was great fun because I spent lots of money on cool toys in an 'all care and no responsibility' environment.

    Then I was asked to move into maintenance and I had to live with all my own mistakes! I learnt a lot about maintainability by making that move.

    A few years later I moved from maintenance into operations and again saw how my work impacted the daily lives of the operational team.

    Perhaps all young engineers should take a similar career path!

    By the way when I then had the oportunity to oversee both operations and maintenance I worked hard at getting them to work together and understand each other and our common goal - serving the customer.

    As for the the project engineers, I couldn't change their ways but I could 'bribe' them with beer!


  • 4.  RE: Operations and Maintenance - Mortal Enemies, Will their conflict end ?

    Posted 03-18-2007 16:41
    Cheddar Caveman

    quote:
    Where on earth have you worked with such an unrealistic and hostile relationship between Maintenance and Operations?


    Then you have not seen what I have seen, there is always feud, but maybe in your country a milder fashion but not where I work from, they are uncivilized, most specially when I work in the mining industry. I was a technical training manager then. I recall one training where the operations manager pulled out everyone from training, the plant is 500 miles from our base office which I was destined, When i returned to my office I wrote him a letter copied to all Top Management and the president through email and told him,

    Mr. Doe, ever since I started training in this plant, I have never seen a single operations guy attend since you won't allow, I believe that you are the main cause of all problems here in the mine, and I only have one recommendation for our President if our company wants to be productive, and that is to retire people like you.



    They have a room they called the "WAR ROOM" when I asked why they called it so, they told me to observe, the room is arranged in U shape formation with tables and chairs, the left side is where all maintenance sit and the right is where operations sit down in the middle is the plant manager. The meeting will start calmly but later on become hostile. I have even saw them talking, their faces very close not even a mosquito can come between their faces and they are yelling one another to resign.

    I often have heavy arguments with the operations, since most of the time when I am conducting training my people (participants) are being pulled out by operations since they have no mechanics during their operations, and I have to call the President for him to interfere. During my 2 years stay with this firm I have not a single participant from operations since they do not allow people in training only produce output.

    I have met people like this and I have only one solution to this, if you have the power "retire them" or of you can't handle them, then you resign.

    Most of the time, anger dominates these people, and this will be passed on to their subordinates.

    When I worked in a manufacturing, I know one manager who have force to resign 8 good engineers because of pressure, his style goes something like this, hey, your an engineer are you, you can't even draw, I have here a paper read it (resignation paper already written you just have to sign it), if you can't do your job better resign. Style of these kind of people are very dominating, and they humiliate you, they do not want you to think they just want you to produce output (for operations) and for mechanics (fix and repair failures). Maybe when you work here you will understand me.

    My Warm Regards,


    Rolly Angeles
    Teacher


  • 5.  RE: Operations and Maintenance - Mortal Enemies, Will their conflict end ?

    Posted 03-19-2007 02:52
    OK Rolly - so you are basing your statement based on YOUR experience in YOUR country. If this attitude and situation is endemic in all your industry, you really do have a problem.
    As Philip Slater asked, please indulge ME a moment.
    I have a very wide experience in maintenance and cannont agree that your situation is common around the world.
    I started back in the 1950/60's in the Royal Naval Submarine service. There everybody relied on each other and I think this experience was at the root of my training. EVERYBODY has a roll to play and you have to learn to get on with everybody.
    On leaving the navy I went to Bahrain as an engineer at the airport, and subsequently I joind GE out there. They had built a huge repair facility to cater for the new Aluminium Plant (ALBA) who had 24 GE Frame 5 gas turbine generators. With GE I soon got into heavy machinery from gas turbines to pumps, steam turbines, compressors etc. I worked hard and after eight years in their workshop in Bahrain worked myself up to Shop Manager.
    I was transfered back to England to set up and run their new facility in Basildon, Essex, again as the shop manager.
    I didn't like working in the UK, giving most of my earnings to the tax man, so left GE and went freelance.
    As a freelance engineer I worked with Foster Wheeler, Petromin Shell in Saudi Arabia, ADNOC in Abu Dhabi, back to Bahrain in their refinery and finally back to Saudi Arabia on a huge fefined products storage project.
    So, I've worked with many different organisations employing many different nationalities and have always had the most cordial relationship with all the people I have dealt with.
    I have to say I feel very sorry for you over there Rolly, if your working life was so full of conflict. Mine has been full of huge achievement, great friendships and many happy memories.
    I am now retired from the engineering business, apart from the occasional lecturing, and work part time at the local caves as a guide and stoneage man demonstrator (hence the cheddar-caveman). Again, I am working with people of all shapes, sizes, culture and religions, and it's great.


  • 6.  RE: Operations and Maintenance - Mortal Enemies, Will their conflict end ?

    Posted 03-19-2007 18:20
    Rolly

    Think positive may be you can get better.

    Good Luck
    Phoo


  • 7.  RE: Operations and Maintenance - Mortal Enemies, Will their conflict end ?

    Posted 03-19-2007 22:55
    Rolly,

    This is pretty dramatic...

    quote:
    Have you been in a meeting with both operations and maintenance very close to mixing it up in the boxing ring, lots of coffee mugs tipped off, people shouting and forcing one another to resign. I have seen the worst, is there a stop to this feud most ...


    Sack some people... starting with the manager who allows this sort of thing to fester.


  • 8.  RE: Operations and Maintenance - Mortal Enemies, Will their conflict end ?

    Posted 03-20-2007 07:05
    Rolly, in other places things may not come to throw the cup of coffee at each other faces but other ways to show the conflict are seen or heard.

    Maybe mortal enemies are big words, but that conflicts exists definitely yes.


  • 9.  RE: Operations and Maintenance - Mortal Enemies, Will their conflict end ?

    Posted 03-20-2007 17:39
    Cheddar,

    quote:
    I think this "us and them" syndrome is created mainly by attitudes. It has to be accepted that Maintenance basically "work for" operations, not the other way round, and I know that's a hard pill to swallow for some people. Us, as a maintenance group, are there to keep the "system" operational for them, whatever it might be and whatever


    I cannot swallow this remark, I think I now understand why most of the time maintenance is treated as mere mechanics and 2nd rated people in a plant, everthing will boil down on where maintenance is reporting to, are they directly reporting to the operations manager or to the maintenance manager ?

    If the operations manager is a non-technical person then there is a big problem as he will always prioritize productivity, i rather prefer that maintenance reports to the maintenance manager and both have equal rights, my understanding is maintenance work for the welfare of the company and not only for the operations group, the basic job of the maintenance is to make the equipment available while operations job will be to keep the equipment utilized.

    I believe one maintenance manager from the mines when he told me that Rolly, even if operations is not around we (maintenance) can operate and produce the goods, I just cant say the other way around for operations.

    This plant is where i have seen the worst of maintenance and operations side, and it serves as my inspiration to develop my materials on reliability and maintenance, chaos reigns, people die due to neglect of safety procedures,
    dynamite misfire, too much breakdowns, operations yelling all the time and its "UGLY"

    Now in other plants, there will be conflict but in a milder fashion, and the conflict will only end if operations will understand the real value of our work here in our plant. Operations must understand that they cannot exist without us (maintenance), and we should be partners with equal rights and respect for one another. Maintenance and operations have different goals (KPI's) being measured yet our destination will always be the same.

    My Warm Regards,


    Rolly Angeles


  • 10.  RE: Operations and Maintenance - Mortal Enemies, Will their conflict end ?

    Posted 03-20-2007 20:29
    There is that intangible thing we call organizational culture, but I think it is real.

    When I got to my current plant in 1993, the culture was not great. There was not an abundance of teamwork. Some managers had a very non-facilitative style. A lot of people watching out for themselves, undercutting others, showboating in meetings, heavy politics etc.

    Things hit rock bottom in terms of performance, and the management determined that the path to success was through a change in culture. It seems in the last 12 years or so management has commited to attaining continuous improvement in the culture through a very large number of different avenues which are numerous, persistent, and almost too numerous to mention.

    There are big things and small things. A big thing - anyone who reaches the rank of supervisor is trained for a month in interpersonal relations, without exception. Everyone is periodically trained on a variety of topics related to communications, teamwork and other core values of the organization.

    Managers and supervisors lead by example in the way they interact with people, always showing respect for the individual. Managers and supervisors who don't fit that mold are no longer managers and supervisors.

    In the beginning, there were many snickers and gripes regarding the classes, slogans etc. Over time, the leadership by example and multiple small messages and signals do have a gradual effect and these things become part of the company culture.

    Even small things like the fact that we are encourage to never use the word "they" (it's always "we") over time have an effect.

    I can say it is a much more satisfying place to work today than 14 years ago.


  • 11.  RE: Operations and Maintenance - Mortal Enemies, Will their conflict end ?

    Posted 03-22-2007 07:26
    I'm not sure of the wisdom of Maintenance Manager reporting to a Operations Manager. I prefer both managers at same level of authority within the organizational structure reporting both to:
    * a higher official who is responsible of the plant as a whole, or
    * Operations Manager reporting to a Operations Director and Maintenance Manager reporting to an Engineering Director who will have control over several engineering displines like Project Engineering, Maintenance Engineering, probably Safety and Environmental Compliance. Again both Directors within same level of authority.


  • 12.  RE: Operations and Maintenance - Mortal Enemies, Will their conflict end ?

    Posted 03-23-2007 02:19
    Rolly - I have not said that I believe Maintenance Managemnent should lie with Operations. That is a recipe for disaster. I only said that maintenance effectively "work for" operations.
    In all the refineries I can relate to, the Maintenance and Operations managers reported to the Refinery Manager who obviously had the task of producing the goods and therefore also had a keen interest in the smooth workings of both these departments.
    Maybe in your mining industry a maintenance man could "produce" the goods without operators, but I can assure you that I would never attempt to operate any part of a refinery!
    We, Maintenance and Operations, are two highly skilled, individual groups, in our own disciplines, coming together for a common goal.
    If either fails, we all fail!


  • 13.  RE: Operations and Maintenance - Mortal Enemies, Will their conflict end ?

    Posted 03-23-2007 03:45
    I understand the concern and have seen similar attitudes within autocratic environments and cultures: decades ago it MAY have been similar in some plants anywhere in Canada and the States, and remnants of such cultures are found in Latin America, or often too in colonial countries where the colonizers still have a hand (or business interests).

    This being said, there is an easy and brutal, but controversial approach to resolving this matter which has been tried with success in some plants where such matters arose: job sharing.

    Make the production and maintenance manager positions interchangeable, and switch them every six months. After they have walked a mile (or a hundred) in the other guy's shoes, you may find attitudes happily altered.


  • 14.  RE: Operations and Maintenance - Mortal Enemies, Will their conflict end ?

    Posted 03-24-2007 17:56
    Xo,

    Are you speaking about the manufacturing game, because in the real world you just cannot change their positions unless otherwise we are the CEO of the plant.

    My Warm Regards,

    Rolly Angeles
    Teacher


  • 15.  RE: Operations and Maintenance - Mortal Enemies, Will their conflict end ?

    Posted 03-25-2007 07:33
    quote:
    Originally posted by Rolly12:
    Have you ever wondered which I'm sure most of you have the feud that exists between operations and maintenance.


    I've been reading this thread and it seems like there are many different experiences out there, which is to be expected. In my particular situation, I am a one-man maintenance department for a small (6 lines) plastic extrusion plant. I report directly to the plant supervisor, so I don't work for operations per se, but I certainly see the source of that suggestion, because we certainly have to work with them and around them. I have personally been reluctant to include the operations staff in maintenance operations, even though it would be nice to offload some of the work to give me more time to plan things, because more often than not whatever they touch gets wrecked. This plant has three shifts, so there's no avoiding them.
    From my point of view, my job exists for two reasons - firstly to do preventative and predictive maintenance, and secondly to fix their many and multitudinous screw-ups.
    The way productivity is measured at this plant doesn't penalize for downtime, so they have no need to care. Their line can be down for 5 hours, and they can sit around and drink coffee and at the end of the day they will have their 85%+ productivity numbers and no repurcusions. That's not to say that none of them care, just that they don't _have_ to.
    It's in my best interests to try to work _with_ them because I need solid information when I'm looking for the source of a failure, and sometimes I need help removing a large belt-guard or moving a piece of equipment so I can work on it (remember, I'm a one-man show).
    At this company (of which there are almost two dozen factories) I'm a bit of an anomaly... I'm actually a licensed millwright doing maintenance. Unheard of! Most of the supervisors started out as guys on the line who worked there way up over the decades. The guy training me in plastic extrusion is very good - very very good. He knows what needs to be how hot, and what will happen if it's not hot enough (or too hot) but he's never had any formal training - no theory. He doesn't always know the _why_ of things, but he gets by famously by using experience and common sense, and I respect that. Since the maintenance guy is an ex-operations guy, and the plant supervisor is an ex-maintenance guy, then in theory they should know how their jobs mesh together, and work together accordingly.
    I don't know if they're successful all the time, but it seems to work okay in general.

    My biggest beef is equipment being overloaded. We've got a 100HP grinder to chew up plastic scrap for re-processing, and it gets lugged as a matter of course. That's somewhat unavoidable because the grinder is self-feeding. The big band saw gets stalled on almost every cut. You ask them to take it easy... I mean, they've got like 3 minutes between cycles, and it takes 30 seconds to make the cut properly, so why do they _need_ to burn out the motor by trying to get the cut done in only 20 seconds? Yes, when this motor dies (soon, I think) I will try to put on a larger one, but it still irritates me.

    To sum it up, I expect I will always be annoyed when other people make my job harder by doing something that is unnecessarily hard on the machines. I don't think it has reached the point of 'mortal enemies' here, though.

    Mike


  • 16.  RE: Operations and Maintenance - Mortal Enemies, Will their conflict end ?

    Posted 03-25-2007 16:50
    Hello All,

    I only speak in my behalf and on what I have seen and experience through the years, my experience is not quite I tell a happy one with a happy ending, these people and situation "EXISTS" as I have experience them with my own eyes. When I said that I develop my trainings out of frustration, this is to find an answer to so many questions in maintenance, which up to now have no definite answer,

    Cheddar, I think despite you living in the cave, there is muych more a sense of civilization, I am no longer employed here in this company and I do not know their situation now. Just imagine, during my 2 years stay with this mining firm, we encounter 2 union strikes lasting for several months,

    I was able to provide some improvements most specially to the maintenance side on Contamination Control and Lubrciation Strategy, and it helped them a lot most specially when we finally approved their in-house oil analysis lab. It was my last project with this company before I finally called it quits.

    Most of the people there are 20 to 30 years older, and these are the people I teach before, around 90% of the people I teach belong to the maintenance and safety group, and not a single person from operations have attended any training at all.

    I just want to concluce when people are uncivilized in how they deal with one another, then chaos reigns.

    All for now.


    My Warm Regards,


    Rolly Angeles
    Teacher


  • 17.  RE: Operations and Maintenance - Mortal Enemies, Will their conflict end ?

    Posted 03-26-2007 07:06
    quote:
    Originally posted by Rolly12:
    Are you speaking about the manufacturing game, because in the real world you just cannot change their positions unless otherwise we are the CEO of the plant.


    I have heard of a few companies that believe in moving people around departments to give them a wide working knowledge of the company, I think Dupont was one of them. But one thing is moving around every n months a rookie engineer between Maintenance, Operations, Safety, Environmental Compliance, etc. to:
    * give him/her a big view of what the university did not teached him/her,
    * obtain an idea where this resource can contribute better to the business,

    and another thing is to disrupt two departments staffs by switch over their managers.

    I wonder how many companies can risk putting two rookie managers in charge of their Operations and Maintenance department at the same time! The Operations Manager may have 10, 15, or 20 years of experience, but in how many in Maintenance? Probably the Maintenance Planner be more prepared for that role.