Maintenance Technology April 2017 - 9

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An outlet for the views of
today's maintenance
& reliability professionals

Management Rapport?
Thumbs Up and Down

or some reason, the following question
about management rapport really kicked
MT Reader Panelists into high gear this
month. Lots of them (more than usual)
wanted to express their opinions (some in far more
detail than they typically provide). The result is that
we can't include all responses on these two pages.
(You'll want to check out a greatly expanded online
version at maintenancetechnology.com.)

What was the state of rapport between
their sites' plant-floor reliability
and/or maintenance teams (or their
clients'/customers' teams) and upper
management, and why?

older equipment has been paid for many times
over. Now, though, we're into a stage where it's hard
to get parts for this equipment. We [our team]
really tries to stress the importance of preventive
maintenance (PMs) and taking care of things, as in
"if you take care of your stuff, your stuff will take
care of you." But it becomes frustrating when that
idea seems to fall on deaf ears and they [management] seem to dodge another bullet. (This opinion
is based on personal experience; I've been working
in this plant for many years.)

Jane Alexander
Managing Editor

Here are a few of the responses we received. As
usual, they've been edited for clarity and brevity.

Industry Consultant, West. . .

Management rapport [with maintenance and
reliability teams] is one of the main indicators I
use when working at a new [client] site. If there's
tension between these departments, there will be
communication breakdowns-virtually every time.
Performance will suffer greatly, and each group will
blame the others.
In general, I find a good, strong, open, and
honest working relationship in less than 30% of my
clients' operations. If I can resolve issues between
the groups, and improve relationships, the parts
of the maintenance and reliability puzzle fall into
place rather easily. In the age of e-mail, texting, and
voicemail, however, it's much easier for silos to exist
and not handle issues face-to-face. In my opinion,
it seems to be getting easier to let site relationships
erode rather than repair them.

Maintenance Technician,
Discrete Mfg, North America. . .

Not the greatest here (always a struggle because
upper management is constantly looking to cut
corners). They call it risk management, yet when
something goes wrong, they panic. Some of our
APRIL 2017

'The secret to good rapport is to not only talk the talk, but to walk the talk.'

Industry Supplier, Southeast. . .

With regard to my customers, management
rapport, in most cases, is still not very good. I work
with a lot of plants where plant-floor staff need
help, but must get upper management to buy in.
Most preventive-maintenance (PM) personnel
don't have the knowledge to make their case. When
I'm able to meet with both sides at the table and
pitch ROI (return on investment), it seems that
they begin to understand each other better, i.e., that
the ROI for Management is dollars and the ROI
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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Maintenance Technology April 2017