Engage the C-suite!

Communicate!

It’s confusing for an executive to understand the technical language of an engineer or maintenance manager. He / she understands the language of objectives and profitability.

Use the same language!

We've got to tell our story!

Senior managers speak the language of finance, engineers speak in technical terms when they talk about mission critical assets. No wonder there's a communications gap!

Throughout my career it's been inspiring to work with the men and women charged with the responsibility of keeping mission critical physical assets that are the source of revenue for the business up-and-running. Maintenance managers are typically focused on pressing day-to-day operational problems. They have no time to mange their boss.

That's one issue. But there's another more subtle issue that has even greater impact on the maintenance manager's ability to communicate upwards. It's language and terminology. The C-suite speaks the language of finance - numbers, benefits, costs - and how these numbers contribute to the strategic objectives that their performance is based upon. The maintenance manager speaks the language of engineering - uptime, equipment, production - and how these factors influence the health of the assets. It's a huge divide.

It's easy to figure out who has to adapt to communicating in a way the other can understand. It's the maintenance manager who must master the language of finance. He / she must be able to articulate business outcomes sourced from physical assets and how these outcomes influence the bottom line. Costs, working capital, capacity, demand for capital, safety, and environmental compliance are all outcomes of reliable assets. Each of these outcomes is a line item in the annual report. It's what the C-suite is rewarded for and what keeps their focus. It's what keeps them up at night if expectations are not being met. In an asset-intensive organization, likely the root cause of poor business performance can be found in an asset-centric process.

Check out FORTIG's connected end-to-end business processes and line-of-sight from the strategic objectives of the business to operations!