“Nothing has changed in maintenance and reliability in the last 40 years.” says Terrance O’Hanlon, CEO and publisher at ReliabilityWeb.com. Terrance lifted the lid off this truth in maintenance and reliability to expose its biggest secret = there has been no change in the past 40 years. Why not? Hmmmmm. Could asset-intensive organizations be stuck?

Years ago over a six month period I had the opportunity to visit four organizations where I had led maintenance management projects involving the selection and implementation of best-of-breed Computerized Maintenance Management Systems (CMMS). My view was that the maintainers deserved the best functionality available; therefore, best-of-breed!  In each case we checked out several vendors with mature solutions that still exist today.

These initiatives were all about features, functions, and technology.

All four organizations suffered from the same malaise. They were stuck. The CMMS had limited adoption, and most disturbingly … declining benefits. All the blame focused on “the system”. Why? What happened?

We had superimposed technology on the business. We configured the CMMS functionality to match the way they were doing business. In some cases, we had the vendor customize their application (yikes!) to match the way the customer did business. We didn’t change anything. We paved the cow path.

In more than one case the customer implemented only 60% of the benefits committed for the capital funds required for the initiative. In every case the benefits fell away quickly. The operational team was not involved during the technology search or the startup, and didn’t understand the vision or intent of the project. There was no budget for continuous improvement either.

This evidence drove me into my private MBA. I read and researched for four years learning, learning, learning. I concluded that the business needed to change. That is, people plus how they were doing their work needed to change. We needed to use technology to leverage that change.

I became a disciple of Business Process Management as a way to foster real and sustainable change in organizations. I mastered Business Process Management analysis. I created a methodology to understand where the organization is today, coach executives to quantify their vision, and develop a transformation plan to bridge the gap between where their organization is today and their vision of its future. I believe that Business Process Management is a key to this type of sustainable change.

I used my research and insights to develop FORTIG that is intended to be adopted as a living management system, and be referenced, used, and collaboratively improved. It’s a holistic solution, connecting every employee to the strategic objectives of the organization.