EDITORIAL

I SAW A STATEMENT in a British maintenance magazine that said “today’s maintenance departments are continually being asked to do more. Unfortunately, in most cases they are being asked to do more with less”.

It ’s no news that the cost of maintenance is actually very small compared to what you are likely to have to pay out if machinery breaks down through lack of good care and attention, so I thought this statement was a bit troubling. In fact, a recent survey purportedly showed the actual cost of a breakdown was between four to fifteen times the maintenance costs.

Over the next few months I asked around – was this statement true in New Zealand, as well? Of course, it was, because worldwide everyone is looking to get more for less.

But what was interesting is that nobody I spoke to was bothered with being asked to do more for less, because among my loose research group all had been asked to work leaner in a way that was offered as a challenge – a chance to learn to work smarter, to try new ideas, to upskill and to step up and speak out with their own thoughts on how certain areas of maintenance might be improved.

Rather than succumb to ‘fail and fix’ reactive maintenance it seems many employees are taking the instruction to do more for less as a personal and fulfilling challenge, and all with the backing of the company. What they call I think, in the current vernacular, a win- win.

JANE WARWICK