ReliabilityRadio EP 372: Dan Anderson, TRM

Oh, gosh.

You know, as we enter in this whole world of of you know maintenance reliability best practices but still there's such a struggle between the it side of things and the maintenance and reliability side of things you know when it especially comes because you don't hear of cmms systems as much anymore i mean it's still a term that's commonly referred to but everybody appears to be moving towards enterprise asset management systems you know the ones like sap jd edwards uh you know the oracle systems that are all encompassing and really intended for for purchasing supply chain as well as the maintenance and reliability professionals so i see that moving in that and as you get more into that there's always that danger that you know when it becomes an i.t initiative that that information from your legacy CMMS systems is just getting dumped into these EAM systems without little consideration of what a maintenance and reliability professional needs.

You know, a good bill of materials, a good asset hierarchy to get a holistic understanding of, you know, the costs associated with, you know, and I would put it in basic terms, right? The car, the car's engine, the car's alternator.

They're all maintainable pieces of equipment that you go out and work on, but to be able to track costs, not only to that car, but the sub components within it.

So, and I'm getting down a rabbit hole here.

I'd say, you know, but you asked me, that's what this is

for, man.

Let's go down this rabbit hole.

Let's go all the way down.

No, I mean, you asked me a very simple question.

What frustrates me nowadays is not seeing that alignment and, and having it understand the, that, hey, I really need to take into consideration, you know, the tools, the reports, you know, those sorts of things that are needed for my maintenance and reliability personnel.

So I still think that that's still a problem that's out there that needs to be addressed.

Do you think it's because people's understanding of what I.T. is and what I.T. actually is supposed to do is not aligned? Like they come with this perception of what we think I.T.

does every day.

You think there's a little bit of that in play that I.T. supposed to help me find a technology solution to fix my problem instead of, well, IT's main focus is to protect and facilitate the infrastructure.

I mean, is there a little bit of that in there?

I think there is a little bit of that.

It's almost like between maintenance and operations.

You know, I see it so many times with folks out there that look at, oh, well, I call maintenance to come out and service my equipment.

you know, and it's not a partnership.

Whereas with the IT folks, there needs to be that partnership and a governance structure in place.

So it's not just being forced on people.

Like when you get a new system that, hey, this is what you get.

This is what IT is going to deliver to you.

We don't really think about or consider what needs to be, what tools you need for your day-to-day job.