The Maintenance Manifesto
Maintenance is the foundation of production. We advocate for the appreciation of maintenance teams and share principles for the shift from reactive 'firefighting' to proactive reliability. Through our experience, we have come to value:
Asset Function over Asset Preservation
Proactive Root Cause Elimination over Reactive Speed
Actionable Insight over Comprehensive Data
Shared Stewardship over Siloed Responsibility
That is, while there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on the left more.
Principles
1. Reliability is a culture, not a department.
Reliability cannot be driven solely by the maintenance team; it must be led from the top and lived on the shopfloor.
2. The goal is capacity assurance.
We do not maintain equipment for the sake of the equipment; we maintain it guided by criticality to preserve the function it provides to the business.
3. The best repair is the one you never need.
Invest more time preventing failures than fixing them where it is effective.
4. Defect elimination is the highest form of maintenance.
Fixing it right is good; prevent it from happening again is the goal. We seek the root cause, not just the symptom.
5. Safety and reliability are inseparable.
A reliable asset is a safe asset. Safety and compliance set the baseline. We do not trade safety for schedule; they serve the same goal.
6. Operators are the first line of defense.
Those who run the machine know the machine. Early fault detection starts with well trained people closest to the asset.
7. Competence over Checklists.
A skilled workforce is more effective than one that blindly follows checklists. Invest in people first, tools second.
8. Simplicity is essential.
Workflows, data entry, and procedures must be as simple as possible and as standardized as necessary. Complexity hides failure.
9. Maximize wrench time.
We aggressively remove administrative barriers and process steps without compromising safety, so technicians spend their time on the asset, not on paperwork.
10. Manage the work, not the metric.
Measure what changes behavior: maintenance and planning drive availability—not the other way around. Leading indicators you control; lagging indicators only tell you if it worked.
11. The system is decision-memory.
The CMMS captures what we learned so the next person doesn't start from zero. Document what enables better decisions—for the technician, the planner, and the auditor alike.
12. Design for maintainability.
Most lifetime cost is locked in during design. Involve maintenance expertise before the asset is bought.