Maintenance and reliability teams are hurting from a lack of resources. Whether its shortage of parts, shortage of staff, shortage of budget, or shortage of support, the pressures on these professionals have never been greater. Redlist recently took a survey of it’s customers across a number of industries and have been able to tease out some common themes.
Key Takeaways
Redlist is a tech company that builds apps for maintenance, safety, and lubrication teams at companies in the heavy industry where the equipment is the lifeblood of their revenue stream. In a survey of Redlist’s customer base, these maintenance teams provided feedback on their biggest problems and pain points right now. There was an overwhelming response about shortages. Shortages of people, parts, consumables, and budgets.
Labor Shortage
- The labor shortage isn’t just about the aging workforce or lack of skilled labor. There has been a shift away from industrial or oil and gas companies being the biggest companies in the world or the most attractive jobs.
- However, these companies are in fact tech companies! Most of these organizations are completely revolutionizing the way they do business by using automation and technology.
- Technology is enabling maintenance and lubrication teams to do more with less.
Supply Shortage
- The supply shortage is particularly challenging for lubrication teams. For years, you’ve been told to consolidate suppliers to streamline your lubricants. But, with the perfect storm of issues since the pandemic, most companies have had to broaden their supply base to keep their equipment lubricated.
- Labor and parts are a bottleneck for maintenance teams. However, you can save money, reduce the workload, and increase equipment reliability by looking for more technologically performant products. Certain product alternatives can get up to a 10x reduction in the amount of work you need to do.
Budget Shortage
- While it sounds like an obvious solution to just buy the best and longest-performing products, the majority of organizations are also facing tighter budgets. So, it’s not as simple as it sounds.
- Turning to data can help. Even if you can’t spend money to work toward your maintenance KPIs (key performance indicators), at least being aware of them can help you realize what matters and have it influence your decisions.
- Part of putting your data to work includes breaking down the silos between departments. Having maintenance and operations share data helps to put everyone on the same page and can improve the maintenance and reliability culture.
