Reliable Operations Begin with Reliable Behavior

By Leslie Braksick, Ph.D and Tim Nolan, Ph.D

The best-laid plans mean very little if the behaviors of everyone in a production or manufacturing operation are not aligned. Everyone has to be in sync, from the plant manager to maintenance personnel, and everyone in between. When plans are not in alignment, even routine maintenance issues can turn into unplanned downtime, often accompanied by a multi-million dollar price tag.

Managers who can align and tap into the behavior of their people at all levels have a huge advantage that can be leveraged for reliability, safety, and operational efficiency. It starts with understanding how behavior works and then aligning behavior systematically to get results.

Everyone’s behavior makes sense to them. People typically have completely logical and rational reasons for doing what they do. Specifically, they do things because of the consequences they have experienced for that behavior in the past. Over time, they build up a track record of actions and consequences, having learned that some behaviors are punished and others are rewarded (or at least not punished).

The result is that what gets reinforced gets repeated. In many instances, team members are reluctant to bring issues to their manager’s attention for fear they will be reprimanded. Consequently, they fall back on old behaviors, doing what they’ve always done.

Fixing this situation means aligning the actions of every employee at all levels and building a culture of reliability. A “culture” is just a pattern of behavior that is either reinforced or punished by people and processes over time. Building a culture of reliability requires systematically reinforcing those critical few behaviors at all performer levels that lead to reliability.

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