Your Maintenance Priorities Are Getting Stuck at the Organizational Level
Your results suggest that your maintenance team has the capability to improve performance, but gaining alignment and support across the organization may be making it difficult to move the right initiatives forward.
Fix the foundation to break the cycle
Your Team Can’t Drive Change Alone
You saw in the State of Maintenance Report that maintenance leaders often know where improvement is needed. The harder part can be building enough organizational support to do something about it.
Your results suggest that Organizational Friction may be limiting your ability to turn good ideas into action. In practice, that can mean:
- Maintenance priorities compete with production or other business needs for attention and resources
- Improvement requests struggle to gain traction without a clear business case
- Maintenance, operations and leadership don’t always agree on which problems deserve attention first
When that happens, capable teams can find themselves repeatedly making the case for improvements they already know are needed.
Don’t panic: You don’t necessarily need to implement another initiative. Start by building a stronger case for the improvements you already know are needed.
YOUR RESULTS MAPPED TO THE RESEARCH
Share the AssessmentHow can you gain the organizational support needed to drive lasting change?
The research found that organizational support can be a significant dividing line between identifying an improvement and actually being able to act on it.
36% of organizations reported that maintenance requests were frequently blocked by organizational resistance or adversarial relationships, while 64% reported having the organizational support needed to move maintenance initiatives forward.
The organizations that gain support are better able to show not only what they want to improve, but why it should be the next priority based on measurable performance data.
How well do you understand your maintenance performance?
A stronger business case starts with evidence.
The report found that organizations with a clear picture of maintenance performance scored nearly 20% higher in Work Execution than those without it. It also emphasizes that without a shared understanding across maintenance, operations and leadership, building alignment for lasting improvement becomes more difficult.
How do you measure meaningful progress?
Getting approval for an improvement is only part of the challenge. Showing that it worked can make it easier to maintain support for the next one.
The research found that 40% of organizations couldn’t confidently determine whether their maintenance programs were improving. Organizations making greater progress measured the impact of improvements before taking the next step, which helped them prioritize investments and build organizational support over time.
Build a Stronger Case for Maintenance
Put a number to the problem
Quantify the downtime, cost, production impact or recurring work associated with the issue you want to address. Give leadership something concrete to evaluate.
Connect maintenance priorities to business priorities
Frame the improvement around outcomes that matter across the organization — such as reducing downtime, protecting production or making better use of existing investments and people resources — rather than presenting it only as a maintenance need.
Define what success looks like
Before asking for support, determine how you’ll measure the impact. A clear goal makes the initial decision easier to evaluate and gives you evidence to bring back to leadership afterward.
reported that maintenance requests were frequently blocked by organizational resistance or adversarial relationships.
reported having the organizational support needed to move maintenance initiatives forward.
couldn’t confidently determine whether their maintenance programs were improving.
Warning: Don’t lead with the solution!
Start with the problem and its business impact before jumping to a new system, program or investment. Leadership needs a clear reason to act before it needs the details of what you want to implement.
Ready to Build More Support for Maintenance Priorities?
Your assessment suggests that the opportunity isn’t simply identifying another improvement. It’s making a stronger case for the initiatives that can have the greatest impact.
Pro Services can help you evaluate maintenance performance, quantify the operational impact of current challenges and identify practical priorities you can bring to leadership with a clearer business case.
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