Why OCM?

Maintenance used to be planned on an annual cycle, executed with military precision, and aimed at maximum asset availability. That is the past. OCM, as a new way of thinking, breaks with traditional dogmas and puts the needs of production back at the center of maintenance. This is how maintenance succeeds “at the right cost” – not “at any cost.”

It is all about production. Ultimately, all maintenance has one purpose: to ensure that assets are available when they are needed. So why is it that operations – with production cycles that fluctuate according to market demand – plays almost no role in most conventional maintenance strategies? Instead, maintenance is planned based on last year’s budget. Strategies are developed once and then rarely, if ever, adjusted. That is detached from reality. Last year’s budgets say very little about current and future demand, production volumes, or the level of asset availability actually required.

The fact is: in many organizations, maintenance is an expensive black box, driven by experience, historical numbers, and inherited assumptions. This is not solely the fault of maintenance teams. Silo thinking and fragmented IT and data structures make it difficult to exchange information across functional boundaries. But there is a better way. OCM asks what level of maintenance effort operations actually needs. It helps transform maintenance from a static function into a dynamic performance system, where everything – including budgets – is evaluated in real time and adjusted with a forward-looking perspective. The result: significantly lower total costs, more efficient execution, and, most importantly, asset availability that matches actual business demand. To get there, we need to break with a few apparent dogmas:

Maintenance must no longer be a black box understood mainly by engineers. Performance gaps must be permanently transparent – even when that transparency is uncomfortable. One hundred percent availability is extremely expensive and not always required. You can go “all in” at the poker table – not in business. Companies that try to engineer out every possible failure risk pay a high price. And yet, their assets still fail. Why? More on that later. OCM enables you to develop your existing maintenance organization into a high-performance team through three steps and six simple principles. The three steps are:

1. Observe – Understand your assets and identify the real problem.
2. Connect – Bring production and maintenance together.
3. Move – Mobilize your people and build followers.

These three steps are supported by the six core principles of OCM. The principles apply across all three OCM steps. It is important to understand that the OCM principles are not a new methodology – unlike RCM, TPM, or other approaches that prescribe, in a static and structured way, what needs to be done. The basic idea behind the six principles is different: they are flexible, easy to apply, and can be embedded directly into the daily thinking and behavior of maintenance teams. That is how they create impact quickly. Here is a brief summary of the six OCM principles:

1. Think Zero-Based

Think maintenance consistently from zero.
Do not accept “We have always done it this way.” Instead, challenge every task and reassess its contribution to value.

2. Act Demand-Driven

Align your maintenance activities with the actual production demand.
Not every asset, risk, or task deserves the same level of attention. What matters is the specific contribution to availability, risk reduction, and business performance. Manage this dynamically – not statically.

3. Be Forward-Looking

Look ahead, not only backward.
Do not spend endless time analyzing past failures. Instead, identify early which disruptions may occur in the coming weeks and months – and determine how they can be prevented.

4. Are Prescriptive

Do not just describe activities – describe expected outcomes.
OCM does not ask, “Which task is missing from the list?” It asks, “What outcome should this decision produce?”

5. Benchmark Your Performance Instantly

Make your performance financially visible at all times.
Show in real time where value is being lost, where potential exists, and which actions will make the greatest contribution to business results.

6. Strategy is Key

Anchor asset management in a clear strategic plan.
Yes, execution is more important than strategy. But without a clear strategy, there can be no strong execution. Define objectives, KPIs, and initiatives in a way that directly connects asset decisions to business strategy.