I’ve helping a client improve their maintenance maturity, and we are using Winston Ledet’s People-Centric Reliability model as the foundation for the journey as it's a practical and powerful way of understanding how maintenance culture evolves from firefighting to pride.
On the train home from my most recent visit, whilst scrolling through the playlist on my phone, I thought "Britpop can really teach us a lot about the reliability journey." (Run with me on this one)
1. Reactive Maintenance – “Tubthumping” by Chumbawamba
“I get knocked down, but I get up again, you're never gonna keep me down.”
The team lives in chaos — everything is urgent, nothing is planned. There’s a kind of scrappy resilience, but it's survival, not strategy. Failures are repeated, and heroism is rewarded more than reliability.
2. Preventive Maintenance – “Alright” by Supergrass
“We are young, we run green, keep our teeth nice and clean…”
Preventive maintenance routines appear — checklists, inspections, time-based tasks. There's optimism and energy, but little prioritisation or criticality thinking. It looks better on paper than in practice.
3. Planned Maintenance – “Fix You” by Coldplay
“Lights will guide you home, and ignite your bones…”
Now the shift happens. Planning and scheduling functions are separated from execution. Job plans improve, backlog is visible, and time is respected. The team moves from chaos to control — it’s where reliability starts to grow.
4. Proactive Maintenance – “Common People” by Pulp
“You'll never live like common people…”
We move beyond routines into root cause thinking. Failure data drives improvement. Defect elimination, precision maintenance, and operator care take centre stage. There’s ownership — and ambition.
5. Reliability Culture – “Wonderwall” by Oasis
“Because maybe… you're gonna be the one that saves me.”
Reliability becomes embedded. Everyone plays their part — operators, planners, engineers, leaders. Maintenance is no longer a background function — it’s a trusted enabler of performance, safety, and business value.
So now I’m curious… What would be your 90s anthem (or, indeed, any other ear) for reliability transformation?
#Reliability #Maintenance #AssetManagement #PeopleCentricReliability #EngineeringLeadership #CMMS #RCM #Chumbawamba #Supergrass #Coldplay #Pulp #Oasis #CultureChange #90sAnthems
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