Money Ball
I had an entirely different blog planned out for today, but you see I had nothing to do at 8:00 pm tonight and I wasn’t tired. Trolling the “on demand” selections I came across “Money Ball”. A friend just recently told me to watch it, because in her words, it was a very soulful movie. I responded “I thought it was about money and baseball”, she answered it is that, but so much more.
Watching the movie, I found myself moved and often teary eyed. A truly great story and from what I have read online after the movie, truthful. I’m no baseball expert, but the internet seems to confirm that the 2002 A’s hold the record for consecutive games won in the American league, 20 in total
Why would I cry?, big tough guy like me, you know the description by now part Shrek, Luca Brasi and an average sized grizzly bear.
I’ll let you in on a little secret…I care.
I have been in this industry, Power plants, for half of my life. I have pissed people off, I have angered many and yet I bet you money that you the worst of my detractors would say I cared (perhaps too much)
You see, in general the people in our industry give it their all, those who do not stick out like a sore thumb.
Just because you work hard does not mean that you will be successful. I makes me crazy when people work hard in the wrong direction.
So why did the movie effect me? Well naturally I identified with Brad Pitts character (The similarity was at times uncanny). When you’re the only one in the room that thinks the way you do, it’s never easy. The resistance and shear ill will that gets directed at you can be toxic at best, undermining at worst.
What does this all have to do about outages? Well easy, the movie is about how to win for at least money as possible sounds like an outage to me!
The basic concept is: if you want something to change then you need to change something
Not rocket science I know, yet nobody wants to change do they?
Let me ask you. Do your outages start when they are supposed to, finish when they are supposed to and come in under budget?
If they do then great, but if they don’t what are you going to do different next outage.
Everybody in a plant can change a tire on a car. How long do you think it takes? Let’s see:
Pull the car over off the road 20 seconds
Put the car in park and shut it off 5 seconds
Pull the emergency brake 5 seconds
Get out pop the trunk 10 seconds
Get the Jack and the spare out 30 seconds
Place the jack and get engaged 20 seconds
Remove the hub cap 10 seconds
Break the lug nuts 60 seconds
Jack the car up 120 seconds
Unscrew the lug nuts 60 seconds
Pull the old tire 5 seconds
Put on the new tire 5 seconds
Start all the lug nuts 30 seconds
Tighten all the lug nuts 60 seconds
Jack the car down 60 seconds
Put the hubcap back 10 seconds
Return the jack and flat to the trunk 60 seconds
Get back in the car start it up 10 seconds
The above list of steps is a total of 580 seconds, some of the steps could be wrong but in general I think this describes a very quick tire change.
Like I said everyone can change a tire.
Here’s a You Tube video where they change all 4 tires in what looks like to me, 16 seconds:
That’s a quite a difference but what’s a few minutes right?
Let’s take that thought out for a spin, shall we?
A plant has a down day cost of $50,000 per day that means each second would be worth $0.58. So if we applied that cost to our tire change that would mean that you changing the tire would cost you $327.12 more than it should cost you
Now I can change a tire to, but if it cost me $327.12 more than it should I certainly would start doing something different
I can hear you now, They have special tools!, They are set up for it!, They train to do that!, They have more people!.
Yes that’s the point, but if you would like to continue to change your own tires and spend that extra money that’s your choice. I cannot in good conscience watch you do it and say nothing. Buts that’s me
What would saving 10% cost and schedule mean for your plant?
What plant improvements could you do?, What would the bottom line look like? What kind of training would that fund? Lastly what does that do to your bonus?
