May 15, 2008
Maintenance Tip
Who is Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, and Informed? RACI can tell you!
When your maintenance team needs a decision made on changing a part or changing a process do they know: Who is Responsible, Accountable, who should be Consulted, and who should be Informed? When decisions need to be made or processes need to be changes at your facility, are YOU always sure who you should be seeking out?
Wouldn’t it be nice if just a quick glance at a chart could define just who is Responsible, Accountable, should be Consulted or only Informed? Just having all of these people identified formally for all processes and even for decisions when they need be made could be the difference between achieving your maintenance goals or running into obstacles at every turn.
If you are new to a maintenance team, you’re probably facing the frustration of learning the boundaries within your organization. That defeated feeling you have is only because you consistently go to the same people for the wrong thing and guess what? Everyone else is or has done exactly the same thing. Two or three phone calls later you might get to someone who is Accountable or Responsible….maybe. Seems like a real waste of time doesn’t it?
Imagine being a new manager and walking into a maintenance department, seeing a chart which clearly defines each process, who is accountable and responsible, etc. Maybe you could learn where your boundaries are in the new organization must faster rather than walking around blind for at least a few weeks or like I did once for a few months.
RACI Charting has been around for a long time, it seems so simple yet so few organizations use it. Maybe because they assume each employee will just “figure it out” over time. This idea of learning as you go doesn’t help – it hurts. RACI can empower your organization, create a streamlined decision-making process that everyone can understand. When you realize what a simple and powerful tool RACI can be, you’ll wonder why you never used it before or why you didn’t think of it first! Here are some basic rules of RACI.
• R – Responsible = this is the “doer”
• A – Accountable = the “buck” stops here
• C – Consulted = who needs to be consulted before an something happens (no option)
• I – Informed = Keep this person informed (no option)
Tip provided by By Ricky Smith, CMRP
Allied Reliability
Cell: 843-725-8378
