Accendo Reliability

Your Reliability Engineering Professional Development Site

  • Home
  • About
    • Contributors
    • About Us
    • Colophon
    • Survey
  • Reliability.fm
  • Articles
    • CRE Preparation Notes
    • NoMTBF
    • on Leadership & Career
      • Advanced Engineering Culture
      • ASQR&R
      • Engineering Leadership
      • Managing in the 2000s
      • Product Development and Process Improvement
    • on Maintenance Reliability
      • Aasan Asset Management
      • AI & Predictive Maintenance
      • Asset Management in the Mining Industry
      • CMMS and Maintenance Management
      • CMMS and Reliability
      • Conscious Asset
      • EAM & CMMS
      • Everyday RCM
      • History of Maintenance Management
      • Life Cycle Asset Management
      • Maintenance and Reliability
      • Maintenance Management
      • Plant Maintenance
      • Process Plant Reliability Engineering
      • RCM Blitz®
      • ReliabilityXperience
      • Rob’s Reliability Project
      • The Intelligent Transformer Blog
      • The People Side of Maintenance
      • The Reliability Mindset
    • on Product Reliability
      • Accelerated Reliability
      • Achieving the Benefits of Reliability
      • Apex Ridge
      • Field Reliability Data Analysis
      • Metals Engineering and Product Reliability
      • Musings on Reliability and Maintenance Topics
      • Product Validation
      • Reliability by Design
      • Reliability Competence
      • Reliability Engineering Insights
      • Reliability in Emerging Technology
      • Reliability Knowledge
    • on Risk & Safety
      • CERM® Risk Insights
      • Equipment Risk and Reliability in Downhole Applications
      • Operational Risk Process Safety
    • on Systems Thinking
      • Communicating with FINESSE
      • The RCA
    • on Tools & Techniques
      • Big Data & Analytics
      • Experimental Design for NPD
      • Innovative Thinking in Reliability and Durability
      • Inside and Beyond HALT
      • Inside FMEA
      • Institute of Quality & Reliability
      • Integral Concepts
      • Learning from Failures
      • Progress in Field Reliability?
      • R for Engineering
      • Reliability Engineering Using Python
      • Reliability Reflections
      • Statistical Methods for Failure-Time Data
      • Testing 1 2 3
      • The Manufacturing Academy
  • eBooks
  • Resources
    • Accendo Authors
    • FMEA Resources
    • Glossary
    • Feed Forward Publications
    • Openings
    • Books
    • Webinar Sources
    • Podcasts
  • Courses
    • Your Courses
    • Live Courses
      • Introduction to Reliability Engineering & Accelerated Testings Course Landing Page
      • Advanced Accelerated Testing Course Landing Page
    • Integral Concepts Courses
      • Reliability Analysis Methods Course Landing Page
      • Applied Reliability Analysis Course Landing Page
      • Statistics, Hypothesis Testing, & Regression Modeling Course Landing Page
      • Measurement System Assessment Course Landing Page
      • SPC & Process Capability Course Landing Page
      • Design of Experiments Course Landing Page
    • The Manufacturing Academy Courses
      • An Introduction to Reliability Engineering
      • Reliability Engineering Statistics
      • An Introduction to Quality Engineering
      • Quality Engineering Statistics
      • FMEA in Practice
      • Process Capability Analysis course
      • Root Cause Analysis and the 8D Corrective Action Process course
      • Return on Investment online course
    • Industrial Metallurgist Courses
    • FMEA courses Powered by The Luminous Group
    • Foundations of RCM online course
    • Reliability Engineering for Heavy Industry
    • How to be an Online Student
    • Quondam Courses
  • Calendar
    • Call for Papers Listing
    • Upcoming Webinars
    • Webinar Calendar
  • Login
    • Member Home
  • Barringer Process Reliability Introduction Course Landing Page
  • Upcoming Live Events
You are here: Home / Articles / Keys to Reliability: Priority, Proaction and Focus

by Robert (Bob) J. Latino Leave a Comment

Keys to Reliability: Priority, Proaction and Focus

Keys to Reliability: Priority, Proaction and Focus

Anyone who knows me may also know about my father, Charles Latino, and his lifelong contribution to the field of reliability. My father was one of the pioneers of reliability in the 1950’s when nobody even knew what reliability really was. He pioneered and championed technologies like vibration analysis, infrared thermography and many others working for a Fortune 100 chemical company. Later he focused his attention on the cultural aspects of reliability and how organizations need to behave to make it all work.

He was also a mentor for me and my four brothers and sisters who remain in this field. One thing he always preached was: Priority, Proaction and Focus. I heard the words but never really internalized their true meaning until I started working with many different industries  as a consultant and later working as a practitioner at a very large industrial facility.

Focus – This is the one that has really made an impression on me over the years. As human beings, we think we have the capacity to do more than is really practically possible. We say YES to everything and find that there is not enough time and resources to effectively do all that we commit to. We try to be good soldiers, but we end up not being very effective. There are simply too many issues, failures, initiatives and projects that come up every day in a large industrial facility.  It is so easy to lose focus and get caught up in the priority of the day. As manager’s, it is our job to keep people focused on key priorities and not asking our people to perform non-value added activities that limit their focus.

Priority – Leaders must define the key priorities and communicate those to everyone in the organization. This is not a poster on the wall in a conference room but very actionable priorities for the facility. Once this is in place, leaders need to ensure that they are not asking their employees to work on tasks that are not in alignment with these priorities. Priorities do change from time to time and that is expected. But it should be the exception and not the rule. Leaders should look for any opportunity to reinforce priorities and to make sure progress is being made towards those goals.

Proaction – Reaction is the order of the day in most industrial facilities. The failure of the day, the latest request from corporate, the 

customer compliant that needs immediate attention, etc. It is easy to fall into the trap of reaction. However, we must continue to devote the time and resources to do the proactive activities that drive continuous improvement. If we continually allocate all of our resources to the issue of the day, it will drive the facility into a slow and painful deterioration of performance. We can get away with it for awhile but the accumulation of reactive work will take its toll and takes a lot longer to get out of it then it took to get into it. 

As most of us can relate, its easy to put on those few extra pounds by not focusing on healthy eating for a while. It does not appear right away but you wake up one morning and wonder, how did this happen? It takes a lot more work to take it off then it did to put it on, that’s for sure! 

It is the same at a large industrial facility. Once you are in the ditch, it takes tremendous effort and resources to get out. The larger the facility the harder it is to get out.

So remember these three principles, Priority, Proaction and Focus. Every great organization employs these principles everyday. I think of the story of Apple when Steve Jobs returned in the late 1990’s. He got rid of every new project and product and said we are going to develop 4 products. He drew a 2×2 matrix and wrote consumer/professional on one side and laptop and desktop on the other. We are only going to FOCUS on these 4 products. He went onto say that he is was as proud of what Apple decided NOT to do as he was for what they actually did. 

Leaders own and drive the culture and behaviors of their employees. It is up to us to drive focus and priorities and insisting that resources are always dedicated to proaction and continuous improvement even when it does not seem prudent or popular.

So what are your thoughts on how well your organization is able to apply these principles?

Filed Under: Articles, on Systems Thinking, The RCA

About Robert (Bob) J. Latino

Robert Latino is currently a Principal at Prelical Solutions, LLC, along with his brother Ken Latino. Bob was a Founder and CEO of Reliability Center, Inc. (RCI), until it was acquired in 2019. RCI is a 50-year-old Reliability Consulting firm specializing in improving Equipment, Process and Human Reliability. Mr. Latino received his Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration and Management from Virginia Commonwealth University. For any questions, please contact Bob at blatino@prelical.com

« The Accendo Reliability Community
Introduction of Copper Sheathing »

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

logo for The RCA article series image of BobArticle by Robert (Bob) J. Latino
Principal at Prelical Solutions, LLC

in the The RCA article series

Join Accendo

Receive information and updates about articles and many other resources offered by Accendo Reliability by becoming a member.

It’s free and only takes a minute.

Join Today

Recent Posts

  • Leadership Values in Maintenance and Operations
  • Today’s Gremlin – It’ll never work here
  • How a Mission Statement Drives Behavioral Change in Organizations
  • Gremlins today
  • The Power of Vision in Leadership and Organizational Success

© 2025 FMS Reliability · Privacy Policy · Terms of Service · Cookies Policy