At the plant level, reliability and maintenance directed change is difficult to achieve. Most of our efforts are focused on improving how we execute the hard skills such as planning, scheduling, work execution and the supporting work of the reliability engineers. What is missed is the need to improve the foundation upon which the hard skills are built. 

These soft skills, called the eight elements of change, are critical to success. Also not often taken into consideration, but equally as important, is the sub-foundation – the organizational culture. The elements in the sub-foundation are referred to as the four elements of culture. For change to be successful the soft skills and the change in organizational culture must be addressed.