Continuous improvement of maintenance practice is a hall mark of reliability, a journey of never ending innovations & improvements. 

 Diesel Sheds should start fostering a culture of creativity & innovation by building a system that taps into the collective knowledge of everyone and lets everyone promote good ideas. Everyone is encouraged to start thinking differently by developing a new perspective to look at old issues, and, to believe that whatever is being done can be improved further.

Creativity isn’t innate. Creative thinking skills can be developed and Sheds must provide an enabling environment of Collaboration, empowerment, and mentor winning initiatives. Being successful at innovation is a skill, which can be acquired, it takes time, patience, training, strategic intelligence and design thinking. Even the best ideas don’t come fully formed. There is always a scope for refining, developing and identifying the ideas with the most potential. Creating a review process allows this to happen and signals that innovative ideas are valued.

Innovation demands passion, an all pervasive passion occupying the mind and soul. It provides the fuel for persistence and perseverance. Small group of like-minded people, if led properly, are able to create magic. We must identify our most creative employees and mentor them for further enhancing their creative ability. Everyone must engage his brain and stretch it to its “outer limits” – be creative. The same old thinking about the same old problems is not going to gear us towards future success.

Innovation needs to be effectively managed and sustained.  Innovation, should be built into organisational capabilities, should form core of laid down target & objectives signalling its clear importance to all employees. We must look beyond for tapping huge idea pool available in other Diesel Sheds and industry. We must promote a culture of trust, openness where people are forthcoming with their ideas and people are not pulled down before giving idea a chance. We must encourage our front line staff to become problem solvers, innovators, and change agents, who should continually ask themselves the question: “is there a better way”. We must celebrate creativity and ideas; Innovation needs a vibrant creative environment to thrive. Systematic planning and innovation management in work place is essential for keeping us firmly focussed on innovation. Mentoring and nurturing of promising ideas in every sub section should be instituted as part of innovation management.

The path of innovation is often a journey strewn with number of failed attempts and     disappointments but they should not overwhelm us as these are the great learning opportunities to know what will not work so that we can refine our path further. The concept of design thinking can be used to promote culture of innovation and improve maintenance practices in Diesel Sheds.

Creativity and innovations are not products of Eureka moments alone, nor do they emerge spontaneously from nothing. Creative shower moments manifest only after arduous, perseverant, sustained and focussed efforts.

Innovation starts from Journey mapping, which is the art of observing what is really going on and requires careful investigation of the process. Precise definition of problem is first right step in the direction. Break a problem into manageable components for faster decision. Everyone on the team is a source of deep process knowledge and ideas. Getting the team around a table and sharing ideas and recording them is a method of capturing institutional knowledge, some of which may not have been explicitly articulated before.

The next step is Hypothesis generation to figure out what creates the problems and how to solve. Solutions aren't solutions, until they work, as envisaged, else, proposed solutions are just hypotheses.  Prototyping helps in proving or disproving the hypotheses. Disruptive and highly valuable innovations come from deep understanding of the problem and finding a solution that really nails the problem rather than puts a bandage over the symptoms.

It takes a creative manager to engage his teams deeply, and that deep engagement engenders trust and sense of purpose. 

Let us make our Diesel Sheds learning organisations firmly dedicated on path of innovation and creativity.