Best Practices Are Starting Points, Not Final Answers

Every industry loves the phrase “best practice.” It signals credibility, maturity, and alignment with what the broader professional community considers effective. The term is often misunderstood. A best practice is not a universal solution. It is not a rigid instruction. It is not a guarantee of success.

Page 26 of Maintenance and Reliability Best Practices leads into the early section of the book where Ramesh Gulati clarifies what a best practice actually represents. It is the generally accepted best way to perform a task based on collective experience across industries. That definition comes with an important implication. Best practices are meant to be interpreted, not copied.

Why Best Practices Cannot Be Applied Blindly

Every plant operates within its own ecosystem. Equipment age, workforce skill, production demands, leadership expectations, and cultural norms all influence how work gets done. A best practice that works flawlessly in one environment may fall short in another.

This is why Gulati emphasizes that the book is not prescribing the only way to do something. It is offering a foundation. The real work happens when you translate that foundation into something that fits your plant.

Adoption Requires Understanding

Before a best practice can be implemented, it must be understood. Not memorized. Understood.

Teams need to know:

• Why the practice is considered effective
• What problem it solves
• What assumptions it relies on
• What conditions must be present for it to work
• What modifications may be necessary in their environment

Without this understanding, implementation becomes imitation. And imitation rarely produces excellence.

Adaptation Is Where Value Is Created

Once a best practice is understood, the next step is adaptation. This is where your plant’s culture, constraints, and capabilities shape the practice into something usable.

Adaptation may involve:

• Adjusting workflows
• Modifying documentation
• Training teams differently
• Integrating with existing systems
• Scaling up or down based on resources

This is how a best practice becomes your best practice.

Innovation Comes From Challenging the Standard

The most mature organizations do not simply adopt best practices. They challenge them. They test them. They refine them. They improve them.

This is how new best practices are born.

Every widely accepted best practice started as someone’s improvement. Someone questioned the status quo. Someone found a better way. Someone documented it, tested it, and shared it.

Your plant could be the source of the next evolution in reliability practices. But only if you treat best practices as living concepts rather than fixed rules.

The Real Purpose of Best Practices

Best practices are tools for learning, alignment, and improvement. They provide structure. They reduce ambiguity. They accelerate onboarding. They create a shared language across teams.

But they are not the final answer. They are the starting point for your answer.

Final Thought

Implement best practices wisely. Understand them deeply. Adapt them intentionally. Challenge them continuously. And never assume that the best practice of today will be the best practice of tomorrow.

Your plant’s next breakthrough may come from questioning the very practices you consider standard today.