Line of Sight: Why Should Your Machines Know Your Company’s Goals?
In many facilities, engineering and business work side by side, but not together. Line of Sight is a concept that connects management goals with daily decisions at machines, inspections, and investments. Without this consistency, it is easy to drift into costly misalignment.
From firefighting to consistency
Maintenance is often perceived as a "firefighting" function that simply keeps production moving. Meanwhile, technical decisions have a direct impact on financial performance: OEE levels, failure costs, safety, reputation, and the ability to fulfill orders. If these decisions are not aligned with business objectives, the organization loses direction - investing in what is loud rather than what is truly important.
The absence of Line of Sight is a situation where the technical department can do a lot of work yet fail to deliver real business value. Teams face tensions between prevention and production, between budget and reliability, between technical KPIs and management expectations. Without a shared "picture on the box," decisions are short-term, and efforts are scattered. In practice, this means constant fires: sudden downtimes, urgent purchases, emergency service decisions, and conflicts over maintenance windows. Each of these situations has a cost that is rarely fully visible in maintenance reports. The cost of lost sales, quality risks, or team tensions do not appear in the table, but they affect the outcome. Line of Sight organizes this perspective and allows for the assessment of where investments in reliability truly make the most sense.
This can be compared to assembling a huge puzzle without a picture on the box. Each department puts together its piece as best as it can, but no one is sure whether we are ultimately building a castle or a submarine. Line of Sight provides that picture and allows everyone to assemble cohesively - from management to mechanics.
It is also important to remember that consistency is not a one-time project. Priorities, markets, customers, and technology change, so the "picture on the box" needs to be updated. A good Line of Sight is flexible but not chaotic: it allows for changes without losing meaning and without reverting to firefighting.
How to build Line of Sight?
Line of Sight starts with a simple question: what does the company want to achieve in the next 12–36 months? These can be goals related to efficiency, timeliness, safety, quality, or production flexibility. Only then are these translated into technical decisions: which assets are critical, what risks are acceptable, where to invest in prevention, and where to modernize. Without this sequence, a paradox easily arises: the engineering is optimized, but the business is unhappy.
It is crucial to connect the "high-level goals in the organization" with "micro-decisions on the shop floor." If the strategy speaks of stable growth and risk minimization, but practice rewards ad-hoc savings on prevention, then the system is inconsistent. Line of Sight helps to standardize the language: technical KPIs become tools for achieving business goals, rather than just internal reports from the maintenance department. In practice, this means mapping goals to a set of metrics that both technical managers and finance understand.
In many companies, the lack of consistency stems from a lack of data or from data quality that does not allow for reliable inference. Line of Sight requires that information on failure rates, costs, and downtime not only be available but also interpreted in the context of the business. Only then do CAPEX and OPEX decisions make sense. When the data is consistent, it becomes clear which assets are "dragging down" the performance and which provide stability.
An essential element is also the mechanism of "translating" goals into practical work rules. For example: if the company's priority is safety and supply stability, then the prevention plan must protect critical technical systems, not just fulfill the number of inspections. If the goal is to reduce costs, this cannot mean cuts without risk analysis, but optimizing scopes and frequencies based on data. This decision-making logic ensures that every level of the organization understands why specific actions are taken and how they translate into outcomes.
A practical element of Line of Sight is also the systematic alignment of priorities between maintenance, production, and finance. Instead of the conflict of "which failure is more important," a common logic emerges: what impacts safety and performance takes precedence. This approach reduces chaos, shortens response times, and strengthens a culture of accountability. It is here that the mission of Operivo is most visible - supporting organizations in building safe and reliable technical departments that operate in alignment with the company's goals.
For Line of Sight to work in practice, a simple, regular review mechanism is needed: periodic meetings, a set of common indicators, and clear escalation rules. Many companies only have technical maintenance reports, but lack a "business mirror" that shows how technical decisions impact outcomes. Only by combining these perspectives can one move out of a reactive work mode. This is also the moment when the organization can see if its efforts are heading toward the planned "picture on the box" or if it is drifting again towards ad-hoc compromises.
The essence
- Line of Sight connects business goals with technical decisions regarding assets.
- Lack of consistency leads to hidden costs and scattered maintenance actions.
- Data and KPIs only make sense when they are embedded in the logic of the company's goals.
- A shared understanding of the vision ("picture on the box") reduces conflicts between departments.
Summary
Line of Sight is not a trendy buzzword, but a practical tool for organizing decisions, priorities, and investments. Without this consistency, the company operates like a team assembling a puzzle without a picture - each piece may fit locally, but the whole does not create value. Aligning business goals with operational maintenance is the foundation of modern asset management. It is also a way to rebuild trust between engineering and business, as all parties see the same decision logic.
If you want to organize maintenance priorities and link them to business goals, Operivo can help build a clear vision of Asset Management for your company.
Related services:
Operivo Sp. z o.o.
Aleja Jana Pawła II 27
00-867 Warsaw
+48 533 373 200
europe@operivo.com
Copyright @ Operivo 2025
Privacy Policy