By Shane Johnson, Preservar CEO
Firstly, the team here at Preservar would like to wish everyone a wonderful festive season and we hope 2025 brings you everything you are hoping for!
As the year draws to a close many of you may be facing “The December Challenge” or some version of it, especially if your business assesses performance in line with the calendar year. What do we mean by December Challenge, you may ask? Well, many operations are striving to achieve their yearly targets and look for ways to maximise their production in these remaining months. This typically leads to questioning what maintenance can be deferred to increase November and December’s capacity.
This approach isn’t necessarily an issue, provided the adequate mitigation strategies have been put in place to ensure asset health is preserved beforehand and that the required interventions are scheduled for the first quarter of next year.
However, often what we at Preservar see is a poor first quarter due to an increase in maintenance interventions, operational issues (often caused by the deferral of maintenance) and/or external events which then put immense pressure on the remainder of the year, leading to clients facing another December Challenge. And so the cycle continues…
Breaking the December Challenge Cycle
Breaking this cycle is key to ensure that your business gets off to a strong start in the new year. Avoid being backed into the December Challenge corner again by planning for a strong Q1 at least 6 months before the end of the year (either calendar or financial). Often, we are running under immense pressure in the remaining months of the year and overlook protecting the next quarter from poor performance.
If you start preparing in Q2 for the likelihood of a December Challenge and think through the options and scenarios that could play out, it gives you time to also think through how to protect the new year’s first quarter. You may also bring forward some critical maintenance instead of pushing it out to ensure the assets can perform through the December Challenge and into Q1.
If you haven’t already work through these scenario, remember that it’s never too late. Here’s to a great 2025 and productive Q1!