Let’s get straight to the point: industrial maintenance isn’t a solo act. It’s not a single department heroically keeping the lights on and the machines running. It’s a team sport. And if you ask me, it’s not just like football, it is football.
Before you dismiss this as a gimmicky metaphor, hear me out. I’ve been obsessed with football since I was a kid. If I wasn't playing the game, I would be watching the game. I'm a big fan of the Dutch national team but blame my parents for being born two weeks too late. Two weeks before I was born, 'Oranje' won their biggest and only international title at the '88 European Championships. Being a fan hasn't always been easy, but I have kept myself busy.
I’ve also spent the last eight years deep in the world of enterprise asset management (EAM), working with industrial teams across Europe. And over time, I’ve noticed an uncanny parallel between the game I love and the profession I’ve grown to respect.
Teamwork Wins Titles, and Maintenance Goals
In football, no single player wins a match. Even the brightest striker needs the right ball at the right time. Likewise, maintenance doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It relies on operations to flag the early signs of failure. It depends on safety to ensure tasks are performed within compliance frameworks. And it only succeeds when all three - operations, maintenance, and safety - work in synchronization.
At Ultimo, we call this the Circle of Collaboration. Imagine a Rondo drill: players forming a circle, passing with precision, reading each other’s moves, and improving with each touch. Replace the ball with data, and that’s what good asset management looks like. Maintenance, operations, and safety all pass insights, decisions, and feedback in a closed loop. When the system works, it’s seamless. But like football, when one player’s out of sync, the whole formation falls apart.
Strategy, Not Firefighting
In football, winning isn’t just about running hard, it’s about playing smart. You analyze the opposition, you adapt your formation, you anticipate rather than react. The same mindset needs to apply on the plant floor.
Too often, maintenance teams operate in firefighting mode. Assets fail, engineers scramble, and every pound gets spent putting out fires. But with the right data - reliable, high-quality, and timely - you shift from reactive to proactive. You stop guessing and start coaching.
Just like a good football manager uses performance data to adjust tactics, reduce injuries, and maximize output, maintenance leaders must rely on actionable insights. Why did a failure occur? How long did it take to resolve? What could prevent it from happening again?
Data turns chaos into clarity. It turns downtime into learning. And most importantly, it empowers every department to pull in the same direction.
Who’s Who on the Field?
Let’s take the analogy even further. Picture your maintenance team as strikers. They’re the stars who ultimately score by keeping equipment running and reducing downtime. Operations? They are your first line of defence against disruption. They monitor assets daily, report anomalies, and provide the foundation. And safety? That’s your midfield - linking the two, controlling the tempo, recovering from mistakes, and ensuring everyone plays within the rules. They assure you are in control, on the shop floor and on the pitch.
When these roles click, you achieve Total Asset Management, much like the Dutch pioneered Total Football - a system where every player adapts, covers, and contributes dynamically. It's not rigid. It's intelligent. And it's built on trust, communication, and shared objectives.
The Role of Technology: Your Coaching Staff
Even the best teams don’t rely solely on their players. Behind every successful club is a sophisticated support structure - analysts, coaches, nutritionists, psychologists. In asset management, this role is played by your systems and platforms.
An EAM solution like Ultimo isn’t just a digital tool. It’s your tactical playbook, your assistant coach, and your data analyst rolled into one. It integrates with your enterprise resource planning (ERP), connects to Internet of Things (IoT) devices, and supports core processes like work order management, safety procedures, and inspection planning. It centralizes your operations into a single source of truth.
Good EAM systems are designed to promote collaboration. Work permits, lockout/tagout procedures, risk assessments - they’re all baked into the same environment. That’s how you align departments without adding complexity.
The Spearman Principle: From Physics to Football to the Factory Floor
Still think data’s just a buzzword? Consider Liverpool FC’s William Spearman, a physicist who helped discover the Higgs boson at CERN before joining the club as a data analyst. He now applies scientific rigour to understand passing networks, space control, and player positioning.
What if we applied the same approach to maintenance?
What if every equipment failure was analysed like a missed scoring chance? Every maintenance route trained like a set piece? Every inspection treated like match preparation?
This is not fantasy. It’s the logical evolution of our field. The best-run plants of the future will study their operations with the same level of detail and ambition that elite football teams study the pitch.
Final Whistle: It’s All About Trust
You can’t automate what you don’t understand. You can’t optimize what you don’t measure. And you can’t lead without trust. Trust in your data, your systems, and your team.
Whether you’re on the shop floor or the football pitch, the formula is the same:
- Play as a team
- Use your data wisely
- Build trust that lasts.
If there’s one lesson football has taught me, and asset management has reinforced, it’s this: Data changes the game. But teamwork wins it.
Article written By Berend Booms, Head of EAM Insights at Ultimo
