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Kevin Stewart, PE, CMRP

Kevin Stewart-300x400Executive Summary

Welcome to Accendo Reliability – join us and learn the art and craft of reliability engineering

I am an experienced educator and maintenance/reliability professional with 38 years of practical work experience in a variety of roles for ALCOA Primary Metals Group and ARMS Reliability.

I spent 34 years with Alcoa, the first 12 years were as a plant engineer and the last 22 years I developed and improved reliability systems. Twelve of those years were at a smelting facility, 2 as their Corporate Reliability Manager and 8 as a Reliability Consultant for their Primary Metals division. After retiring from Alcoa, I became the lead RCA (Root Cause Analysis) trainer for ARMS Reliability for 4 years.

After retiring from ARMS in 2016, I founded KPS Reliability. Currently, I provide the following services:

  • Teach the top branded Apollo RCA Methodology™ as an onsite course and in public classes
  • Provide consulting to establish a root cause program within an organization to ensure self sufficiency
  • Provide problem-solving facilitation to address issues at a location or company
  • Consulting and coaching to establish, improve, and maintain Reliability programs.

I have developed a 10-step program that outlines the order of moving from a reactive to a proactive state, which was modeled after successful application within ALCOA

Passion

Help companies improve their reliability by quickly solving problems that provide high ROI’s (return on investment) which, in turn, pay for the programs and get management on board. If you are starting or struggling to maintain a reliability program, Root Cause Analysis programs can provide the quick wins and large dollar savings that upper management wants. The ROI for problem elimination is very often 1000% or more, if properly applied.

Learn more about KPS Reliability LLC and Root Cause Analysis at KPS Reliability LLC. Please check out my blog and join in the discussion at KPS Reliability blog.

Background

I have a degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Washington, Seattle, and I am a licensed PE (Professional Engineer). I hold a CMRP (Certified Maintenance and Reliability Professional) Certificate through SMRPCO. I started my career with Alcoa at their Wenatchee Aluminum Smelter in their plant engineering organization.

In the early 90’s, I was put in charge of improving the plant’s reliability. As I tried to understand the situation, it quickly became obvious that most of the problems stemmed from lack of basic blocking and tackling. There was no PM system, no work order system, no reliability focus, many repetitive problems, no planning, and the maintenance process was in disarray. Since the basics of reliability is preventing failures, it was determined that we first needed to establish the basics.

I believe my hands-on background in establishing all aspects of a reliability program at a production facility gives me a unique perspective to help companies drive their programs and avoid potentially costly mistakes.

Basics

I set out fixing things using Root Cause Analysis. This did two things – gave us some breathing room and got the operations personnel involved and behind the initiative because they saw what was in it for them. After this initial phase, we started establishing the maintenance process utilizing a CMMS (computerized maintenance management system) with PM work orders. Next, I implemented metrics to track progress and drive cultural change within the organization. As things improved, I established a planning system. With those things in place, I started involving the operations in a Root Cause culture and involved the operators. Lastly, my original purpose was to be able to do reliability analysis on problems, so I established a data collection system inside the CMMS to collect data to analyze.

In the middle of this work, the storeroom was converted from procurement to maintenance, and on the switchover date, the person that had been trained quit. I jumped in and took over stores for several years with the guideline that I wanted people to want to put items in stores because we could do a better job than anyone for managing their parts. This was accomplished

Root Cause Analysis

Along the journey, I developed my passion for Root Cause Analysis. It is, in my mind, the single most cost-effective tool with some of the highest ROI available. Problem solving is a skill that is necessary in all aspects of business, as well as our personal lives, HR, production, maintenance, safety, quality, dealing with vendors, stores, personal problems, children, etc. The list is endless. I have been associated with Apollo Root Cause Methodology since 1990 and was trained by Dean Gano who is the originator of the process.   I started out as a user of the methodology and have gone on to become a certified instructor and facilitator of the process teaching over 2500 students and facilitating many high consequence problems for companies.

Specialties

Problem facilitation, Root Cause Analysis instruction, Reliability program design and management

Kevin’s author archive lists contributions of articles and episodes.