Articles

Find all articles across all article series listed in reverse chronological order.

Today’s Gremlin – Perfectionist

Today’s Gremlin – “Perfectionist”, is often a planner or an engineer. This Gremlin holds himself or herself to extremely high, pretty much unattainable, standards. They cannot be found to be wrong by anyone. Perfectionists go to great lengths to get everything they do, 100% right, 100% of the time.

We all know that getting part way complete, even a large part of the way complete, is quick and easy. Although whatever we are doing may not be perfect, it is close and for most purposes, it may be good enough.

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by Mike Sondalini Leave a Comment

How to Create a Plant Wellness Way Life Cycle Enterprise Asset Management System

Plant Wellness Way Enterprise Asset Management is used by companies to successfully get world-class engineering asset management, maintenance, and reliability.

Welcome to the start of the training users get on how to build a Plant Wellness Way enterprise asset life cycle management system-of-reliability once their company begins using the PWWEAM methodology.

Throughout the course we interchange the name of the methodology commonly called ‘Enterprise Asset Management’ with engineering asset management, physical asset management, and asset life-cycle management. All these names mean the same thing. We also will switch between referring to Plant Wellness Way Enterprise Asset Management methodology to shorter versions, such as PWW EAM or PWW.

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by Greg Hutchins Leave a Comment

Emergency Preparedness & Response

Guest Post by Bill Pomfret (first posted on CERM ® RISK INSIGHTS – reposted here with permission)

The start of fall might feel too soon to begin preparing for next winter. But with memories of snowstorms fresh in your mind, now is the perfect time to review your emergency response plans. Preparing emergency response plans of time also means you’ll be ready when snow, tornadoes, hurricanes, wildfires, drought, or other types of severe weather hit.

Emergency preparedness is one of the most important things a company can invest in. When an emergency happens, being prepared can be the difference between the loss of money, time, and—most importantly—the safety of your staff. Thanks to advances in technology, companies can implement platforms and tools that can help them prepare for anything from inclement weather to a dangerous intruder or a pandemic.

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by George Williams Leave a Comment

Decision Making: Empowering Leaders in Maintenance and Reliability

In this video, George Williams, Founder and CEO of Reliability X, dives into “Decision Making,” a vital leadership building block within the Maintenance and Reliability Best Practices Framework. Learn how to:

Create clarity in decision-making with RACI and structured roles
Avoid the pitfalls of unproductive meetings and endless consensus-seeking
Make strong, data-driven choices based on input from experts
Keep your organization focused on achieving its vision and mission

Structured decision-making empowers organizations to remain agile, efficient, and on track. To learn more about the Maintenance and Reliability Best Practices Framework, visit www.reliabilityx.com/mrbpframework.

If you’re ready to take your leadership skills to the next level, connect with us at www.reliability.com/contact.

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by Nancy Regan Leave a Comment

How RCM Stops Reactive Mode in Its Tracks: Failure Mode Analysis

In this video, I share how Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) helps break the cycle of reactive mode by identifying plausible Failure Modes. I’ll explain the four criteria used for listing Failure Modes in an RCM analysis and how this proactive approach helps prevent unexpected downtime. Plus, stick around for a progress update on our building project!

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by Hemant Urdhwareshe Leave a Comment

Goodness of fit Test

Dear friends, we are happy to release our 89th technical video. In this video, Hemant Urdhwareshe explains the basic idea behind Goodness of fit testes and how to perform Goodness of Fit test. Hemant illustrates this with an illustration of Goodness of Fit test for Normal Distribution using Microsoft Excel. Hemant is a Fellow of ASQ and is certified by ASQ as Six Sigma Master Black Belt, Quality Engineer (CQE), Quality Manager (CMQ/OE) and Reliability Engineer (CRE).

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by Michael Keer Leave a Comment

The Hidden Challenges of Agile in Hardware Development

Article by Jay Feldis

In the fast-paced world of technology and manufacturing, one of the biggest challenges hardware companies face is managing New Product Introduction (NPI) processes. A common misconception is that simply applying an Agile template used in software production to hardware production will solve all problems, but without thoughtful consideration, it’s a recipe for disaster. Whether it’s waiting weeks for a crucial part, revising designs after production has started, or dealing with field failures, these common pitfalls can lead to big delays, increased costs, and, ultimately, unhappy customers. This blog will dive into some of these common challenges, offering insight and strategies to avoid getting caught in a never-ending cycle of fixing and delaying.

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by Semion Gengrinovich Leave a Comment

Statistical Tools most Frequently used During Product Validation.

Statistical tools play a critical role in product validation, particularly in the automotive industry where ensuring quality, safety, performance, and reliability is paramount. The search results provide a wealth of information on various statistical tools and methods that are commonly used during the different stages of product validation. Here are some of the most frequently used statistical tools based on the provided sources.

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by Fred Schenkelberg Leave a Comment

The Challenges in Reliability Engineering

What are the Other Challenges in Reliability

Creating a product or system that lasts as long as expected, or longer, is a challenge.

It’s a common challenge that reliability engineering and the entire engineering team face on a regular basis. It’s also not our only challenge.

We face and solve a myriad of technical, political, and engineering challenges. Some of our challenges are born and carried forward by our own industry. We have tools suitable for a given purpose altered to ‘fit’ another situation (inappropriately and creating misleading results). We have terms that we, and our peers, struggle to understand.

Sometimes, we, as reliability engineers, have set up challenges that thwart our best efforts to make progress.

Let’s examine a few of the self made challenges and discuss ways to overcome these obstacles permitting us to tackle the real hurdles in our path. [Read more…]

by Mike Sondalini Leave a Comment

How to Make RCFA a Successful Business Improvement Strategy

Many companies adopt root cause failure analysis (RCFA) and then drop it. They use it for while and get no benefit. RCFA is often ineffective when used to solve individual problems. But when used to find systematic causes of problems and improve business systems, it provides grand payback for the effort.

Keywords: root cause failure analysis, business process improvement

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by Greg Hutchins Leave a Comment

Which is Stronger: Outside Pressure to Change? or, Your Internal Drive to Transform

Guest Post by Daniel Burrus (first posted on CERM ® RISK INSIGHTS – reposted here with permission)

There are two mindsets surrounding the concepts of transformation and change. First, there is fear that comes with transformation and change. The feeling of not having control over something in your personal or professional life can be daunting, because it leaves us feeling helpless. And the second mindset is an apathetic, hands-off one. This is where the concepts of transformation and change seem so insurmountable that we accept them passively.

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by Nancy Regan Leave a Comment

Does RCM Always Reduce Scheduled Maintenance?

True or False. Does RCM Always Reduce Scheduled Maintenance? False! Applying Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) may reduce scheduled maintenance if your current plans are heavy in scheduled replacement and restoration tasks. But if your organization is in Reactive Mode, RCM might actually result in more scheduled maintenance. The key benefit? Reduced unplanned downtime and significantly improved Equipment Reliability.

Watch to learn how RCM impacts your maintenance strategy! I’m Nancy Regan from Muscle Shoals, Alabama. Thank you for watching!

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by Hemant Urdhwareshe Leave a Comment

Normal Probability Plotting with Case Study

Dear friends, we are pleased to released our 88th technical video on a very important topic in Statistical Quality Control and Six Sigma: Normal Probability Plotting! In this video, Hemant Urdhwareshe explains the concepts and basic procedure of Normal Probability Plotting using probability paper with a simple real life case study! Hemant is a Fellow of ASQ and is certified by ASQ as Six Sigma Master Black Belt (CMBB), Black Belt (CSSBB), Quality Manager (CMQ/OE), Quality Engineer (CQE) and Reliability Engineer (CRE)!

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by Larry George 3 Comments

A Note on Reliability Estimation Without Life Data

Imagine product or part lifetime as the service time in a self-service system. Suppose you could observe periodic input and output counts of that self-service system, without identifying individual service times. How would you estimate the service time distribution without following individual products or parts from input to output? The maximum likelihood reliability estimator for an M/G/Infinity self-service-time distribution function from “ships” (inputs) and “returns” (outputs) counts also works for nonstationary arrival process M(t)/G/Infinity self-service systems, under a condition! A constant or increasing arrival (inputs or ships) rate satisfies the condition. If you identify returns by failure mode then you could estimate make nonparametric estimates of field reliability by failure mode and quantify reliability growth, without life data, if the condition is satisfied.

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by André-Michel Ferrari Leave a Comment

Is Extended Warranty a Deceptive Tactic?

Introduction

An extended warranty is a prolonged warranty offered to consumers in addition to the standard and generally free manufacturer’s warranty on new items. It is also referred to as a service agreement or service contract, providing coverage for repairs or replacements after the manufacturer’s warranty expires. Extended warranties may be offered by the warranty administrator, retailer, or manufacturer, and they often come at an additional cost. Sometimes significantly in relation to the item’s base price.

The basis of this article is: should you consider buying extended warranty? What are the pernicious calculations it hides? It is often alleged that extended warranty is a ploy to extract more funds from a customer. Whilst this article does not question the honesty of the vendors of extended warranty, it demonstrates how warranty is calculated and that’s where the “devil” might lurk.

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