Reliability engineering is viewed by many as a technical discipline focused on analysis, modelling, and prediction. While those skills matter, they are only part of the role.
[Read more…]Leadership Foundations – Reliability Engineering Influence
Articles
Find all articles across all article series listed in reverse chronological order.
Diesel Generator Stress
On August 12, 1983, the crankshaft of one of the three emergency diesel generators at the yet-unopened Shoreham Nuclear Power Station snapped during testing. Inspections revealed cracks in the crankshafts of the two other diesels as well as other defects. Permission to perform low-power tests had been granted before the failure of the crankshaft, and two more years of subsequent analysis passed before permission was again granted. By the late 1980s, a conflict over the emergency evacuation plan was still delaying an operating license for the plant.
[Read more…]FMEA Quality Objective 14: TIME USAGE
Time is the scarcest resource, and unless it is managed, nothing else can be managed. Peter Drucker
Achieving high-quality FMEAs requires support from the right FMEA team. Getting the team to show up and participate to the fullest extent is critical to success.
Availability: Can the Equipment Run When Scheduled?
My new book titled Measuring Manufacturing Effectiveness develops a practical framework for understanding manufacturing effectiveness through the lens of performance metrics including how they are defined, how they are interpreted, and how they influence real operational behavior.
Chapter 5 turns attention to the first of the three components of Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE): Availability.
Availability addresses a deceptively simple question: Can the equipment run when it is scheduled to run?
Behind that question sits a wide range of losses related to downtime, changeovers, failures, maintenance practices, and scheduling decisions.
The Technical Skills of a Good Reliability Engineer
The fundamental technical skills, as I see it, have to include statistics and root cause analysis skills. This skill set is one of three broad areas introduced in the article, What Makes the Best Reliability Engineer?
I would say these are the minimum technical skills for a good reliability engineer. Able to calculate sample size requirements, understand a dataset, and correctly determine the root causes of a failure. [Read more…]
New Work Worlds
There are lots of lessons to learn from Amazon. Never stop innovating or questioning the fundamentals of your business. Disrupt yourself before others do.
Brad Stone – Journalist & Author
Consulting firms, academics, and consultants are developing Future Of Work models. Price Waterhouse Coopers (PwC) developed a scenario called the Future of Work: A Journey to 2022. The premise of the study is: “disruptive innovations are creating new industries and business models, and destroying old ones.” (‘The Future of Work: A Journey to 2022’, PwC, 2014).
PwC outlined three distinct worlds of work: Orange, Green, and Blue.
[Read more…]Your Best Enterprise Asset Management Strategy is to Walk an Hour Every Day
How You Look After Your Body Is A Tell-Tale Of How You Look After Every Other Physical Asset
The Care and Conditions You Give to Your Body Show the Values and Principles You’ll Use On Your Organization’s Physical Assets
The ancient Egyptian saying, “As above, so below. As within, so without” contains much truth. What you create outside of you comes from inside of you. Which implies if you want to have a particular thing it’s necessary to first create the capability inside of you. To achieve your goal by any other way is due to random luck.
[Read more…]Revealed! The Overlooked Power of Failure Effects in RCM
What makes Failure Effects so powerful in Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM)?
In this video, I dive into step four of the RCM process: writing Failure Effects. I explain how these “little stories” of what happens if we do nothing to predict or prevent a failure mode are essential for assessing consequences—whether they impact safety, the environment, operations, or have non-operational consequences.
I also share a real-world example from the nuclear industry, where identifying specific operating restrictions in a failure effect uncovered an opportunity to improve reliability by rethinking how procedures impact operations.
Writing failure effects isn’t just about documenting failure—it’s about uncovering opportunities to improve your reliability.
[Read more…]Reliability, Safety and Quality – Understanding the Interrelationships
Reliability, safety, and quality are commonly considered separate disciplines, each with their own people, processes and tools. In practice, they are deeply interconnected and decisions made in one area almost always influence the others, particularly once systems are in service.
[Read more…]How Reliability Engineers Can Effectively Communicate Asset Life
Communicating “asset life” is far harder than it looks. The term sounds universal, yet accountants, engineers, and operations leaders often mean entirely different things when they use it. When organizations fail to reconcile them, capital plans become unrealistic, maintenance strategies drift, and leadership loses confidence in the numbers. When we communicate asset life clearly and contextually correctly, we create shared understanding and decisions that hold up in the real world.
Summary of Asset Life in Plain Terms
The goal is to see why each life exists and integrate them into decisions.
- Mean life is statistical and shows inherent reliability.
- Useful life is accounting-related and guides financial recovery.
- Service life reflects operational reality.
The Magic Math of Meeting MTBF Requirements
Recently heard from a reader of NoMTBF. She wondered about a supplier’s argument that they meet the reliability or MTBF requirements. She was right to wonder.
Estimating reliability performance a new design is difficult.
There are good and better practice to justify claims about future reliability performance. Likewise, there are just plain poor approaches, too. Plus there are approaches that should never be used.
The GM X-Car Safety
With the 1980 X-Car series, General Motors introduced a new generation of front-wheel drive, fuel-efficient compact passenger cars. The letter X designated a generic chassis type that was manufactured into a particular model through styling and features. All X-Cars were tested and met all Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards, but during the development of the vehicles it was found that certain manual transmission X-Cars required more aggressive rear brake shoes to meet parking brake standards.
[Read more…]5 Fantastic Plant And Equipment Reliability Tips
From Plant Wellness Way Eam System-Of-Reliability
VITAL PLANT AND EQUIPMENT RELIABILITY TIPS FOR WORLD CLASS PRODUCTION RESULTS WITH A PWW EAM SYSTEM-OF-RELIABILITY
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With Plant Wellness Way EAM you will change to engineering, operating, and maintenance methods that guarantee world class reliability practices are done throughout your company and its operations
Imagine your business without breakdowns, fewer spare parts in a smaller parts Store and lower operating costs everyday. All the while you enjoy world class reliability success that delivers outstanding plant availability in all of your operating plants. To get to this world you will need to Change the Game to one where you guarantee fantastic reliability success! [Read more…]
Is there going to be a 4th edition of “Uptime”?
I’ve been asked this many times, along with, “when will it be available in “my language?”
Here’s the answer… My book Uptime – Strategies for Excellence in Maintenance Management is now in its 3rd edition, and it includes a chapter on Evidence-Based Asset Management. That approach—using data plus expert knowledge—was groundbreaking back in 2015. Since then, AI, machine learning, and advanced analytics have changed the game. The science behind Uptime is still valid, but the methods need updating.
So, people ask me all the time: “Is there a 4th edition coming?” My answer: “Yes… but not in the way you might expect.”
[Read more…]Three Lessons Manufacturers Can Learn From NASCAR Racing
Guest Post by Matt Fieldman (first posted on CERM ® RISK INSIGHTS – reposted here with permission)
The NASCAR pit stop – it’s exciting, intense, and can mean the difference between winning and losing a race. Accomplishing the three simultaneous necessities of moving quickly, completing each job with perfection, and having a flawlessly coordinated team seem impossible, yet it happens right in front of your eyes. The feedback is immediate: either the car gets off in less than ten seconds, and the driver can compete for a spot on the podium, or it doesn’t, and your race is over.
Outside of the racetrack, could the NASCAR pit stop be the answer to exciting young people about manufacturing? Could you use lessons from NASCAR to improve your company’s teamwork?
[Read more…]