Hi everyone! In this video, I’m sharing some key insights from the CMC Colombia 2024 conference, where I attended presentations by Ramesh Gulati and Doc Palmer. Ramesh spoke about KPIs and the importance of considering people, not just equipment. Doc Palmer highlighted valuable lessons about planning and scheduling, emphasizing that things don’t have to be perfect to get the job done.

Join me and Doc Palmer as we wrap up the conference with some great takeaways!

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by Mike Sondalini Leave a Comment

RCFA and 5-Whys Tips for Successful Use

When you do a Root Cause Failure Analysis or a 5- Why there are no promises that you will actually find the true root cause and fix your problem. Investigating the cause of a failure is fraught with traps, such as making wrong assumptions, insufficient evidence, misinterpreting the evidence, misunderstanding, personal bias and second-guessing. There are necessary issues you need to be aware of that affect the RCA and 5-Why methods, and there are some good practices that you can adopt to improve your chance of doing a successful analysis when applied to equipment failures.

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by James Reyes-Picknell Leave a Comment

Today’s Gremlin – The White Knight

Today’s Gremlin – “The White Knight”, is a day-to-day hero, fixing what’s broken and returning the operation from panic. When things break, you really do need him, and he can be a hero, but couldn’t he be preventing those breakdowns?

The White Knight is the one you call when things have gone wrong. You need things fixed fast, regardless of the time of day, and he’s there for you. He works overtime if needed, he’s there when you need him, and he’s fast. Things do get fixed. But do they stay that way?

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by Joe Anderson Leave a Comment

The Power of Direction Setting

Leading with Purpose and Clarity

In any organization, the absence of clear direction can lead to confusion, inefficiency, and stagnation. Direction setting—the process of defining a vision, establishing goals, and communicating a clear path forward—is one of the most critical functions of leadership. When done effectively, it empowers teams, drives progress, and ensures that everyone is working toward a shared purpose.

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by Nancy Regan Leave a Comment

How to Set Condition-Based Maintenance (CBM) Intervals Using the P-F Curve

Welcome to Part 4 of our Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) Case Study, where we take a deep dive into Condition Based Maintenance (CBM). CBM, also known as On-Condition Maintenance, is a proactive approach that allows us to detect Potential Failure Conditions and take corrective action before failure occurs. In this video, I explain:

What Condition Based Maintenance is and how it works
The role of the P-F curve in determining CBM task intervals
A Real-life example of a CBM task
Why the P-F interval is used to set CBM task intervals
How CBM differs from Preventive Maintenance and other strategies

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by André-Michel Ferrari Leave a Comment

Reliability Engineering – Science of Pessimists?

Introduction

This is a rather depressing title for an article specifically on the topic of Reliability. After all, Reliability relates to the Probability of Success hence the contradiction.

However, the contradiction is not so much one as Reliability Analysis depends on having access to failure data. In other words, if the equipment does not fail, it might be difficult or even impossible to perform an analysis. Of course, we can source other types of data that are not failure records, but this is not the common approach.

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by Mike Sondalini Leave a Comment

Measuring Replacement Asset Value (RAV)

I read your article that compares maintenance costs to RAV and am inquiring to see what is your definition of ‘maintenance cost’ when measuring replacement asset value? Are you strictly referring to labor costs, or is this the cost of labor, services and capital equipment purchases to repair, replace or upgrade an existing machine?

Dear Tom,

In the example, ‘maintenance costs’ meant the direct and overhead maintenance costs – labor, parts, subcontract services and allocated overheads (i.e. supervision, management, associated infrastructure, etc. proportioned to direct labor hours) – incurred during the ‘normal’ operation of the car (i.e. the car is driven by a well-trained, responsible driver at the wheel). If you have a store/warehouse for maintenance parts then you add the proportionate cost of keeping and running the store to support the maintenance effort as part of the total cost of maintenance.

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by Nancy Regan Leave a Comment

RCM Lesson from the Ancient Mayans

Discover the Secret to Reliability

Hi everyone! I’m Nancy Regan, and today I’m coming to you from the iconic pyramid of Chichen Itza in the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico. The ancient Mayans believed that their pyramid connected them to both the underworld and the sky—a symbol of balance and connection. This powerful idea got me thinking about Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) and the importance of leveraging our most valuable resource: equipment experts.

In this video, I’ll explain why equipment experts are crucial to the RCM process. They bring insights that historical data alone can’t provide, understanding how things fail, what causes them to fail, and how each failure matters —what we call consequences in RCM. Documenting their knowledge through RCM not only improves reliability but also preserves their invaluable expertise for the future.

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by James Reyes-Picknell Leave a Comment

Today’s Gremlin – I’ve got this!

Today’s Gremlin – “I’ve got this”, doesn’t cause trouble. In fact, he’s very motivated to keep things running smoothly. He’s good at what he does and he does keep things running. But, he’s a gremlin because he doesn’t know what he doesn’t know. Sometimes, he is closed to new ideas, thinking he has been there, done that and seen it all, but doesn’t realize that he really hasn’t. What he knows, he puts to good use. What he doesn’t know is where the limitation arises.

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by Mike Sondalini Leave a Comment

Ageless Maintenance and Reliability Success Secrets 5

Maintenance and reliability problems are not new. Our forefathers and ancestors understood the value of smart maintenance and high reliability. They learnt from experience and passed their knowledge down to us through parables, stories, and sayings. The timeless advice of our forbearers on successful maintenance and reliability is as applicable to us now as it has been to every generation since the dawn of civilisation.

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by George Williams Leave a Comment

Direction Setting: Guiding Your Team to Excellence

In this video, George Williams, Founder and CEO of Reliability X, dives into “Direction Setting,” a key component of the Leadership domain in the Maintenance and Reliability Best Practices Framework. Whether you’re leading an entire plant or managing a single department, this building block ensures your team is focused, efficient, and moving toward a common goal.

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by Nancy Regan Leave a Comment

RCM’s Hidden Power EXPOSED in Step 7

Hi everyone! In this video we use Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) principles. Yesterday, we poured the concrete floor for our metal building, and I learned that newly poured concrete faces a unique Failure Mode: Water evaporates too quickly during drying due to normal environmental conditions. This can lead to excessive cracks that compromise the strength of the structure.

In Reliability-Centered Maintenance (RCM), Step 7—Default Strategies—helps us determine how to manage specific Failure Modes that require unique actions. In this case, the solution is to keep the concrete wet for at least three days, and luckily, Mother Nature is giving us a hand this weekend!

Remember, RCM isn’t just about routine Proactive Maintenance. Sometimes, your equipment may need special, one-time actions or other Default Strategies to manage particular Failure Modes.

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by Mike Sondalini Leave a Comment

Component Lifetime Health Strategy Based on Physics-of-Failure Science

Plant and Equipment Wellness (PEW) is a Physics of Failure based methodology for equipment failure prevention and defect elimination that results in the fewest activities, least resources and lowest expenditure to produce outstanding operational equipment reliability. PEW identifies the necessary business-wide processes and departmental actions an organisation needs to apply to get high plant and equipment availability. With high uptime comes more productivity, higher operating profits, and less capital expenditure.

As much as possible PEW uses simple techniques that can be done by shopfloor people. Most companies do not have large staffs of university trained maintenance and reliability professionals. They have knowledgeable and experienced maintenance practitioners that know their plant and equipment. PEW does not require specialist RAMS software that none but mathematicians can understand, that very few companies can afford to buy or contract, and requires assumptions about the future that are hopeful at best.

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by Nancy Regan 1 Comment

Reliability Centered Maintenance Explained

Hi everyone! Today, we’re pouring the concrete floor for our metal building, and it’s a perfect analogy for Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM). Just like this concrete forms a solid foundation that will support our structure for decades, RCM isn’t a quick fix or the program of the week. It’s about building a lasting foundation for your reliability efforts.

RCM takes time, the right people, and a commitment to the process to develop proactive maintenance tasks that truly make a difference. Build for the long term—invest in RCM and lay the groundwork for future reliability!

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by Mike Sondalini Leave a Comment

Outstanding Maintenance and Reliability for Everyone

Maintenance And Reliability Like They Should Be Done!

What can a 25-year veteran of condition monitoring tell you about how to do better maintenance and get
better reliability?

First a little background. Max started his vibration analysis monitoring company back in the late 1970’s. He and his company developed expertise and technologies in condition monitoring over many years. They monitored and reported on a large range and number of machines, and worked for numerous companies. He and his people were the recognised experts in vibration monitoring and control. [Read more…]