Your Reliability Engineering Professional Development Site
A listing in reverse chronological order of these article series:
Industrial operations that use physical assets for production or service delivery need their assets to run optimally, and cause minimal operational disruptions when they don’t. Spending too little overall, or on doing the wrong things, always backfires. These short-term savings inevitably lead to breakdowns disrupting operations that cost much more in lost revenue than was saved by under-spending.
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To reduce maintenance costs and production downtime it is necessary to reduce the causes of the maintenance and downtime. Both maintenance and downtime are an effect and not a cause. The causes can be traced back to defects and errors from a variety of sources. Knowing that defects eventually lead to future equipment failures, production downtime and lost profits, it is necessary put strategies into place to purposely prevent them occurring in the first place and to eliminate them if they are present.
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Supervisors in maintenance play a crucial role in ensuring the efficient operation of equipment and facilities. To be effective in this role, they need a combination of technical knowledge and management skills. Some key management skills necessary for a supervisor in maintenance include:
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I’m Nancy Regan, joining you from the beautiful Key Largo, Florida. Today, we’re delving into a significant pitfall in Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) — not fully understanding the process. Just like a boat captain needs to know the waters, successful RCM implementation requires a deep understanding of its principles.
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Crow-AMSAA Plots have a variety of names, such as Reliability Growth Plots or Duane Plots. The term “Crow” comes from Dr Larry H. Crow, who enhanced James T. Duane’s pioneering launch of this methodology, which was developed in the early 1960s (1). Crow successfully applied the method in the US Army Materials System Analysis Activity (AMSAA). The technique has blossomed into large amounts of new applications in industry such as but not limited to:
In practical terms, The Crow-AMSAA technique involves plotting, most commonly, cumulative failures vs cumulative time on a log-log scale resulting in straight line plots (2). The line slope value (or Beta value) indicates improving, deteriorating, or constant failure occurrences. Due to the straight-line nature of the plots, future failure forecasts can be estimated. In plain words, based on the current trend, when is the next failure expected to occur? This method handles mixed failure modes, so it is, therefore, suitable for the complex nature of the generating units. [Read more…]
Welcome to another insightful video where we dive into the world of Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM). I’m Nancy Regan, and today we’re tackling an important question: Do redundant systems require RCM?
Redundant systems, or protective devices, are vital because often they are our last line of defense when primary systems fail. But does this mean they need the same level of scrutiny as other systems?
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Overview the Plant Wellness Way EAM Methodology for a simple and successful Enterprise Asset Management System. Learn how to apply the Plant and Equipment Wellness enterprise asset management methodology. Follow the steps to get the best performance from your plant and equipment. Learn what systems and processes produce the optimal plant and equipment reliability results. From creating low stress component environment for lasting equipment health through to establishing the simplest and most effective business system and processes for world class asset management performance, this overview guide to the Plant Wellness Way takes you step by step in creating the outstanding asset performance needed for world class operational excellence. As with human wellness, the Plant Wellness Way requires you to build a healthy life for your machines. Learn to control your plant’s reliability by managing the stresses put on equipment parts and reducing the risk of failure so plant and equipment remains fit and healthy to produce its best performance. The Plant Wellness Way EAM methodology lets you find the ideal health conditions for your equipment and machines and makes you establish business processes and systems to achieve and maintain outstanding reliability performance.
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The management of spare parts and inventories is all about balance between the cost of stocking the parts and the costs and risks of not having them when they are required.
As a consultancy owner, one of the most overlooked issues I see in Industrial operations is the management of spare parts. I don’t have enough fingers, toes and limbs to count how many times I’ve heard the phrase ” The machine is down because we’re waiting on spare parts”.
I see this phrase normalised so often that people don’t bat an eye and have accepted it as the norm- a lot of maintenance professionals don’t focus on the effective management of this area . I think this is overlooked because it requires MATH to calculate- and just like poetry, most people hate math. [Read more…]
There is something very powerful about working in teams. That power becomes evident when you look at teams as human structures built to deliver reliable outcomes. Managers who want higher reliability, top quality production and fewer problems need to understand why teams are so powerful and how to gain that power for themselves.
Businesses often attempt to maximize profits for owners or shareholders by taking measures to reduce costs. A reactive approach to plant and equipment breakdowns is very costly, and it reduces outputs. By failing to do what it takes to become proactive, they take risks against the odds of frequent failure, high repair and downtime costs. A proactive approach is more productive, predictable and less expensive, as it relies on strategic maintenance.to increase equipment life and running times, reduce failure risk, and lower operating costs.
[Read more…]Hi everyone, I’m Nancy Regan, and in today’s video, we’re diving into the crucial role that scope definition plays in the success of Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) analysis. Proper planning is essential, and in this video, I’ll walk you through four key factors that demonstrate how the scope of your RCM analysis drives the entire planning process.
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The management and organization can create heroes and reliability leaders by their behavior. When an asset breaks down, some people in the workforce fix it quickly. We may celebrate their work as heroic, but another group of people fix things rapidly while finding and eliminating root causes. These proactive individuals are the real heroes, also known as Reliability Leaders. This webinar discusses the attributes of reliability leaders: the real heroes.
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To get world class operation and profits your Asset Lifecycle Management System must prevent every opportunity for defect-creation in all life cycle phases, for all your operating equipment
Every physical asset has a lifecycle starting at conception through to its eventual disposal and site remediation. In each phase of the lifecycle errors can occur that cause defects within the asset. In operations with hundreds of assets there easily can be tens-of-thousands of defects. Each defect is a risk that eventually contributes to breakdowns, losses, wastes, safety incidents during operation, and shortens the asset’s service lifetime. Eliminating thousands of defects and risks forever is what Plant Wellness Way EAM does for its users.
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Join me, Nancy Regan, as I guide you through the process of effectively defining the scope of your Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) analysis to ensure you achieve your desired analysis goals. In this video, I’ll illustrate the importance of tailoring the RCM analysis scope using a practical example of a Plant Air system. Key Takeaways: • Understanding Scope: Learn how to avoid common pitfalls by appropriately narrowing down your analysis to a manageable size. • Adapting to Environments: Gain insights into how identical equipment can behave differently in varied operational environments and why specifying your analysis scope is crucial for clarity and effectiveness. • Goal-Oriented Analysis: Understand how the goals of your RCM analysis, such as developing a proactive maintenance plan, dictate the scope and focus of your analysis. What’s Next?: Stay tuned for tomorrow’s video where I delve deeper into why accurately identifying the scope of analysis is foundational to successful RCM analysis planning. Subscribe and hit the bell icon to follow along with the “100 Days of Reliability” series and enhance your Maintenance and Reliability knowledge with expert insights. Thank you for watching! Remember, the success of your RCM efforts starts with the right scope!
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Saving 20% of your maintenance costs is achievable in many operations. Are you running your production equipment to failure? Is your maintenance spending consistently higher than you budget allows? Are you frustrated that breakdowns cause delays in delivery schedules? If you answer “yes” to any of those questions, then savings and production gains are possible. The 20% figure is arbitrary but truly indicative of what is possible. Reliable production equipment is far cheaper to maintain simply because it is reliable, but it must be maintained. It requires the right maintenance being done the right way, and at the right times. Get that right and you save operating costs, AND you gain productive uptime with its attendant revenue.
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