In the pursuit of operational excellence and equipment reliability, defect elimination stands as a powerful and proactive strategy. It focuses on identifying and addressing the root causes of failures and inefficiencies, rather than repeatedly treating the symptoms. By targeting the sources of defects, organizations can significantly reduce downtime, extend asset lifespans, and improve overall productivity.

What is Defect Elimination?

Defect elimination is the systematic process of identifying, analyzing, and removing defects that lead to equipment failure or suboptimal performance.These defects can take many forms, including design flaws, operational errors, poor maintenance practices, or even environmental conditions. The goal is to ensure that equipment operates as intended, reliably and efficiently, with minimal intervention.

[Read more…]

by Kerina Epperly Leave a Comment

The Curious Case of “Normal” Bearing Failure

When Poor Habits Become the Norm

Opening Scene

Imagine an intricate and lengthy production line, where every minute of inactivity costs thousands of dollars. The constant buzz of motors and conveyors conceals a profound tension: production goals are approaching, supervisors are vigilant, and the pressure remains unyielding.

In a constrained environment with a limited maintenance budget and sparse spare parts, your inexperienced and stretched-thin team constantly reacts to urgent breakdowns, prioritizing speed over thoroughness. Shortcuts become necessary for survival, leading to misaligned work and temporary fixes. While immediate repairs may succeed, small defects accumulate, resulting in entrenched bad habits and hidden failures. Eventually, a critical breakdown occurs, revealing the underlying issues, marking the start of a necessary investigation. [Read more…]

by Mike Sondalini Leave a Comment

Equipment Reliability 101

Learn Vital Equipment Reliability Basics for Equipment Reliability Management Success

Learning how to run your industrial plant and equipment to get outstanding reliability requires an understanding of its failure mechanisms.

You can have tremendous equipment reliability if you use the right maintenance strategies at the right times during the equipment life cycle to prevent the causes of failure.

Abstract:

Equipment Reliability Basics 101 for Reliability Management. When you understand the behaviour of equipment over its lifetime you will understand why proactive maintenance (as opposed to repairs) is critical. Our technologically based society depends on machinery and equipment to keep it operating. Knowing how equipment behaves during its operating life, and why it fails from time to time, means you can set up the right maintenance strategies to deliver lifetime reliability. Learn to apply the correct ways to use equipment failure curves to select your maintenance strategies. Change your maintenance and operating practices to control and eliminate failure and ensure you deliver outstanding equipment reliability.Keyword: Keywords: Equipment reliability management, reliability curves, equipment failure curves

[Read more…]

by Nancy Regan Leave a Comment

The Best Definition of Reliability Centered Maintenance I Ever Heard

Storytime: What is Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM)? This is the best definition of RCM I ever heard.

In this video, I share a story that has stuck with me throughout my 26-year journey with Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM). It all started when I was working as a civilian employee at the US Navy’s Naval Warfare Center in Lakehurst, New Jersey. One evening, during a dinner with the British Royal Navy’s RCM team in Bath, England, Commander Andrew Matters shared a simple yet profound definition of RCM: “RCM is nothing more than common sense applied to physical assets.” That definition has guided my understanding of RCM ever since.

RCM might seem complex, but at its core, it’s grounded in practical, common-sense principles. In this video, I explain how RCM helps us identify safe and cost-effective maintenance tasks, manage failure modes, and build a strong reliability culture. When applied correctly, RCM has the power to transform organizations—and I’ve seen it happen firsthand.

What’s keeping you from carrying out a couple of RCM pilot projects? Why not see for yourself how RCM can make a difference for your equipment and your reliability team?

I’m Nancy Regan. Thank you for watching!

[Read more…]

by André-Michel Ferrari 2 Comments

Relia-nomics – When Reliability meets Economics

In an increasingly complex and interconnected world, ensuring that systems—from machinery to software, from power networks to consumer products—perform reliably across their intended lifetimes, is essential not only for safety and quality but also for economic viability. This intersection between ensuring dependable performance and managing costs is broadly studied under what is known as Reliability Engineering and Economics. Or Relia-nomics.

[Read more…]

by Mike Sondalini Leave a Comment

Business Risk Hierarchy

There is a direct connection between the microstructure health of your equipment parts and your operational and business success

There are key concepts and practices that an organization needs to use if they want optimal asset health from their plant and equipment. The greatest successes come when operating and safety risks are eliminated at their root causes. The Plant Wellness Way EAM methodology focuses on getting lasting asset health so world class operating performance is normal in your company day-after-day. Its processes and analysis tools create a system-of-reliability that gets exceptional asset health and delivers the greatest ROI from each operating asset throughout its service life.

Risk is the total losses suffered when any asset’s components may fail. The causes of failure are the environmental and operating stresses that affect a component’s microstructure. This means that world class reliability is the effective, complete remove of the causes of failure, also known as risks, from your operations. [Read more…]

by James Reyes-Picknell Leave a Comment

Is Your Project Ready for Operations?

Is your project ready for operations when you want to start up? Can you commission and start up with ease and expect to reach full and steady production quickly? Or is your experience with project start ups more chaotic?

Chaos is natural

Conceptually, entropy is a scientific measure that represents that natural state of everything – chaos. The more chaotic things are, the more entropy they have. We tend to prefer things orderly and predictable. To achieve that we add energy, but without it, we will have chaos. If start ups after a capital project are chaotic, it means you have missed something. Think of it as not having enough energy. That energy is fore-thought and preparation. With it, your project is ready for operations.

[Read more…]

by Nancy Regan Leave a Comment

What Are Failure Effects in RCM? Understanding the Importance

In this video, I dive into the concept of Failure Effects and why they’re important to the Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) process. A Failure Effect tells the story of what would happen if we did nothing to predict or prevent each Failure Mode, allowing us to properly assess the consequences and formulate the right maintenance strategies. I break down the essential components of writing a Failure Effect, including:

A description of the failure process from the occurrence of the failure mode to the functional failure
Physical evidence that the failure has occurred
How it adversely affects safety and/or the environment
How it affects operational capability
Specific operating restrictions as a result of the failure
Secondary damage
What must be done and how long it takes to repair the failure.

Understanding this zero-based approach is key, even though it can feel counter-intuitive to RCM Working Group members who are used to managing equipment proactively. That’s why an experienced RCM Facilitator is essential to guide the process. I also share an example of a Failure Effect in the video—feel free to pause and read through it.

[Read more…]

by George Williams Leave a Comment

Eliminate Defects & Unlock Reliability in Your Operation

Defects slow you down, cost you money, and wreak havoc on efficiency. It’s time to change that! In this video, George Williams breaks down Defect Elimination. Defect Elimination is a building block in the Operational Reliability domain, part of the Maintenance and Reliability Best Practices Framework.

⚙️ Identify defects early

⚙️ Take swift action to remove them

⚙️ Improve product quality and plant capacity

Stop reacting. Start eliminating. Watch now and take control of your operation’s reliability! Want to implement Defect Elimination in your operation? Contact us today! Let’s work together to improve your plant capacity and efficiency: www.reliabilityx.com/contact

[Read more…]

by Mike Sondalini Leave a Comment

Developing Maintenance Strategy for a Sheet of Paper

How do you work-out the right life-cycle maintenance strategies? Does one strategy apply throughout an asset’s life? What influences the choices and decisions as to what maintenance to do and when it should be done? How much money and resources do you expend in the maintenance of an asset? To keep the concepts behind these important questions on maintenance strategy selection simple they are applied to a sheet of paper.

[Read more…]

by Nancy Regan Leave a Comment

Do Reliability Centered Maintenance Working Groups Really Guess?

RCM Myth Busting: Truth Revealed!

True or False? Do Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) Working Group members guess during an RCM analysis?

In this video, I dive into a common misconception about Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) analysis. While it is often wrongly believed that RCM Working Group members take guesses, the reality is quite different. Thanks to their in-depth knowledge of the equipment and its operating environment, they are well-prepared to answer most of the questions posed by the RCM Facilitator.

But what happens when a Working Group doesn’t have all the answers? The RCM Facilitator is trained to recognize when additional information is needed. When that happens, the Failure Mode is put on hold, and an action item is raised to ensure the right data is gathered before proceeding.

Watch this video to learn how RCM analysis is designed to prioritize thoroughness, ensuring that every decision is based on solid information.

[Read more…]

by James Reyes-Picknell Leave a Comment

Should We Outsource

Outsourcing is a form of alternative service delivery where one company hires another to perform some of its functions. It’s fairly common in some fields, such as accounting, manufacturing, human resources, procurement, and IT, but not as common when it comes to maintenance and asset management. It has its advantages and risks and must be approached carefully.

In July/Aug 2014, we authored an article on outsourcing in PEM magazine (now MRO Magazine). Although outsourcing isn’t yet as popular in North America, as elsewhere, it is increasingly being seen as an option. Here are a number of considerations to make when considering outsourcing or contracting services.

[Read more…]

by Mike Sondalini Leave a Comment

Work Quality Assurance with ACE 3T Standard Operating Procedures

Accuracy Controlled Standard Operating Procedures Use The 3T’s – Target, Tolerance, Test – For Work Quality Assurance

Assure production and maintenance work quality with accuracy controlled standard operating procedures containing 3t precision work instructions where work is done right-first-time, every time

—

An Accuracy Controlled Enterprise (ACE) is focused on getting things ‘right first time’. The quality focus in an ACE is about doing a job, every job, masterly, whether done on the shop floor or in the boardroom. That is achieved with accuracy controlled standard operating procedures in which every task is proven to be completed accurately before continuing to the next task. It is about being a master of what you do so you deliver world-class results in your work. You can read about being an ACE in the white paper The Accuracy Controlled Enterpris e.

[Read more…]

by Nancy Regan Leave a Comment

Pop Quiz: RCM Edition – Join the Challenge!

A mulitple choice question to test your understanding of RCM

[Read more…]

by Joe Anderson Leave a Comment

The Power of Empowering Employees

Unlocking Potential and Driving Success

Empowering employees is more than a management buzzword—it’s a transformative approach to leadership that benefits individuals, teams, and organizations alike. When employees feel empowered, they take ownership of their roles, embrace responsibility, and actively contribute to the success of their organization. But what does empowerment truly mean, and how can leaders create an environment where it thrives?

At its core, empowerment is about trust. It involves granting employees the autonomy to make decisions, solve problems, and take actions within their roles. This trust not only boosts morale but also encourages employees to innovate, challenge the status quo, and drive improvements. The result? A more engaged workforce that’s motivated to contribute at its highest potential. [Read more…]