on Maintenance Reliability

A listing in reverse chronological order of these article series:

Usman Mustafa Syed — Aasan Asset Management series

Arun Gowtham — AI & Predictive Maintenance series

Miguel Pengel — Asset Management in the Mining Industry series

Bryan Christiansen — CMMS and Reliability series

James Reyes-Picknell — Conscious Asset series

Alex Williams — EAM & CMMS series

Nancy Regan — Everday RCM series

Karl Burnett — History of Maintenance Management series

Mike Sondalini — Life Cycle Asset Management series

James Kovacevic — Maintenance and Reliability series

Mike Sondalini — Maintenance Management series

Mike Sondalini — Plant Maintenance series

Andrew Kelleher — Process Plant Reliability Engineering series

George Williams and Joe Anderson — The ReliabilityXperience series

Doug Plucknette — RCM Blitz series

Robert Kalwarowsky — Rob's Reliability Project series

Gina Tabasso — The Intelligent Transformer Blog series

Tor Idhammar — The People Side of Maintenance series

André-Michel Ferrari — The Reliability Mindset series

by Miguel Pengel Leave a Comment

The Effect of Interest/Discount Rates on Asset Replacement Decisions

The Effect of Interest/Discount Rates on Asset Replacement Decisions

Asset management in the mining industry is an intricate dance of financial and operational factors. It demands a firm understanding of complex financial concepts to make strategic decisions effectively, one of which is the discount rate. This number, far from being just an abstract figure, can fundamentally shape a business’s strategic path, particularly concerning asset replacement.

The discount rate is essentially the interest rate used to calculate the present value of future cash flows. The concept comes into play when considering an asset replacement. This decision involves weighing costs and benefits over a time horizon that often spans several years. The discount rate serves as the conduit that translates these future values into present terms, enabling apples-to-apples comparisons. Most of use use this in NPV calculations where we evaluate business improvement initiatives, and compare the viability and return of various projects.

by Mike Sondalini Leave a Comment

How Well should a Maintenance Job be Planned?

How Well should a Maintenance Job be Planned?

How well should a maintenance job be planned ? All maintenance work needs a plan that lets the maintainer do the work correctly, safely, in the least possible time and for the least cost. Selecting the information and details that go into the maintenance job plan is vital to its success. Leave out necessary specifics and facts and you put the job at increased risk of failure, loss and waste. Exactly what details are necessary to allow maintenance work to flow wonderfully well at minimal cost and time are important for a maintenance planner and their managers to know.

by Miguel Pengel Leave a Comment

Jack Knife Diagrams for Reliability Engineering

Jack Knife Diagrams for Reliability Engineering

Jack-Knife Diagrams, also known as Log-Scatter Plots, serve as an invaluable visual tool in the realm of Reliability Engineering for prioritizing areas of downtime that require improvement. While many engineers rely on Pareto Charts, we will explore the shortcomings of this approach and how the Jack-Knife Diagram overcomes them.

Now, let’s delve into the distinction between the two methods.

by Mike Sondalini Leave a Comment

Decoding the ISO 55001 Asset Management Standard – Understanding ISO 55001 Clauses

Decoding the ISO 55001 Asset Management Standard – Understanding ISO 55001 Clauses

Understanding ISO 55001 clauses is vital for building a compliant ISO 55001 Asset Management System. Understanding ISO 55001 clauses is easy with a logical flowchart.

The meaning of the contents in the ISO 55001 asset management standard must be correctly interpreted and properly addressed in your asset management system

To fully understand the implications of an ISO 55001 clause, it is necessary to strip each sentence, phrase, and sub-point down into its logical elements

Learn how to turn the text in an ISO 55001 clause into a logical flowchart that lets you fully appreciate the implications and build the correct application in your asset management system.

by Nancy Regan Leave a Comment

Equipment Experts Couldn’t Believe Response

Equipment Experts Couldn’t Believe Response

Equipment experts are the untapped gold in any organization.

They know where the vulnerabilities lay, and they know what to do about them. Don’t waste this vital resource.

RCM memorializes the expertise and experience of equipment experts.

by George Williams Leave a Comment

Self Ownership Part 4

Self Ownership Part 4

The focus on attention to detail is one of the most critical portions of self-ownership. Everyone can walk by trash, but when the leader does it, it’s sending a message. The focus on attention to detail, especially in contracts, is best illustrated by the famous rock group, Van Halen.

Rock stars are able to put seemingly insane requests into what they need from the venues they perform at, and Van Halen was no different. After all, they’re the reason venues can charge hundreds of dollars per seat, they can choose to be picky.

by Mike Sondalini Leave a Comment

Using Predictive Maintenance in a Plant Wellness Paradigm

Using Predictive Maintenance in a Plant Wellness Paradigm

Traditional Predictive Maintenance strategy results in out of control production from random planned equipment outages. A Plant Wellness strategy reduces the need for condition monitoring because you get ahead of failure and eliminate all root causes so there cannot be failure.

by Mike Sondalini Leave a Comment

Extreme Wear on the Back Plate of Centrifugal Pumps

Extreme Wear on the Back Plate of Centrifugal Pumps

Why is extreme wear occurring on the backing plate behind the impellers of these centrifugal pumps used for irrigation pumping service?

Engineering investigations into the causes of wear, erosion and metal loss on the back-plates behind the impellers of two year old centrifugal pumps pumping water about an irrigation system

by Nancy Regan Leave a Comment

3 Ways to Do RCM

3 Ways to Do RCM

There are two main ingredients for a successful reliability centered maintenance (RCM) analysis:

First-hand knowledge of the asset and its operating environment.
Strong understanding of the RCM process and its associated principles.

by Karl Burnett Leave a Comment

Mid-1700s: A Habit of 3-year Preventive Maintenance

Mid-1700s: A Habit of 3-year Preventive Maintenance

By 1792, six Royal Navy dockyards employed about 1500 workers each. The dockyards had a wider variety of technical specialties than was found in any other manufacturing enterprise. The dockyards “were some of the largest manufactories in Europe and dwarfed almost all private industries.” (Morriss) The dockyards built new ships, but maintaining ships was just as important. The Royal Navy’s dockyards constituted one of the largest industrial maintenance organizations in the world…and their only peer organizations in terms of the scale of maintenance management were the dockyards of other superpower navies.

by Mike Sondalini Leave a Comment

The Role and Responsibilities of the Engineering Manager

The Role and Responsibilities of the Engineering Manager

Advice on the Key Duties and Responsibilities of the Modern Engineering Manager Role

The duties of the engineering manager role usually include capital project management and maintenance management, two vital aspects that must be done exceedingly well in an industrial operation.

by Mike Sondalini Leave a Comment

Business Process Redesign the Plant Wellness Way

Business Process Redesign the Plant Wellness Way

A presentation slide set titled “Simpler Industrial and Business Process Redesign”. Presented by Mike Sondalini to The Institution of Engineers, Malaysia, Electrical Engineering Technical Division.

The presentation opens with examining three universal business problems:

Wasted effort and resources
Wrong business process for the purpose
Wide and out-of-control process variation

He also explores the implication of the quality loss function and then incorporates the concept of maintenance work quality. Then Mike explore specific steps you can implement to improve the fundamental processes within your organization.

by Nancy Regan Leave a Comment

5 Myths About RCM

5 Myths About RCM

Let’s dispel five common myths about reliability centered maintenance, including:

RCM is a maintenance program.
You must choose to do FMEA or RCM.
You must choose to do CBM or RCM.
If you do RCM, you must do it on all your assets.
RCM has serious weaknesses in an industrial environment.

by George Williams Leave a Comment

Self Ownership Part 3

Self Ownership Part 3

Think back to the restaurant mess we talked about a few pages back, who was responsible?

The lesson for grown-ups (and more importantly executives and business leaders) from The Boy Who Cried Wolf is that the boy was at fault when he lied the first time, but the person who was really responsible for the sheep being lost was the shepherd who left his flock with a boy who he knew couldn’t be trusted.

by Mike Sondalini Leave a Comment

The Instantaneous Cost of Failure from Breakdowns

The Instantaneous Cost of Failure from Breakdowns

The Instantaneous Cost and Failure from Breakdowns is Huge. When a failure incident occurs, there is a consequential loss of profits and amassing of costs. The cost of failure includes lost profit, the cost of repair, fixed and variable operating costs wasted during the downtime, and a myriad of consequential costs that surge through the business. They are all paid for by the organisation and seen as poor financial performance. The costs of failure cannot be escaped and are counted in fortunes of lost profit per year. Total defect and failure true costs are not normally recognised by managers, yet they can send businesses bankrupt. In the instance of a failure, all its costs and losses are automatically incurred on the business. These costs can only be prevented by not having the failure in the first place. This article explains the ‘Instantaneous Cost of Failure’ (ICOF) and introduces a proactive technique, ‘Defect and Failure True Costing’, that helps companies recognise and prevent this tremendous waste of money.