Your Reliability Engineering Professional Development Site
A listing in reverse chronological order of these article series:
This article is directed at those ‘first responders’ who arrive immediately at the failure scene. These are the people who have to ensure the area is safe, preserve the scene for investigators and contribute to a plan to expedite a quick, safe return to production norms.
Many do not understand how valuable failed parts are to the metallurgical/forensic investigators. Broken parts are to metallurgists’, like the murder weapon is to a forensic crime investigator.
Lubrication is often overlooked in organizations. Why it is overlooked, I am unsure. Maybe it is because it is considered to be a basic job, given to the apprentice, or it is just too simple to not to do it correctly.
However, with a focus on lubrication, many failure mechanisms can be reduced and the equipment life prolonged. But implementing an effective and world-class lubrication program is not simple. It requires a dedicated focus to implement and sustain. Below is my list of what I look for when evaluating a lubrication program.
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There’s an old saying that, “two heads are better than one”. Teamwork has been proven time and again to produce superior results. It is the basis for many successful methods like RCM-R, PMR/O, RCFA, Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) and various quality improvement programs like Six Sigma. The various methods that help us while Choosing Excellence depend on a foundation of teamwork. Beyond facilitated teamwork, self-organized teams are even more effective.
Can you identify and name this fracture pattern?
How can you tell it is that fracture pattern?
Where are the origin(s) of the failure on the fractured surface?
How can you tell where the origin(s) are?
I can remember the first time I was told to grease a bearing. I ask the millwright “How do I know when there is enough grease?”. He responded, ” When you see it come out of the sides of the bearing”… How many of you had this same experience?
During this brief instruction, there was no mention of selecting the right grease, preventing contamination, etc. So, with this experience in mind, I wanted to provide what I believe are best practices when using a grease gun. Why do I think there needs to be a review of how to grease with a grease gun? I still see manual lubrication performed with no regard for best practices, and lubrication is still a major contributor to equipment failures.
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CMMS systems were developed and became available around 1965. Traditionally, CMMS software was reserved for big companies that needed to automate and organize large, complex maintenance operations. Only the largest manufacturing firms were able to use maintenance software back then, but things have changed dramatically since those days.
Fault tree analysis (FTA) is used to establish a potential chain or path of equipment failures using Boolean logic to generate a graphical relationship of events leading to part or system failure. It is a deductive approach that is useful for different systems or facilities at the product design or operational stages. FTA fosters reliability of systems by: [Read more…]
You can wait for something to break, then fix it, or you can be proactive and manage the failure before it causes you problems. Being proactive is all about managing failures and their consequences before they occur. The failure itself, in some cases, is unavoidable, but how you manage consequences is entirely within your control.
RCA Self-Assessment Tool. (linked version no longer available) The purpose of this tool is to allow individuals or groups to anonymously self-assess their current RCA system. How they wish to use the results is completely up to them!
All results are private and not retained anywhere. Therefore, if you wanted to keep your results, you would have to print them out and scan them back into your work station (or your past results are gone).
Almost all maintenance, reliability or asset management professionals have heard of reliability engineering. But what is reliability engineering? A quick google search will return the following definition “Reliability Engineering is engineering that emphasizes dependability in the lifecycle management of a product. Dependability, or reliability, describes the ability of a system or component to function under stated conditions for a specified period of time.”
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Computerized data gathering and information management systems are indispensable tools for business. Just remember the last power failure you experienced and you’ll understand. Technology continues to develop and become more complex. The array of available business applications is astounding and more are added daily.
This failure occurred on a turbine driven boiler feedwater pump (TDBFP) at a fossil fuel power plant. The pump in question is an outboard boiler feed pump. Plant is operating normally when unexpectedly pump shuts down and causes a forced outage.
What does the word statistics bring to mind when you hear it? Horrible high school classes that you sat through wondering why do I need this stuff? Complex math problems what were almost impossible to figure out? Or is it nonsense that is only used in political polls?
Statistics are used in every aspect of Reliability Engineering. So if you don’t have a good relationship with statistics, I highly recommend that you are starting investing time in building your knowledge in statistics. [Read more…]
Most of us wouldn’t argue that if you can measure it, you can improve it. Performance measures do indeed drive results, both good and bad. Knowing where you are now and what you want to achieve by some point in the future do help you to outline your path towards your objective. Once you know your path, you then need a way to make sure you are still on it. And once you’ve past way-points, you also need to know that what you’ve achieved so far, continues to be sustained.
This is a failed shaft that came out of a pump in a paper mill. The pump was only in service for about a month before it failed unexpectedly.
From the top view above, identify the type of failure pattern that you see from the fractured surface(s). If you need more info to make your assessment, just ask.
