Your Reliability Engineering Professional Development Site
A listing in reverse chronological order of these article series:
Some organizations are poor or marginal performers, some high, and some truly great. Jim Collins, in “Good to Great” (2001) describes the differences among the latter two. Much of the difference boils down to people and the culture that is fostered within the organization. They foster learning in all forms, including learning from mistakes. They are typically “humble” and accept helpful input from outside, admitting when and where they need to improve. [Read more…]
There are three important things we can learn about Inherent Reliability…from a cotton field! Watch as I explain what Inherent Reliability is. And, I discuss two important points any responsible custodian needs to know to achieve the Reliability that’s required from an asset. [Read more…]
The Reliability Approach… “Something understood and practiced by engineers and highly specialized technicians,” is apt to be the first reaction of the line supervisor, “certainly not an area where I can be expected to become involved.” Although this reaction is understandable; nothing is farther from reality. Let’s explore why in this paper. Please read until the surprising end (I know it is lengthy) and you will find that these Reliability Principles apply to any industry, any where at any time! [Read more…]
Maintenance Planning & Scheduling is one of the most important processes in the maintenance function. Without it, work will not be completed on time, nor will it be efficient. So why, is the maintenance planning & scheduling process often ignored, or not implemented successfully? [Read more…]
If you want to achieve your Maintenance and Reliability goals, here’s where to begin. But…don’t fall into the same trap I did…! [Read more…]
The Greatest Benefit of RCA is Generally an Unknown…Intellectual Capital
Because business is measured based on credits and debits, this is how we must express effectiveness of initiatives in reality. However, the physical costs are NOT the greatest benefit derived from RCA when done properly. [Read more…]
In May 2018, we sponsored a summit that brought electric power reliability leaders from all over the country to Houston to discuss the gap in reliability. I’ve had a few weeks now to reflect on the event, and I want to share those thoughts with you.
If SDMyers was the mother of the Electric Power Reliability Summit (EPRS), then I feel like I was the midwife. [Read more…]
In my book, Uptime, I talk about doing a review or assessment to determine your current state as compared with your vision of some desired future state. This suggests to many that a formal assessment is needed. However, you might also notice that I removed the Appendix containing sample assessment questions. Here’s why… [Read more…]
I’m all about realizing the Inherent Reliability of my teeth and I use Condition Based Maintenance (CBM) to do it! Join me for a trip to my dentist’s office where Josie, my dental hygienist, details the Potential Failure Conditions she’s looking for. [Read more…]
Understanding now what perspective the executives have of an RCA initiative, how should RCA efforts be designed to report their results to the “C” level? Many would like to say “to express the results in a manner that demonstrates an increase in patient safety”. In a perfect world that would be nice, but what single metric expresses an increase in patient safety? Is there a line item on the Income Statement (IS) or Balance Sheet (BS) labeled “patient safety”? Not likely. [Read more…]
Reliability Centered Maintenance is an analytical process used in decision making about how best to manage equipment and system failures, and their consequences. Much of its output comprises maintenance tasks with assigned task frequencies. Those tasks will ultimately be managed in your Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS) or Enterprise Asset Management Systems (EAM). You don’t need software to perform RCM analysis, but it is helpful. Given the link between RCM output tasks and the proactive maintenance program you will manage using your CMMS / EAM, it seems to make sense to link or integrate the two software tools. Integration should enable automatic updates of the PM program stored in your CMMS/EAM whenever the RCM analysis is updated and possibly feed failure event historical data back to your RCM analysis with a notification that perhaps the analysis should be reviewed. Alas, that’s not going to happen. [Read more…]
Let’s celebrate the birthday of a very special Maintenance and Reliability event. In July 2018, the MSG-1 document turned 50 years old. Since many of the principles found in MSG-1 are embodied in RCM, that means RCM principles are also 50 years old! Take a trip down memory lane with me and MSG-1…the first of two documents that led us to Reliability Centered Maintenance! [Read more…]
If 100 healthcare executives were polled about their definitions of “root cause analysis”, there would be 100 different answers. Here in is the problem, understanding the intent and power of Root Cause Analysis (RCA). For this reason, RCA is viewed as having either limited or phenomenal value to an organization. This article will seek to strip away the labels associated with RCA brands and focus on the processes, their results and how they are communicated (or miscommunicated) to executive management. Effective RCA efforts can fail because of their inability to demonstrate their value to the bottom-line of the organization. [Read more…]
by Alan Ross
I went to Washington recently to represent the SMRP Government Relations Smart Grid Committee, of which I am now the chair. I was there with other folks from SMRP to talk about the smart grid, and we ended up talking a lot about safety. The Society for Maintenance and Reliability Professionals—the fastest growing reliability organization in the world—is about to become an OSHA Alliance organization. That’s a big deal, because there are only a few organizations in the alliance and you have to jump through a lot of hoops to get in. SMRP has done that. [Read more…]
