Your Reliability Engineering Professional Development Site
A listing in reverse chronological order of these article series:
Asset Management in Public and Private Sectors have some similarities and some contrasts. Most of our clients are in the private sector but occasionally we do some public sector work so we see both sides. Often, we notice distinct differences in practices and in what motivates those practices. Both have strengths and weaknesses. Both can learn a lot from each other. [Read more…]
“There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things, because the innovator has for enemies, all of those who have done well under the old conditions, and luke-warm defenders in those who will do well under the new.”
– Niccole Machiavelli
This quote is appropriate when we seek a paradigm shift towards a proactive culture, after spending our careers trained to become the best ‘react-ors’ or responders, we can be. I encourage you to read this lengthy article to the end for a surprise and to ask you a couple of questions about your experience with reliability. [Read more…]
You begin your day by looking for a part in the storeroom. You are looking for a common bearing used on multiple pieces of equipment on the site. You look up the part in the CMMS and it does not have a bin number associated with it. You walk into the storeroom and beginning going through the “bearing section”. Only the bearing is not there. You wander over the equipment section and find it buried in the equipment specific drawer, but you know that it is used elsewhere. Is this the best way to organize materials, by equipment? [Read more…]
These days most of us are used to instant gratification – we want it now and we want it cheap! When it comes to information, entertainment, finding your way around, and communications we more or less have it all at our fingertips. It’s also available to us just about anywhere. We can even order and pay for coffee to pick up on our way from the commuter train to the office – no line ups for delays. We can book houses, rooms, hotels, airlines, vacations, and rental cars at the touch of our fingers with apps that show us the cheapest options. [Read more…]
According to the American Society of Quality (ASQ), a root cause is defined as “A factor that caused a nonconformance and should be permanently eliminated through process improvement. The root cause is the core issue—the highest-level cause—that sets in motion the entire cause-and-effect reaction that ultimately leads to the problem(s).”
As most of you already know, Root Cause Analysis (RCA) is a systematic process for identifying the origins, or root cause, of problems and determining an approach to minimize or eliminate their risk of recurrence. It focuses on preventing problems at the source rather than resorting to a firefighting approach and being reactive every time. RCA tries to be more scientific about asset failures, going one step beyond troubleshooting. [Read more…]
No matter where we work, we will experience failures or ‘undesirable outcomes’ of some kind. As long as we work with other humans, this will indeed be the case. These failures may surface in the form of production delays, injuries, customer complaints, missed deadlines, lost profits, legal claims and the like. [Read more…]
How often does your facility run out of raw materials? Chances are it is not very often, if ever. Why is this? It may be because the organization has invested heavily in gathering the right data, analyzing and developing contracts for the materials. This prior work ensures a steady supply of materials.
So why is it that within the same organization there is virtually no data to support the spare parts? Not having a spare part can dramatically impact an organization in the same way as not having raw materials. The result is no production. [Read more…]
It’s easy to become overwhelmed with the vast amount of terminology used to describe maintenance concepts. Even those who are familiar with various maintenance management terms know there is a lack of consistency among sources. This guide to maintenance management terminology serves to help teams better understand the differences between key phrases used in the industry. Browse through our maintenance glossary below. [Read more…]
Are we on the right track with the right train? Your job is to improve reliability and you have a plan. It focuses on bad-actors, having the right data, cleaning up some parts data that is known to be causing delays in work execution, a bit of training in reliability methods, and your adding engineers. You are certainly on the right track with your plan and the actions you will take should indeed make some improvement. But are you on the right track? [Read more…]
In an era of rapidly advancing technology, the need for training to keep up is imperative. But training alone is not the panacea to a facility’s problems. Management’s must be aware that the environment in which their people work, will either progress or obstruct any training that is provided to them. We will refer to our need to address the human element, as the “soft side” of technology. It is estimated that over $60B U.S. is spent on industrial training a year and that only 20% of that training investment is ever applied. Are we getting our money’s worth from our training investment? If not, here are some things to consider when training our personnel and using their valuable time from the field. [Read more…]
The original edition of Uptime had “process re-engineering” as a 4th level at its pinnacle. It reflected what was then widely regarded as an approach to obtain beneficial change quickly. But, since the 1990’s that approach, was abused and used as a smoke-screen for downsizing or right-sizing as many would prefer to call it. That was never intended by the originators of “Business Process Re-engineering”, but it is what happened. It was lopped off the top of the pyramid in the 2nd edition – process re-design belongs as a result of strategy, not as a panacea for poorly designed and executed process. Processes should be revisited BEFORE implementation of IT / IM and occasionally it should all be reviewed as part of good governance, just like audits. The fundamental processes of good maintenance management practice are already described in this book’s chapters – how they appear on flow charts or value stream maps is up to each user. The third tier in Uptime (1st edition) was about Continuous Improvement, but it contained methods that were both more fundamental in their importance and more sophisticated than the tweaking that “continuous improvement” implies. [Read more…]
Manufacturer recommended maintenance tasks may be technically right for the machine. But watch to discover why not all maintenance tasks are one-size-fits all. [Read more…]
I guess I am writing this just as a reality/sanity check to see if it’s just me, or do my peers in the Reliability profession have the same problems I do, communicating with non-Reliability professionals?
If anyone has been in the Reliability game for a long period of time (I am in my 32nd year), we know that Reliability is a way of life and not just a job. So our proactive thinking, involuntarily bleeds over into our personal lives. [Read more…]
If you have invested the time to layout the storeroom correctly, and gather the right data, you are on the right track to a successful storeroom. However, if you don’t take the time to map the various processes in the storeroom, and hold staff to those processes, the work is done so far will be a waste.
When processes are mapped and responsibilities defined, the staff know who does what when. This eliminates unnecessary communication and work, enabling more time to do what is required. In addition, when all activities are repeated in a consistent way, it allows organizations to evaluate the process and determine better ways of working. [Read more…]
