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Home » Articles » on Tools & Techniques » Page 45

on Tools & Techniques

A listing in reverse chronological order of articles by:



  • Dennis Craggs — Big Data Analytics series

  • Perry Parendo — Experimental Design for NPD series

  • Dev Raheja — Innovative Thinking in Reliability and Durability series

  • Oleg Ivanov — Inside and Beyond HALT series

  • Carl Carlson — Inside FMEA series

  • Steven Wachs — Integral Concepts series

  • Shane Turcott — Learning from Failures series

  • Larry George — Progress in Field Reliability? series

  • Gabor Szabo — R for Engineering series

  • Matthew Reid — Reliability Engineering Using Python series

  • Kevin Stewart — Reliability Reflections series

  • Anne Meixner — Testing 1 2 3 series

  • Ray Harkins — The Manufacturing Academy series

by Kevin Stewart 1 Comment

Short Term Reliability Focus Challenge

Short Term Reliability Focus Challenge
I read an interesting article from Heinz P. Bloch entitled “6 Successful Strategies for the Not So New Challenges of Today”, which is available at Reliability Web.  Heinz has been around for many years, and I suspect that his readers have heard him speak or read most of his articles.  In my opinion, his insights have always been spot on and based on time-tested blocking-and-tackling, using simple techniques.  In the article, he started out with the following:

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Articles, on Tools & Techniques, Reliability Reflections

by Kevin Stewart Leave a Comment

What Do You Do with Your Reliability Opportunity?

What Do You Do with Your Reliability Opportunity?

The Opportunity

Here is a diagram I generated when I was in the reliability group at my facility.

It came about because I was trying to identify why we may not be showing the value that was expected from the reliability improvement work we were doing. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Articles, on Tools & Techniques, Reliability Reflections Tagged With: Maintenance program

by Kevin Stewart Leave a Comment

What is the Goal Of a Reliability Initiative?

What is the Goal Of a Reliability Initiative?

Change happens slowly

The goal of a reliability initiative is to save money, not to “install” a system.

If that is not your current goal, then how did it get changed?   Change sometimes happens slowly, so slowly that we don’t notice it.

I’m reminded of a fable about a camel and a Bedouin.  It is cold outside and the [Read more…]

Filed Under: Articles, on Tools & Techniques, Reliability Reflections

by Kevin Stewart Leave a Comment

RCA – Show Me the Money

RCA – Show Me the Money

Reliability initiatives are implemented to improve a company’s bottom line, period.  

Root cause analysis is one of the fastest ways I know to achieve this improvement.  My boss used to say “show me the money” because he realized that upper management was driven by ROI (Return on Investment) or ROC (Return on Capital). 

You can argue all you want on whether that is good or bad, but it is the way things are. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Articles, on Tools & Techniques, Reliability Reflections

by Kevin Stewart Leave a Comment

Don’t Stop Your RCA Investigation Too Soon

Don’t Stop Your RCA Investigation Too Soon

The problem

Recently there was a power outage, that caused approximately 2,000 homes to lose power during a very cold day.  The paper headline read, “All-day outage caused by worn wiring”.

This seems like a reasonable comment and probably like many other newspaper headlines also seems to go a long way to explain what caused the 2,000 homes and business to lose power for 5 ½ hours, and the 300 that lost power for a total of 11 ½ hours. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Articles, on Tools & Techniques, Reliability Reflections Tagged With: Root Cause Analysis (RCA)

by Kevin Stewart Leave a Comment

RCA is the Bedrock of a Reliability Program

RCA is the Bedrock of a Reliability Program

Basic Reliability Definition

Occasionally, I like to step back and reflect on reliability in basic terms.

In that spirit, the basic premise of reliability is usually stated as “The probability that an item will perform a required function, without failure, under stated conditions, for a stated period of time.”

To use the reliability equation, the definition of failure must be defined, so you can tell if your equipment has indeed failed.  This way you can include it in the MTBF (Mean Time Between Failure) calculation.

After you have defined a failure and recorded them appropriately, you can plug the numbers into the reliability equation, R = e ^-(λ*t)  where λ is the failure rate which is defined as λ= 1/MTBF and come up with an objective value for the reliability. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Articles, on Tools & Techniques, Reliability Reflections Tagged With: Root Cause Analysis (RCA)

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