Articles

Find all articles across all article series listed in reverse chronological order.

Analyzing the Experiment (Part I) – Main & Interaction Effects

We are ready to learn how to analyze the data collected during the experiment. This is the most exciting part of DOE! We will cover the analysis in this article as well as the next several articles.

The following are the main steps to perform during the analysis:

Calculate the Main Effects and Interaction Effects
Test the Effects for Statistical Significance
Interpret the Significant Effects (Often with Plots)
Develop Predictive Model(s)
Perform Model Validation (Residual Analysis)
Find Solutions and Perform Optimization to find Best Solution(s)
Validate the Solutions
Determine if Follow-up Experimentation is Necessary

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by Carl S. Carlson Leave a Comment

Facilitating FMEAs

“Team leadership is the secret that makes common people achieve uncommon results.” – Ifeanyi Onuoha

One of the key factors for successful application of FMEAs is skillful facilitation of FMEA teams. The skills needed for excellent facilitation are different from the skills needed to be a good FMEA team member. [Read more…]

by Christopher Jackson Leave a Comment

When people do right – does the right thing happen?

Organizations are all about ‘success.’ Being ‘successful.’ Which can many different things to many different people. ‘Success’ is not simply the ‘antithesis of failure.’ One could argue that ‘mediocrity’ in many cases is accepted as the antithesis of ‘failure.’ ‘Mediocrity’ is hardly the same as ‘success.’

Organizational success means that a lot of different people need to be doing lots of very different, but very important things. And this often means things that can go unnoticed. The ‘one percenters.’ Getting things done right the first time.

Name That Failure Pattern (1)…

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.

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by James Reyes-Picknell Leave a Comment

Uptime Insights – 5 – Materials Management for Maintenance

Materials management for maintenance purposes is often a big mess. When I visit operations (doesn’t matter what industry) I often hear complaints from maintainers that they cannot get the parts they need, when they need them. Sometimes, their supply chain (warehouse, inventory, and purchasing management) are indeed a mess, but more often than not maintenance planning is also a mess, and there is usually (almost always) a lack of integration between planning and supply chain.

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by Greg Hutchins Leave a Comment

Quality’s Journey to Create ‘Sustained Success’

Guest Post by Robert Pojasek (first posted on CERM ® RISK INSIGHTS – reposted here with permission)

The initial journey to create “sustained success” got off to a difficult start in 1987 when the intent was for quality managers to implement ISO 9004 followed by ISO 9001 for certification purposes. ISO 9004 was viewed as being associated with TQM. The extra work that was needed to fulfill TQM led organizations to use ISO 9001:1987 alone to certify their processes.

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by Ray Harkins Leave a Comment

Right to Repair

“Everything’s computerized now. The backyard mechanic is a thing of the past!”, I recall my father declaring more than 20 years ago while leaning over the open hood of my mother’s Ford Windstar. He was referring to the relative simplicity of repairing the largely mechanical systems in automobiles from the 1950’s and 60’s versus those of the early 2000’s that were equipped with digital sensors and a central processor. Of course, today’s plug-in EV’s, advanced driver assist systems, 360-degree cameras, and “guardians” like General Motors’ OnStar make my mom’s old minivan look like an Anglia in comparison.

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by Steven Wachs Leave a Comment

How can an OC Curve be Used to Manage the Risk of Undetected Special Causes?

When applied properly, SPC provides manufacturers a proven method to increase profitability and achieve a deeper understanding of their processes.. Additionally, SPC can prevent problems—saving companies money that would have been lost in scrap, rework, warranty, litigation, and market share decline. A key factor in obtaining these SPC benefits is the proper deployment of control charts. Correctly designed control charts identify significant changes to a process. These can be changes that are still within specification, but are statistically different than where the process was previously running. By identifying the changes, personnel can determine what caused the change and potentially improve the process or prevent the production of inferior products. [Read more…]

by George Williams Leave a Comment

How to Create Reorder Point analysis in Excel

We will create a reorder point analysis file from scratch with simple CMMS data as our starting point. Learn how to create a file which will update automatically each time CMMS data is updated.

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by Larry George Leave a Comment

User Manual for Credible Reliability Prediction

The ASQ Reliability Division (RD), copyrighted the 2003 monograph “Credible Reliability Prediction” (CRP) but lost all copies circa 2014. I pestered the RD to let me republish CRP, because people asked “How do I make credible reliability predictions?” Copyright reversion to authors is accepted practice when a publisher no longer supports a document.

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by Doug Lehr Leave a Comment

Factors of Safety and Load Factors

The new deepwater expansion joint design meets company requirements for factors of safety but cannot comply with ASME Section VIII load factors. How does the OEM engineering manager proceed?

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by Christopher Jackson Leave a Comment

Reliability happens when you become impatient and selfish

I often start teaching my reliability engineering courses … by focusing on other reliability engineering courses. Why? Because they exemplify what is wrong with how most ‘reliability experts’ go about convincing others to take reliability seriously.

A typical reliability engineering course will start with images of disaster. A Chernobyl here. A Fukushima there. A crashed airplane. The Tacoma Narrows Bridge. Lots of other atrocities that happen when we don’t do reliability engineering properly.

Anatomy of a ‘Failure’

Where does ‘failure’ come from? Why do some things not go as we planned? When bad things happen, at that time, it can be chaotic and appear very complex. Often, in hindsight (when the urgency has faded), we find that good people made bad decisions at that time. Most of the time such failures were not complicated and we find that most likely, anyone else put in the same position, would have made the same decision. So why do things not always go as planned?

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by James Kovacevic Leave a Comment

The 7 Steps to Proper Machinery Alignment

How to Ensure Your Assets are Installed to Prevent Premature Failure

How many times has an asset been installed or commissioned, only to have it fail in a few days or months when it should have lasted even longer? If you look at the study by Nowlan & Heap, they have found that only 11% of failures are age related, so when is happening with these assets? The answer… comes down to poor installation practices.
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by Alex Williams Leave a Comment

Invest in Food Manufacturing CMMS

From demonstrating compliance and ensuring safety to maintaining assets and increasing productivity, food manufacturing maintenance managers have their work cut out for them. Thankfully, computerized maintenance management software (CMMS) can streamline processes and improve maintenance operations for the food manufacturing industry. Read on to learn how food manufacturing CMMS software can significantly benefit your organization.

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